This refers to your editorial “Going beyond reservation” (February 17). The founding fathers of the Constitution had envisaged that reservations in education and jobs for the members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SCs/STs) would uplift their status, bringing them on a par with others in 10 years’ time, and after that no reservations would be needed. Contrary to that, even after 60 years of the adoption of the Constitution, not only are SC/ST reservations continuing but so many other caste-groups have been brought into the ambit of reservations and even religion-based quotas have been enforced by the vote-hungry politicians for electoral gains in contravention of the guiding principles of the Constitution.
In view of the fact that the permanent beneficiaries of caste- and community-based reservations in education and jobs are quite well-to-do and fall under influential categories rather than the needy and that the provision has become only a vote-catching device, reservations in education and jobs based on caste, community and religion are unjustified and need to be scrapped.
However, since irrespective of the divides of caste, community and religion, India has a vast majority of people who are economically weak and need to be helped, provision of reservation based on the economic status of the beneficiary for a certain period of time may be justified.
MC Joshi, Lucknow
