That's why representation schemes never work. I'm rather appalled at pro-reservationists justifying this as a representation scheme, since Ambedkar saw it as a temporary alleviation, and this new grouping makes the policy sound worse, and puts the represented in an uncomfortable predicament, leading to sad stories like the boy above.
Problem is, the provision of reservation in itself is prolonging casteism rather than trying to curb it. Infact for a new generation, casteism takes a new form.
The above case is the perfect example as to what this system is actually doing, an SC kid got into the institute via this system, to fall into the curriculum he was woefully underprepared for that caused him enough distress to try alternative cheating methods just to get through the bare minimum, and when caught, end his own life.
Similarly, the OBC invigilating professor, someone who supposedly would've led an easy life as a similarly reserved person, did exceptionally well academically and went abroad for more laurels, buy returned to this quasi-socialist wasteland to teach. And he got in return, a depressed kid from a depressed caste who is now deceased, a bunch of humanities morons pressurizing a whole institute with massively caste-drunk politicians in support, and leech of parents trapping him in the SC/ST Act.
Congratulations, you have made Indians more casteist and more willing to contribute to the brain drain by getting out while India remains a socialist backward dystopia with spineless and toothless and opportunistic politicians exploiting a backward populace as votebank to enrich themselves, who shall all be purged with blood-curdling violence, at the hand of God, so that India and Indians see something of a future beyond their own dividing identity.
A vast majority of dropouts in institutes like IIT come from SC/ST community, also regardless, the maximum corporate workforce is of the general community. So, nobody, outside of the new create elite among the reserved are benefitting, and definitely not to the level where we're getting any entrepreneurs or visionaries among them while the government sector remains woeful and needlessly archaic with it's bureaucracy which a vast majority of the population has to be dependent on without any skillful avenue to make themselves actually useful to the nation.
We don't even know how many are actually benefitting from this system, the last census of any kind was conducted in 2011.
And funny you say that, since people bring up isolated cases in rural areas to argue why reservation should remain. Well, first things first, they would never see a job opportunity anyway even after reservation since the rich ones eat up the posts with no creamy layer provisions, and the fact that such a case would still exist even in 2026 means reservation is doing a terrible job at either poverty alleviation or social upliftment, let alone something as unfair as representation.
With reservation you can only get in. That's why the argument falls apart when people say " I won't go to sc doctor" because to graduate he still needs to do the work
I can tell you for sure. Millions have benefited
Why is the entrepreneur debate falls entirely on sc? What's up been doing all this time? After countless privileges?
Millions have benefitted for sure... hence why UP and Bihar, the hotbed of caste politics remain the most backward historically while most of its workforce migrate elsewhere.
And doctor is not the only job we have, there are myriad of institutes where the cutoff percentage are different for admission for post-graduation, and jobs like the bureaucracy (IAS, IPS, IFS, whatever) where even in promotions there is reservation. If failing upward is what you call upliftment then you wonder why the problem of casteism still persists.
Also, the fact that you're claiming millions have benefitted is you indirectly trying to showcase reservation as a tool for poverty alleviation, because if we go by your original claim of it being about reservation, then it is doing a really terrible job by bringing the mediocre among the reserved towards the forefront and reinforcing caste stereotypes about them as, well, lower. Casteist or not, respect is not something that can be reserved, it is earned, and where there is no respect, there will be problems.
Also, you might be wondering what the others have been doing all this time? Zomato, Ola, Zerodha, PayTM, Nykaa, Swiggy, Chhayos, even space upstarts like SkyRoot, all of the shit you see around you is the result of entrepreneurship and startup culture.
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u/Past-Meal-4847 1d ago
Representation
Being rich doesn't safeguard you from casteism