Educational empowerment of socially-Administratively ‘Depressed Citizens’ can only reduce their exploitation

Reservation enshrined in COI have surely less benefitted those who were kept in Focus in 1950
Are only the Governments responsible? Are not community leaders too responsible?

DAYA SAGAR

After the 1st August 2024 judgment ( permitting sub classification in Schedule Caste category for the purposes of reservations ) a 7 judge constitution bench of Supreme Court of India different people ( mostly politicians) have made many statements. Less has been said by the people out of political streams. Need is more for non political people to apply mind in this direction so that no one is able to stretch the issues concerning reservations less to benefit the communities and objectives that our elders had kept in view while drafting the constitution of India.
It cannot be denied that the political leadership ( some even from amongst the targeted beneficiary from the EC/ST) in India that has been in power or out of power has been reacting to/ raising reservation issues more for vote bank politics and very less for improving the intellectual/ educational and physical health of youth of their class/ caste/ tribe people who have remained/ or are materially/socially/administratively/politically placed distantly. Provisions could be created for special support to socially & backward individuals ( financial backwardness/ low income jobs over the generations could be named for resulting into educational and social backwardness) but to enable them take the advantage of reservations in educational institutions / professional institutions and superior services they have to be adequately equipped with secondary education as well as minimum timely health cover which can be provided only by the public institutions since due to poor economic level a large majority of the socially and educationally backward citizens in India would not be able buy even minimal education / health to compete with even some from their class for laying hands om competitive education or conduct their traditional skill with more efficiency. This has been the case in India where the forefathers had targeted to undo most of social and educational backwardness in 10 years ( Art 334 of COI) but constitution has been amended about 7 times to increase the same to 80 years. Even many from the unreserved classes these days are falling back from entering professional colleges and government services mostly due to lack of financial resources since the faith of people have fallen in the government schools ( most important is basic education upto senior secondary school and after that in higher education one can conduct with not much difficulty) and those with money taken to extra coaching during school days as well aa after schooling .The culture of coaching institutions has grown fast and some estimates see the business of coaching institutions for professional institution entrance / services entrance to swell to the tune of over Rs 1 crore by 2030. In very simple words the reason for even many reserved posts in government remaining unfilled / there being very few officers in superior services from a very very large number of families among the SC/ SC. One would see that the merit difference in UPSC/PSC examinations is not very much amongst the GC and SC category candidates which is due to the fact that from the reserved category families some can afford private schooling / special coachings.

The Supreme Court opinion should be taken in truthful sense in view of some observations made here since the judgment calls the governments/ states to make any changes after very intimate / logical studies / analysis/ justifications and not just on some personal whims/ political considerations. Very regretful it is being said here that the political leaderships/ social associates have all these years more worked for continuing reservations and very less for strengthening the educational / trade quality levels & standards of the distantly placed members of their classes/ castes to take the advantage of reservation provisions / special financial supports kept for them..Chandar Shekhar Azad President Azad Samaj Party ( Kanshiram) too has made some statements after the Apex court Judgment where in one of the prime/ reasons for fall back in the provision of reservations reaching the larger mass of the SC/ST target beneficiaries has been seen by him in poor quality education and health cover available from public sector institutions to have not reached the ‘have not ‘ members of SC/ST who are form a large majority and has requested the Governments to provide the communities competitive education/ health cover to enable them compete even with the ‘few’ betters amongst them to enable more people share the benefits and provide more suitable applicants for superior position in Government services and professional institutions. He has asked government to make all the public servants ( including all officers / government employees/MLA/MP/ Judges / and like to send their wards to only government schools / government hospitals that way quality of school education would improve. Suggestion from the 1st time MP in 18th Lok Sabha has merit. He should have started the work on these lines earlier when he was President of Bhim Army, any how it is appreciable even now. Presently due to poor health the socially and educationally backward people who are economically also weak would be having more time to increase their earning / for studies in case government schools where teachers are paid comparatively much higher salary ( See Table – A drawn in Jan 2024 ) are made to deliver since that would reasonably reduce the financial burden on the masses.
Even after 75 years of independence a very big segment of the Indian people is living under crushing economic backwardness which well reflects from the official disclosures that India have about 81 Cr ( 81,00,000,00) Indian citizens who still need to be provided / are being provided / will be needing atleast for another 4 to 5 years just 5 kg of food grains free of cost per month for their survival. and surely a very large population in that consists of SC/ST/OBC living even in cities like Jammu/ Srinagar/ Delhi/ Mumbai Not only that one would hardly find a senior officer, Director / Secretary Education sending his / her children to government schools even where they are posted in Cities.

To be continued

(The writer is a Sr Journalist, analyst J&K affairs and Social Activist).