Why not a white paper for time-bound end to reservation

As the country is in midst of Lok Sabha elections, the issue of reservations, who is protector who is destroyer, who should get reservations, who will scrap constitution and who can protect it and Parivarvad politics are some of the major issues on which all leaders are laying emphasis.

Well when the founders of Indian Constitution including Nehru and Dr Ambedkar, (not Mahatma Gandhi) as Rahul Gandhi claims, had debated on the issue of reservations at length, it was felt that the weaker sections including the scheduled castes and tribes in our country should get reservations as a gesture of atonement for the evil done to those who were deprived of education and social equality.

The Constituent assembly perhaps visualised the dangers of political parties using this more for vote bank politics and hence had said that the reservations should be for a period of 10 years but now India is in ‘Amrit Kal’ and still the political parties are fighting with each other as to who is the saviour and who is the destroyer. There should have been a detailed evaluation of the reforms and the benefits that were accrued from it to the targeted sections of the society. But nothing of that sort had happened.

Every party has five years of tenure in Lok Sabha. Why is it that none of them ever bothered to ask for a progress report on the reservations? Why is it that the opposition instead of using the floor of the Parliament for such meaningful discussions and debates and putting the government in dock, converts Parliament into a battle ground on trivial issues and wake up only during elections? It is because our Neta’s had discovered the power of using caste groups as vote banks. Not much of change at the ground level can be expected even by 2047 if their attitude does not change.

The BJP which is likely to hit a hat trick should take a bold step and should come up with a white paper on the benefits accrued to these weaker sections since the reservations came into effect and present a road map as to how and by when India can become a country where there would be no need for reservations just as it predicts that India would become 10 trillion economy by 2030.

This will help in presenting a clear social security scenario in the country before the people and would help any government whether at centre or states to come up with practical schemes rather than treat them as vote banks and try to lure them on the eve of elections.

What is clearly evident is there is one section of Indians who had derived maximum benefit from reservations in last 75 years and they are politicians. They have perfected the art of creating vote banks based on caste, creed and tribe and promising them the moon and the stars when elections come around and divide them for the sake of power politics. This needs to end. Instead of Mandir or muslims, the governments whether state or centre should focus on controlling price rise, employment generation, education and health sector.

Reforms in education sector will never come and education cannot be made affordable to the common man as long as the politicians continue to run educational institutions. There is also need for a clear policy without options being given to the state governments regarding imparting education in regional language till at least high school level.

Will Modi 3.0 government work in this direction is something that needs to be watched.