Equality, Opportunity and Independent India: How the Poor are Left Behind

Sixty-five years of reservation system is leaving the poor behind

Sixty-five years of reservation system implemented in the name of bringing equality and opportunity in independent India, has turned reservation system into a privilege system. Misuse of the system is rampant. Many non-lower caste people abuse the system by moving from their home towns and registering and obtaining a lower-caste certificates. It is particularly easy where birth registration is not very common. The local governments don't register births or issue birth certificates. This came to the frontlines, when Rohit Vemula committed suicide in the University of Hyderabad. Rohit belonged to Vaddera caste (a OBC category of caste), but was registered as a scheduled caste (SC category) student, which may have given him access to scholarships and other help for a number of years, which may have been allotted to a truly deserving SC student, but wrongfully claimed by him. Such misuse is not uncommon, which denies the true beneficiaries their share and left them behind. For every misused case like this, there is always a poor well-deserving family that is deprived of its benefits.  

Rohit Vemula's case is only one example. The swelling numbers of lower caste demographics with each census is an evidence of this disturbing trend. How can the government evaluate if one is making a false claim or not when it does not  maintain a birth registry of its citizens. In Rohit Vemula's case unfortunately his true caste came out due to his suicide, but in many other such cases, the true caste of the person never emerges. 

Such misuse is doubly dangerous. First level of danger is that it leaves the truly deserving person behind. Second level of danger is that it leaves his community behind, because, an SC person's   lost  opportunity left the SC community behind, since the community never had the chance to send one of their own to the university and learn how higher education can benefit their community. 

Unless caste-based reservations are paired with economic  status (limiting it to the poorest sections), while restricting it to the first time college- students, such misuse will continue to exist, and the poor will never have an opportunity to benefit from it.