Our Supreme Court has recently very rightly flagged the continuation of Reservations. Amidst globalization in this very aggressive and competitive age for our India to stride ahead, it is time to do away with the skewed policy of reservations for jobs and in electoral politics as well. Admissions to all professional colleges have to be also strictly on merit.
The Constitution of India provides for the Fundamental Right to Equality, without discrimination on the grounds of sex, caste, creed or religion. The very concept of reservations is all about vote bank politics. It is appalling at how plagued we have become by a sheer sense of illogicality. The government can very generously give financial help to the economically backward in pursuit of further education so that they compete with the mainstream.
On one hand the law provides for equality and on the other hand there is a policy of reservation, which by its very genesis is a favour and a contradiction in terms. People should be judged on their abilities, their work and results, not on superficial qualities. An ideal society should be governed by meritocracy which many citizens dream of. It is very important in all fields of human endeavor, especially in employment, education and governance.
Equality doesn’t brook favours. After 75 years of Independence. It is high time that the golden rule now has to be to aim to get the best qualified person for every position irrespective of sex, caste, creed or religion. Failure to treat people on merit will lead to a brain drain as the most talented, industrious and entrepreneurial people who want to work hard and reap the rewards of their labour will feel marginalized and move to greener pastures.
May those great words of Rabindranath Tagore guide us: “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action -Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”
