When will reservations stop?

How long will the policy of reservations be continued? As long as the upper caste elite in the bureacracy in particular and the country in general ...and the rats eating away the 'steel framework' of the Indian state want it to.. Read what Sharad Yadav, President of the Janata Dal (United) has to say here about the implementation of the reservations policy by the UPSC.. An excerpt:

"Under the reservation policy, 49.50 per cent of the seats is reserved. The remaining 50.50 per cent is open to all. Candidates who qualify for the civil services by dint of their merit alone should be enlisted in general open categories. After all, there is no bar on SC and ST candidates fighting elections for general seats. Many leaders, including Kansi Ram and B.P. Maurya, have fought and won from general seats. General seats do not mean seats reserved for people belonging to non-reserved categories. Similarly, general open seats in the civil services are not reserved for people belonging to non-reserved categories. The Government of India has not reserved hundred per cent of the seats of the civil services. In fact, it cannot do so. There is a 50 per cent ceiling placed on reservation by the Supreme Court. But in effect, the UPSC and the DOPT are implementing reservation policy to ensure 50.50 per cent reservation for the unreserved categories that are supposed to form just 15 per cent of the Indian population.

For the last civil services examination, around 214 of 425 seats were general open merit seats. Out of the first 214 candidates, 50 were from reserved categories. Forty of them were from OBCs. But the UPSC refused to allow reserved category candidates to enlist themselves as general candidates. Twenty seven per cent of 425 is 117: this is the exact number of candidates belonging to OBCs who were declared successful. Even those in the top 10 were classified as reserved category candidates! By doing this, the UPSC has denigrated meritorious candidates from the reserved categories. It has also denied jobs in the civil services to an equal number of reserved category candidates. In fact, 157 candidates from OBC categories should have been selected: 40 on the basis of merit and 117 on the basis of the 27 per cent reservation extended to them. "

I find the term 'bizarre', that Sharad Yadav himself uses, an accurate description of the attitude that seems to inform the UPSC. 'It has transformed' as he says, 'the policy of reservations into a policy of communal awards'. And Mr.Yadav also cites several rulings of the highest court in the land to point out how this attitude clearly violates the essence of those rulings.

Mr.Yadav concludes : " The interesting question arises: who is perpetuating reservation? If people from the SCs, STs, and OBCs get representation according to their population, the scheme of reservation will come to an end. But who is depriving the meritorious from getting jobs as general category candidates? "

I thank the excellent blogger mineguruji, whose blog is a veritable repository of some of the most interesting news and the best writing on reservations related issues, for posting Mr.Yadav's article in full.