One thing I admire about JITO is kind of liberal environment and open minded, extremely knowledgeable, talented and smart group of people with whom you get to interact.
We have formed an informal discussion group here in which we actively debate, discuss, dissent about various social, economic, political, cultural issues. The debates are very deep, informed , argumentative in nature thus intellectually fulfilling as well.
Today, we had intense debate on the issue of reservation in Judiciary. Recently some protests were held in Tamil Nadu where the people from disadvantaged section are demanding reservation in Judiciary. The article in Hindu highlighted that out of 84 judge at lower level only 2 are from general, while rest are from reserved category only. Thus the call for reservation sounds misinformed and political in nature.
The roots of reservation were sown at time of Poona pact between Mahatma Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar. At time of independence, reservation was considered a necessity considering the socio-educational backwardness, discriminating caste based hierarchical social setup. However, it was subjected to the article 335 which calls for no compromise on efficiency and inadequacy of representation as basic principles for reservation provision. Further government created enabling provision under article 15 and 16 to provide reservation to socio-economic backward class of citizens. The clause of reservation came with sunset clause of 10 year but extension of this sunset clause for another 10 years since then has become a political ritual. Further in 77th C.A.A. parliament provided for reservation in promotion as well under article 16(4A). Later government tried to bring 117 C.A.A. to dilute the efficiency clause of article 335 and claimed that SC/ST should be deemed socio-economically backward thus clearing the way of competitive reservation politics.
In the whole process, certain basic questions remain unanswered. Has policy of reservation paid its dividend? Should be put any limit of usage of reservation clause by any individual? Whether we should allow reservation in Judiciary (higher judiciary because lower judiciary already has reservation) or armed forces? Alternatively, should we restrict reservation to lower strata of bureaucracy? Should reservation be allowed in Jobs or promotion or consequential seniority? Does reservation leads to compromise on efficiency? Has the time come to activate sun set clause? Does the case of women reservation and caste reservation follow qualitatively same line of argument? What is the impact on he psyche of a general category meritorious candidate? What is class in caste framework? Has policy of reservation turned selective in nature? Does reservation goes against argument of merit, wisdom and excellence?
We discussed all these issue in great depth supporting or refuting each other arguments with facts, logic or counter-arguments. No where I can get the opportunity to become part of such a informed group. I am not going to list our arguments because that will consume lot of my energy but I would definitely like to thank all the group members for making the discussion so lively, informative, democratic and fruitful.
Good night
We have formed an informal discussion group here in which we actively debate, discuss, dissent about various social, economic, political, cultural issues. The debates are very deep, informed , argumentative in nature thus intellectually fulfilling as well.
Today, we had intense debate on the issue of reservation in Judiciary. Recently some protests were held in Tamil Nadu where the people from disadvantaged section are demanding reservation in Judiciary. The article in Hindu highlighted that out of 84 judge at lower level only 2 are from general, while rest are from reserved category only. Thus the call for reservation sounds misinformed and political in nature.
The roots of reservation were sown at time of Poona pact between Mahatma Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar. At time of independence, reservation was considered a necessity considering the socio-educational backwardness, discriminating caste based hierarchical social setup. However, it was subjected to the article 335 which calls for no compromise on efficiency and inadequacy of representation as basic principles for reservation provision. Further government created enabling provision under article 15 and 16 to provide reservation to socio-economic backward class of citizens. The clause of reservation came with sunset clause of 10 year but extension of this sunset clause for another 10 years since then has become a political ritual. Further in 77th C.A.A. parliament provided for reservation in promotion as well under article 16(4A). Later government tried to bring 117 C.A.A. to dilute the efficiency clause of article 335 and claimed that SC/ST should be deemed socio-economically backward thus clearing the way of competitive reservation politics.
In the whole process, certain basic questions remain unanswered. Has policy of reservation paid its dividend? Should be put any limit of usage of reservation clause by any individual? Whether we should allow reservation in Judiciary (higher judiciary because lower judiciary already has reservation) or armed forces? Alternatively, should we restrict reservation to lower strata of bureaucracy? Should reservation be allowed in Jobs or promotion or consequential seniority? Does reservation leads to compromise on efficiency? Has the time come to activate sun set clause? Does the case of women reservation and caste reservation follow qualitatively same line of argument? What is the impact on he psyche of a general category meritorious candidate? What is class in caste framework? Has policy of reservation turned selective in nature? Does reservation goes against argument of merit, wisdom and excellence?
We discussed all these issue in great depth supporting or refuting each other arguments with facts, logic or counter-arguments. No where I can get the opportunity to become part of such a informed group. I am not going to list our arguments because that will consume lot of my energy but I would definitely like to thank all the group members for making the discussion so lively, informative, democratic and fruitful.
Good night
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