While on one hand the NC-led government has been claiming to deal with the unjust reservation policy in the UT of J&K, on the other hand, the same government has defended the Reservation Policy in the High Court saying, it was the duty of the State “to give equal opportunities to all the sections of the social order and take the downtrodden out of their disadvantageous and unfavourable position”. The government filed its objections to the petitions filed in the High Court of J&K and Ladakh wherein the petitioners contend that due to the amendments in the Reservation Rules of 2005 by Lieutenant Governor-led administration, there is a phenomenal decrease in the percentage in government jobs and seats in educational institutions for the open merit candidates — from 57 percent to just 33 percent. The petitioners had contended that in the post-2019 scenario, the amendments effected in the Reservation Policy granted major share to different “bad pocket categories” and virtually left crumbs for the majority, the general category population candidates in the admissions in professional courses and appointments in the government service. While calling the pleas that challenged the post-2019 amendments as an attempt to “abuse the judicial process motivated by ill-will, ulterior and oblique motives”, the J&K government’s Social Welfare Department in the affidavit filed on Friday stressed an “equitable distribution of the resources so as to ensure prevailing of justice in its true sense, as destined upon, in the Constitution.” Interestingly the same government has formed a cabinet sub committee to look into the issue and has promised that the committee would submit its report within six months.
From day-one the system of reservations has proved a big nuisance even though the measure was well-intentioned when it was conceived. In order to equip unprivileged classes for improvement in their lot, reservation, if anything, serves as a short-cut method. It may no doubt yield some results in terms of speedy development, self-sufficiency and self-reliance of underprivileged classes, but at the same, it also undercuts the chances of normal growth of those who do not belong to any of the “privileged categories”. In fact the experience also shows that only a small fraction of unprivileged people have benefited over the years while a huge lot continues to rot in the mess they were in 1947. Most often the people who got benefited from being a subject of a special class, category or area leave their place of birth, even their class and community, thus defeating the purpose of the reservation completely and making enough strong the cause of those who have time and again been voicing concerns against this discrimination in a society that does not have big enough differences among its subjects.
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Nobody is against the progress and development of any particular class or community of people. But doing so at the back of reservations is not fair, at least not to those who do not have the privilege of falling under any reserved category in terms of ethnicity, social standing or geography. Indeed this system is sowing the seeds of a much bigger social strife and discomfort – which clearly outweighs any and all the benefits of this practice. Even as doing away with the system of reservations may not be an easy decision for any government, but then something needs to be done for sure, because the status quo is hurting a huge chunk of people by confusing their basic needs, which is a sure recipe for disaster.
As the Omar-Abdullah led government had promised to look into the matter, people had high hopes that justice will prevail. However, seeing government’s response in the HC, has left the same people perplexed. The current policy is threatening the very existence of the educated youth falling in the Open Merit category and has created an imbalance. The government, instead of playing hide-m-seek, should come forward openly and tell people whether it is going to deal with the issue in a just manner or not.
