Opinion | Time To Spoon Off The Creamy Layer, Make Caste Reservation A Win-Win

If the creamy layer is not spooned off, reservation risks becoming a closed circuit of privilege for those who have already availed reservation.

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Reforming caste reservations is the poison chalice of Indian politics. The Constitution prescribes an expiry date to the quota system and refining it from time to time. General category students get punished for merit, millions of poor and deserving Dalits and tribals fail to avail intended benefits, but no political party has the confidence to drink from it and be Shiv, the Neelkanth.

It is simple arithmetic. General Category makes up for roughly 24 per cent of the country, according to the ICE 360 Survey. Other estimates place upper/forward castes and unreserved open groups between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of the population.

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So, Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and backward castes comprise 70-75 per cent. To pander to them is unassailable political logic.

Also, within the general category are minorities, who do not often vote with the upper castes.

So, do the so-called “upper castes", many of whom are extremely poor, just accept the fatalistic outcome that reservations will keep increasing till every seat, every opportunity is swallowed in the name of social justice? And then, as the Congress and other Opposition parties often promise, the quota system will be extended to the private sector as well?

BR Ambedkar, the icon of the Dalit movement and the guiding light of the Indian Constitution, himself did not favour reservations in perpetuity. Quotas are........

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