| > The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term. As some who opposes the typical right-wing opposition to caste based reservations (aka left wing nut), I agree with your point of view. For example, I would be fine with constituting a one time generous fund that qualified people can withdraw from (and invest), if care is taken to cover all those who should benefit from such a scheme. Its then up to the families to use the funds as they wish. There is also the notion of giving someone a fish and teaching someone how to fish. A financial fund targets the former and will not be enough, more lenient admissions but something that does not persist forever, seems a reasonable balance. An eternally persistent reservation is tilted the other way. One can definitely argue about the details of how persistent the terms of the benefits should be, but all I will say lack of consensus on what the decay factor should look like should not come in the way of implementing something that is better than nothing, or terminating something that is better than nothing. A common argument I see often is caste is not the problem, that poverty is the problem and reservations should target poverty alone and ignore caste. I disagree with this sentiment and consider poverty uplifting an important but orthogonal problem. Caste reservation is about reparations/compensation for historical damages that has(d) that had been inflicted over centuries. Kashmiri pandit's losses will not get addressed/compensated by social schemes for the poor. It has to address the issue the forceful, unlawful eviction from their home. |