Why Reservations NOW

Well here comes another National Polls in the 'FAST DEVELOPING' India. Looking back in the nearly 60 years of Indian secular sovreign democracy I wonder what were the issues that made an Indian vote a government into power. Ofcourse I will need to do some background research - blame it to my late appearance on Earth as an Upper Class Indian and another 16 years till I realized how impoverished an Upper Class guy is. From the history lessons that I never heeded when I was in school I still remember why the founding fathers of the nation had the reservation system for the 'opressed' people of the nation - to bring back equality of opportunity. Consider this it took 200 years for the Indians to understand that they were ruled not because they were so powerless against the Queen of England but because they were divided among themselves - divided by religon, by caste, by region, by language and by ideology. So is the Indan polity following the footsteps of the erstwhile rulers to keep their rather thin popularity or if I may say their ignorance of 'DEVELOPMENT' concealed while it breeds on ruling the divided lobbys.
M y thoughts meander away from the central topic but everything seems so intervined like the vines of a untended grape orchard that it seems so illogical to address one while I leave my readers to explore their imagination for the rest. I will in my esteemed readers interest of time still try to focus on the topic of reservations in this blog.
So here is the Indian Political system - the largest multi party democracy in the world which moved on from single party ruling governments in the late 1990's to 'Coalitions of like-mindedness' between parties that by themselves have stark mandates that go against their own foundations when the need for power comes up. But then someone from the business group noted that India develops because its political system is still in slumber. But then how do people vote? What do they see in the political mandate of a party that urges them to take sides? And here lies our answer - The majority needs to be appeased - Poor - give them their staple food for nothing but don't make them earn it , Caste - Show them how low in the societal hirarchy they are and then give them a slue of amenities that they won't need but don't show them how to struggle for it, Region - Break it based on their backwardness so they never learn to go forward. And yet knowing all this everyone castes their votes based on promises that in the long run will be detrimental to the society as a whole. Our founding fathers wanted the reservations for a certain time frame but the will of the Indian polity and the greed of some short sighted groups will always extend this.
To blame reservations to the Indian Polity will not be fair aren't we responsible too. We let them break us apart and let them mend us as they feel fit. It started with reservations for the lower castes - the tribes that needed to amalgamate with the society, so we identified them we labelled them as backward even if they took strides towards progress, then we identified the women forgetting that the strongest person once in our nation was a lady. So we labelled them weak - Maybe they were right for some part - But for how long will the backward be backward? How long will the 'ladies' be 'ladies' even as we step towards a strong nation where castes have dulled their boundaries and we see the girls taking strides in sectors like Aviation, Space Research, Management and Civil Services. Do we really need another reservation now? Why identify another sector that has stood the test of time and struggled to come up just to throw them back in time?.
So well do we need reservations? I would say yes not on the basis of whether they are of a designated caste or based on their sex but based on their economic level. Let the elite schools give free education for these economically backward class but let them compete and earn their seat for it. Lets show them that there is hope at the end of the tunnel but let them strive towards that end.
Lets save our energies to uplift the poor not by giving reservations based on castes but giving them opportunites to earn it. We all know there's nothing called a free lunch lets realize it and lets awake our politicians to the fact. Unity in Diversity is our strength lets keep it that way.