Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat
In order to address social , economic and educational backwardness of disadvantaged communities the Government of India constituted its first Backward Classes Commission in early 1950’s which is also known as “Kakasahib Kalekar Commision ”. This commission was constituted on January 29th 1953 and submitted its report before Government of India on March 30th 1955 after more than two years of rigorous survey and research. Kakasahib Kalekar who headed the commission was a veteran Gandhian , social reformer and a journalist and after in-depth survey and research this commission listed around 2399 castes as socially and educationally backward classes across India. In pursuance to the report submitted by Kakasahib Kalekar Commission, the Jammu & Kashmir Government also appointed a committee for identifying backward castes , communities and areas vide Government order No: 826-C of 1956 during the period of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad who was the then Prime Minister of J&K. The aim of appointing this committee was to get a detailed report about backward castes, communities and areas of J&K so as to address the issues of social , educational and economic backwardness of state . There was no concrete outcome of this committee until late 60’s and during 1969 another committee known as Backward Classes Committee (BCC) was constituted by J&K Government which was headed by Justice Janki Nath Wazir former Chief Justice of Jammu & Kashmir High Court. Wazir committee submitted its report to Government during early 1970. It was by virtue of this report that the reservation rules under various categories were setup by the Government which included Social castes , Resident of backward area (RBA), etc . The report was challenged before the Supreme Court of India due to some discrepancies. The J&K Government in order to address these discrepancies constituted one more committee and appointed Justice Dr Adarash Sen Anand as its chairman in 1976 during the time of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah the then Chief Minister of J&K . Justice Anand who later became Chief Justice of Supreme Court submitted his report to the Government of J&K in September 1977. During that period many areas and castes across J&K state were deprived of better healthcare, education and other facilities. There was no proper road connectivity in many areas of Rajouri , Poonch , Doda, Bhadarwah, Kishtwar, Kupwara, Baramulla, Leh, Kargil, Reasi, Udhampur and many other districts. Many residents from these areas hardly entered into colleges or got into Government service due to lack financial and economic backwardness. As the Government started the process of giving reservation in higher education, technical education, professional colleges and Government jobs within 10 to 15 years we saw a great change. Young men and women from remote areas like Gurez, Poonch , Rajouri, Bani , Basohli were able to seek admission in Government run professional colleges, and other technical institutions of state.The reservation under Scheduled Tribe (ST) given to Gujjars, Bakerwals, Shinas, Dards, Ladhakis also helped the young people from these communities to enter into civil services and other jobs post 1990. The reservation granted under Resident of Backward Area (RBA) also helped people from many backward areas. These people are now on very senior positions in the state’s bureaucracy , some are heading many Government departments and hundreds of them are doctors , engineers , professors , lecturers etc. All this has been achieved mostly post 1990.
Other aspect of reservation:
Article 14 of the constitution talks about Right to Equality. Article 14 reads “State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the Indian territory. “ As son of the soil and a socially conscious citizen , I am not against the reservation given to backward classes (SC’s, ST’s, OSC’s, RBA’s etc), but continuously getting benefitted under these reservations even after 20 years is totally injustice with other people. Why shall people belonging to reserved categories avail the benefit of reservation more than once ? They are benefitted during admissions in professional colleges , universities , then again posts are reserved for them in Government jobs , then they avail benefit of reservation in promotion too , why ? I would appeal authorities to provide one-time benefit to people availing benefits under reserved quota. Our bright and highly qualified youth are becoming drug addicts and many suffer from depression as the mismanaged reservation policy is affecting career of many. If constitution guarantees us Right to Equality, then why such an injustice again and again ? A boy from RBA category gets selected for B- Tech course in Government run engineering college in spite of the fact that he scores very less points than the open merit candidate. No issues if he really hails from a remote area of state , but when we see such students in engineering colleges , universities , medical colleges, we find many of them are living in Srinagar or Jammu city from years and have been educated in reputed private schools. These so called reservation holders directly destroy the career of genuine socially and economically backward students who continue to remain poor , unemployed and backward in their own hamlets or tiny far flung villages. There are hundreds of so called backward families putting up in posh areas of Srinagar and Jammu. These people used to live in remote areas of state decades back but even their 2nd generation continues to avail benefits under various reserved quotas like STs , RBAs , SCs etc ? How these people get entitlements under RBA or other reserved category is a big scam and needs to be probed at highest level.
Conclusion :
Government must give reservation in higher education , technical education , professional institutions and Government jobs on the basis of economic status of the families. Children of Gujjars & Bakerwals who roam with their cattle and sheep from one place to another hardly enter into colleges and such children are even denied their Right to Education as the mobile schools meant for them are defunct and non functional. How can a person with good economic status get the benefit scheduled tribe (ST) for his children on the basis of mere having a Gujjar caste. Similarly how can a person having a one page RBA document avail benefit for his children who actually have never lived or studies in the backward village where he used to live 15 or 20 years back ? Similarly areas which were declared as backward (RBA) 20 or 30 years back are not at all backward as on date and this is also an issue which needs to be looked into. The Government must come out with a whitepaper on the issue of reservation so that the reservation policy in J&K is restructured by considering all the aforementioned issues.
Feedback : muzaffar.rti@gmail.com
(The views of the author are personal)
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