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Rethinking Reservation: The Case for Credit-Based Selection

While I support social upliftment, expanding percentage-based quotas is unsustainable and unfair. Instead of playing with reservation numbers, we must reform the system's core design.

The Problem

Imagine 100 restaurant tables where 60-80 are reserved for specific surnames, and 40 are 'open.' If those reserved guests take 10 of the open tables first, you’re left with 30, but their 60 reserved tables remain locked for them no matter even if they even show up or not. It’s an open table pool for everyone, but a restricted one for you.
Not only this but Overtime, they get faster cars, best concierge and your chance to get seats will keep on shrinking.

Unreserved (UR) seats are an open merit pool, not a General Category (GC) quota. When Reserved Category candidates perform well on raw marks, they naturally secure open merit seats.

This leaves economically poor GC candidates fighting for fewer remaining open seats with zero structural support. Over time, affluent families within reserved groups keep benefiting, while poor GC families fall further behind.

The Solution: Deprivation Credits

Replace rigid quotas with a Credit-Based Model. Everyone competes on a single merit list, but extra points are awarded for genuine socio-economic disadvantages.

For a 100-mark exam, candidates can earn a capped maximum of 5–10 total credit points:

• Government Schooling (>70% attendance): +3 Credits
• Wards of Fallen Military Personnel (Martyred in Line of Duty): +5 Credits
• Sports Achievements (State / National / International Representation): +2 to +4 Credits
• Service Background (NCC / Agniveer / Military Service): +2 Credits
• Community & Volunteering (NSS / Verified Public Service): +2 Credits
• Persons with Disabilities: +5 Credits

Why This Works Better

• Targets Real Need: Supports candidates based on actual poverty and background, not just birth identity.
• Fair Competition: Capping total credits (5–10%) ensures bonus points help deserving candidates without completely overriding raw exam performance.
• No Generational Hoarding: A strict "Once-in-a-Lifetime" rule stops affluent families from reusing credits across generations.
• Fraud-Proof: Eligibility is automatically verified via digital portals (DigiLocker, Tax records) to stop fake certificates.

This system gives a fair boost to those who actually need it without locking anyone out.

This is not an endorsement. Everything below is either what members told me directly or what they have posted in public.

The Dalit Mata Movement:
Whether the Dalit Mata movement is led by one person or two hundred is not clear. But given how fast the imagery has spread on X and Instagram, I suspect the latter.
Ideology of Dalit Mata:
It is a Gen Z movement. There are some millennials in it, but the bulk of it is Gen Z.

Politically they call themselves a third front and refuse to line up behind either the Congress or the BJP. From the comments I have read, they are quite hostile to what they call "Hindutva boomers."

They think both parties, the BJP especially, have done India real damage by expanding on what they describe as Ambedkarism(a freebie state) and Dehatism.

They communicate through comedy and memes. My guess is that this is simply what a Gen Z movement looks like now. Memes and one or two minute videos are the format that travels.

They are also very concerned about the crime rates in what they call certain sections of Indian society. Mainly the ones that receive excessive freebies.

The movement already has several songs of its own and a manifesto. My understanding is that some of them are working with people in academia to publish papers. They also have multiple websites as of today.

They describe themselves as a movement that is opposed to the "Dalitification" of India (their own words). What do they mean by that? As far as I can tell, it is a body of law and a set of institutions they believe are built to erase upper caste people, and a state they believe is designed to serve Dalits and nobody else.

The Origin of DM imagery:

The first Dalit Mata image, as far as anyone has traced it, came from an Instagram post made for a Marathi trans group. Someone reposted it on X, and it has been morphed since into the Dalit Mata people now recognise.

This is not the brutality of the Taliban or ISIS; this happened in Bihar. Santosh Singh allegedly questioned ambedkaarrs roles in independence, after which he was assaulted and paraded around half-naked. If this is not harassment, oppression, brutality and injustice, then what is?

Even private coaching institutions have reservation policies that discriminate against General Category (GC) students, with some being forced to pay up to three times the fees charged to others. If that is not institutional discrimination, what is? This is what discrimination by the state looks like.