India sees one more politically-motivated circus related to reservation, this time for Other Backward Castes (OBC). When India got liberated from the British, little did we realize that the British are leaving behind their crooked ideology in the minds of "Indian" politicians. The ideology was "Divide and Rule." The British had been doing it for 300 years before they left India. They divided us in the name of Religion, Caste, Kingdoms, Regions, among others. Whey they left, they left behind this bug in the minds of the "Indian" politicians.
When India got liberated, there was a huge divide among the masses in terms of economic and social growth status. To bridge this gap, it was felt that the socially and economically downtrodden needed a shot in the arm so they can also be uplifted and brought on par with the others. The vision was that if all Indians were equally educated and had equal opportunities, India would grow faster in the generations to come. The original plan was to have reservation for 10 or 15 years, and then to get rid of it. While the idea looks fantastic on paper, it is not so easy to implement as the biggest thing we as a country lacked was the will to implement.
The question is will reservation work at all. The answer is that it will if implemented properly, that is if the real people who need this get the benefit and also to what extent you want to stretch this so-called benefit. Do you want to extend reservation till school, till college, or till job, or till they die?
In today's scenario it is more of a vote bank politics. Lets consider one thing, if Reservation was the only solution to the problem, then why are we having to increase the percentage even after 60 years of having it? This shows that Reservation is not the right solution.
At the primary school level, if every child, in both urban and rural regions, gets good English Medium education, then you can expect them to be competitive at the higher education level. Human mind is very adaptable, but laziness also creeps around the corner. When someone is used to driving around in an air-conditioned car, he/she will not like to drive around in a bicycle, because it involves hard work. The same way, if a child has been drugged with reservation the entire childhood, they become addicted to it and want reservation in everything even whey they grow up and are very well capable of achieving it with hard work.
The only reason why some group of students excel more in studies or otherwise is because they are programmed that way right from childhood. Their parents have been telling them "if you do not get higher marks, you will not get a seat in college". This way the mind is programmed from childhood to struggle and study hard and be competitive. Most pro-reservation activists misinterpret this as "General category people do not think Reserved category people are intelligent." This is not the fact, and actually it is the other way round. If two people have the same intelligence, then why be partial to one. Nature does not differentiate between a Reserved category student and a General category student, but we have programmed our minds that way. We have programmed our minds to look for the easy way out.
If at all politicians really want change, then they need to stress on quality education at Elementary and Primary school levels. Today, we have thousands of government run schools in rural areas and even towns without proper facilities or faculties to teach the economically poor students who cannot afford the fees in private schools. Without good education at this level, these students face a Herculean task of competing with students from cities at higher levels of education. We are planning to build a multi-storey building on weak foundation.
It is often seen that whenever we talk of good quality education, politicians come up with statistics showing what they have done to increase the literacy rate in their respective constituencies and states. I feel that someone needs to show them the dictionary and make them understand the difference between LITERACY and EDUCATION. Literacy is only the start line for a never-ending race called Education. The problem lies in our politicians treating Literacy rate on par with Higher Education rate. We have always had "Rashtriya Saksharata Mission", but we should have had "Rashtriya Vidya Mission."
One more reason for lack of education in some communities is the number of children in the family when the income earned is only enough to one or two children. A family with one or two children can afford to give good education to them and can secure their future. But with too many children (I actually know families with 11 and 12 children), how can you provide higher education to all the children. So most of these children end up looking for jobs as soon as they finish high school because there is "financial problem" in the family (no wonder).