The author is former Secretary to government of India and works in the field of social justice for SCs, STs, BCs for the last more than six-and-half decades.
The only problem faced by children and young people of Socially Advanced Castes who are genuinely poor is that they are not able to afford education to the fuller level for want of financial capacity.
Justice Jeevan Reddy in the Mandal judgment held that “a backward class cannot be determined only and exclusively with reference to economic criterion. It may be a consideration or basis along with and in addition to social backwardness, but it can never be the sole criterion...”
Reservation is not a programme for poverty-removal. It is to remove the monopoly of a few castes in administration. Present quota demands are also growing, seeing castes once looked down upon coming up through reservation.
Clearly, these suicides are the outcome of Indian Caste System-with-“Untouchability”, still omnipresent and omnipotent, and not a thing of the past, confined only to some remote areas.
At the Inter-State Council meeting, the PM highlighted an old injustice that still shames the nation. When will laws dealing with crimes against dalits be given teeth?
Anti-reservationists cite sample survey figures, but only a census that identifies backward castes will give a correct picture. Sample surveys don’t work
