The mentioning of equal opportunities in employment and the reservations in the chapter of fundamental rights in the constitution of India created lot of confusions in judiciary, legislature and even for the executive wing. But still the opportunistic politics avoided the detailed discussion on the wish of the constitution regarding the reservations and the equal opportunities in education and employment.
Many believe that our constitution makers thought the reservations in negative sense. As there were lot of discriminations based on casts one born, they believed that it would be justified to extend the same for a period, not more than 10 years. Sardar Patel one of the chief architects of the Indian constitution said that "that the object of the House should be, as soon as possible and as rapidly as possible to drop these classifications and bring all to a level of equality"
The Indian constitution grants its citizens certain fundamental rights which are guaranteed by the constitution. Unlike any other legal rights, these fundamental rights are protected and enforced by the constitution. The fundamental rights can not be denied even by the government except in some special cases.
The constitution speaks of equal opportunities in employment and education to all the citizen of India without the discriminations on any ground. The related articles of the constitution read as follow which are self explanatory:
Article 16(1): There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the state
Article 16(2) No citizen shall on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, resident or any of them be ineligible for or discriminated against in any respect of any employment or office under the State.
Article 15(1): "The state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, or any of them"
Article 29[2]: No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of the State funds on ground only of religion, race, caste, language, or any of them.
In all these articles, the makers of our constitution speak about the equal opportunities and eradicating the discrimination on various grounds. The equal opportunities can be brought by increasing the competitiveness of the underprivileged citizens. Reservations in jobs will not create equal opportunities according to many scholars. Reservations are meant for the outcomes in employment opportunities, and not for the opportunities. Equal opportunities can be provided only through quality primary and secondary education which may also include special coaching and adequate assistance for any inadequately represented population groups.
There is a post reserved for some ‘community’ where there no candidate from that community applied. These seats were kept as backlogs though there the availability of suitable candidate is present from some other community. Don’t you think the employment opportunity is denied just because the second person is not from that reserved community? Isn’t it discrimination on the grounds of whatever mentioned in the constitution?
The wish of the constitution in bringing about the reservation has a wide meaning. In India we have seen a lot of discriminations on various grounds. There was lot of evil practices in our society. That too, we Indians have treated some people from particular communities as untouchable and saw as non human beings. There was a great inequality in our society. To support such people and give some opportunities for them and to bring them to the front row, the constitution wished for reservation. It also tells the reservation will not be against the fundamental rights mentioned above. The article about the reservations is as follow:
Article 16(4) "Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of posts in favour of any backward class of citizens, which in the opinion of state is not adequately represented in the services under the state"
The reservations in present scenario are not able to fulfill the wish of the constitution. A candidate from a reserved class becomes an MLA from a reserved assembly seat. Once he becomes an MLA his status got rises and enjoys every benefit an MLA from other forward communities enjoys. His cast does not matter for making money or bar him from using powers!! But his cast tag will continue with him. He expires and his son who have enjoyed every benefit that a non backward citizen enjoys, has enough money dominates the backward people of his own community and makes lobby, gets elected and enjoys all the benefits that has to be given to backward people though he is not backward now only for the reason he had born in that class. The other people of his own community will stay in the same situation even after 50 years from now making our politicians to think the same kind of reservation to be continued.
Now our judiciary has to interpret the constitution regarding the opportunities, backward class of people and reservations as it did interpret some of the fundamental rights in 1970s .
1 comment:
I believe there is a basic flaw in the line of thinking. If we take 100 young children each from a backward and forward class it can be seen that the average quality of the children in terms of ability, talent etc will be more or less same. To elaborate, of if 5% of children from one group have an IQ of say 125 then more or less 5% of the other group also will have children of similar ability.
It is in this context that we have to think of equal opportunity. Those 5% from each community must have equal opportunity. What do we do for that. That is where reservation comes in.
I have family members, average students who not study in premier institutions because they were able to study fro 2 years in coaching centers. This will not happen to a student with similar ability in from the other section.
We should trust our founding fathers. They were people of great vision. It is sometimes difficult to understand because we simply are not good enough to understand.
But some people are misusing it. I agree. But thats what we have been doing for centuries. Misusing our power and we made them backward in all aspects. Now we have to accept some anomalies and try to improve the delivery system.
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