Caste Reservation Quotas

General information on caste quotas

”you can't go forward unless you're a backward” A quote from an excerpt from the article ”Why India needs a new debate on the cast quotas” published on the BBC News website.

But what does it mean?

What are caste quotas or backward classes?

Back in the day, India had a caste system divided into many castes, the five most known ones are Dalits, Shudras, Vaishyas, Kshatriyas and the Brahims ( going from the bottom to the top )

The caste system was officially abolished in India due to protest and discrimination of the scheduled castes and tribes, the most disadvantaged groups in Hinduism. In 1950 India´s constitution adopted an affirmative action programme, the caste quotas.

With the adoption of caste quotas, people from scheduled castes/tribes were not only granted equality of opportunity in society but also a job, an education and even seats in parliament were being reserved for them. It is said that the reservations in institutions and jobs were a way of making up for the discrimination in times of the caste system. With time the reservations became more and more political as the VP Singh-led government of the day decided to extend benefits to Other Backward Classes ( OBC´s ) in 1989. ( based on the recommendations of the Mandal Commission )

OBC´s hailed from lower and intermediate castes who were deemed backward because they lacked “upper caste” status.

For better understanding :

The caste quotas can be compared with the female quota in German companies. There needs to be a certain number/percentage of women or in our case, people from scheduled castes/tribes or OBC´s in a company to ensure equality within the company or society in general.

Problems

The problems of coping with this issue are especially based on Indian politics. Because of the influential Patel community it comes to caste-related violence and massive agitation which automatically leads to discrimination in many ways. The biggest way is the discrimination of disadvantaged groups so discrimination based on birth. This takes the equality of opportunity away and damages property and people.

Pros and Cons

The only advantage of the caste quotas in India is, that it is good for the lower castes because some of the people get the chance to live a better life and get the right to participation. But there are also disadvantages. The first disadvantage is that it is bad for Brahmins or the upper castes in general because they are being discriminated because members the lower castes are privileged and have it easier to get certain jobs/ positions. Another disadvantage is that it is bad for the whole political system because some people from the lower castes get some duties, although they have no idea or not qualified enough to do what they are supposed to do.