Congratulations friends!
According to the criteria for the new reservations, you are going to become poor.
You’ll be poor, I’ll be poor, he’ll be poor, she’ll be poor, we’re all going to be poor,
we’re all going to be economically weak.
Friends,
in fact, 80-90% of the population of our country are going to be economically weak.
Friends, on 7th January 2019 our Union Cabinet approved a bill for 10% reservations
to be given to the ‘economically weak’ sections of the general category for jobs and educational institutions,
This 10% reservation is in addition to the existing 50% reservation.
Which means it does not interfere with it.
Reservation for 10%
What’s interesting is the eligibility criteria for this new 10% reservation
criteria are like this
first criteria of Financial Rervervations
The first criteria for qualification are if your family’s household income is 8 lakhs per year or lesser.
The data tells us that 95% of households in our country earn 8 lakhs or lesser in a year.
On 12th Jan 2018,
Arun Jaitley said that there are only 76 lakh people in our country
who show their income to be more than 5 lakh
I’m talking about ‘showing income’ because many people who do earn more but misstate it.
So if individuals are considered, 99% of people earn less than 8 lakh.
This 99% of people are termed ‘economically weak’.
The second criteria for Financial Rervervations
it states that the agricultural land owned should be less than 5 acres.
The data stated that 86% of land holdings are of 5 acres or less.
The third criteria for Financial Rervervations
that is your house should be less than 1000 sq feet.
Where the data shows that 80% of households have houses of 500 sq feet or less.
You can see the pattern forming here.
The fourth criteria for Financial Rervervations
that is your residential plot should be less than or equal to 100 yards if it is in a municipality,
Or as per the fifth criteria,
should be less than or equal to 200 yards if it’s in a non-notified municipality.
The data for these are not available to us.
But what do you conclude from the first three criteria?
80-90% population of our country are eligible as they fall into these criteria.
Obviously, the new reservation is for the general category only.
And the data I showed is for the whole country.
So I’m assuming that, more or less, these data would be
similarly proportioned for the general category too.
Which would mean that more or less 90% of people from the general category are eligible for this 10% quota.
So what kind of a reservation is this if almost everyone qualifies for it.
What’s the point of creating a new reservation?
I’ll explain this from another angle.
Assume that the people from SC, ST and OBC who get selected,
take their seats from their own reservations
As a student from the general category,
what used to happen was that you were competing for the remaining 50% of seats
with other students from the general category.
What will happen now after the new 10% reservation,
because almost every one of them is eligible for the reservation,
is that you would still be competing with the same people,
for the same seats,
but now it has been divided into 40% and 10%
There’s no point to this.
Someone aptly tweeted,
that the Government has not given you a lollipop,
The Government simply took your lollipop from your pocket
and gave it back to you saying “look, we’re giving you a new lollipop”.
Another interesting thing here is that
the income tax slabs in India start at 2.5 lakh per year.
So on one hand,
our Government expects that if we earn more than or equal to 2.5 lakhs per year,
we should pay the income tax,
But on the other hand,
the government says that if our household income is less than 8 lakhs
we are economically backward.
So they labelled us as economically backward as well as demand taxes from us
Again, what’s the logic to this?
Reservations are aimed at uplifting weaker sections of society.
Caste-based reservations were introduced because, in our country,
there were some cases that were discriminated against.
Through reservations, they were uplifted to the same level as others.
The success of caste-based reservations is debatable.
Even reservations based solely on economic standing is also debatable.
Because reservation is not a poverty alleviation scheme.
There are numerous Government schemes aimed at eradicating poverty.
The purpose for reservations was to end discrimination against the people.
But if we keep aside this debate and return to the topic.
The main point is, what was the purpose of the reservation?
To uplift the weaker section of the society.
Which section of the society does the new reservation of the Government uplift?
Our Government says that it would uplift the weaker section of the general category.
But think about it yourself,
can a person earning 50,000 a month be declared economically weak?
Also, a person from the general category, who is Below Poverty Line,
and one earning 50000 a month, are eligible for this reservation.
But if there is only one seat, who will get that?
Obviously, the person earning ₹50000 per month.
He would have got much more facilities in his life which the person from BPL did not get.
So that seat would go to the richer person.
What exactly is the benefit for the poor?
Nothing.
This 8 lakh per annum limit is known as the creamy layer.
Backstory of reservations
In 1993, when the reservation was introduced for Other Backward Classes,
the creamy layer was at 1 lakh per annum.
That is, only the people who earned less than 1 lakh per annum could benefit from the reservation.
What happened was that the poor people benefited very much from it.
Agreeably, discrimination can be against anyone, even the rich.
But if the economic aspect was considered, the poor people would get more preference.
After that, the limit was increased four times.
In 2004, it was increased to 2.5 lakh.
In 2008, it was increased to 4.5 lakh.
Again in 2008, it was increased to 6 lakh.
And then in 2017, it was increased to 8 lakh.
This creamy layer of 8 lakh can be considered good
because even the richer people might face discrimination,
But on the other and more obvious side,
the governments have been using this as appeasement politics for a long time.
By increasing the OBC limits slowly, ensuring that more people could be under the reservation category.
Politics and appeasement in the name of reservations are happening for a long time.
Many political parties have been a part of this.
But the argument for discrimination cannot be used for the general category.
Another problem here is that the Supreme Court had set a limit of 50%
above which there cannot be reservations.
However, there are a few states likes Tamil Nadu which have more than 50% reservations.
But their decision is pending in the Supreme Court.
So first the Government has to bring a Constitutional Amendment
to pass the bill in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha
And hope that it is not blocked by the Supreme Court,
Since this important bill was introduced in the second last day of the Parliamentary session,
which needs much research and debate, many people question the motive behind it.
And see it as an appeasement for the vote banks before the elections.
The most important question that we should be asking the Government is that
Where are the Jobs to the youth ???
It is because of this question that I say all these talks about reservations are only hypes.
If there are no jobs, what would you do with the reservations?
Be it 10% or 50%
If there are 0 jobs, 10% of zero would be zero
50% of zero would be zero
Even 90% of zero would still be zero
For the past few years, jobs are declining and unemployment rising.
Unemployment data is not released by the Government.
The government is also trying to manipulate the data to show that they created jobs.
But the reality remains that there is a scarcity of jobs
So you should demand more jobs,
If there are more jobs, you would get more opportunities irrespective of your categories.
But if there are only a few jobs, how much can you divide?
How many portions of reservation can be made?
Till there are not enough jobs all these reservations are only distractions.
You will only be fighting among yourselves.
I would like to address all the groups who are demanding reservations
for themselves in the various states.
It is of no use demanding reservations.
You should be demanding more jobs in educational institutions, schools and universities.
Because this is the root problem.
When there aren’t enough jobs, people feel they should be entitled to reservations.
These are the reasons why I claim that the new reservation scheme is only hype, for vote bank appeasement.
The same has been done by numerous political parties over so many years. But this is my opinion.
What do you think about it?
Thank you!
