So far, there is a demand to increase the number of scheduled castes and tribes in India who have been given reservation in government jobs. Many petitions are also engaged in the court. In the Constituent Assembly, earlier only those Scheduled Castes were given reservation, who considered themselves to be Hindus, but in 1956 Sikhs and in 1990 Buddhist Scheduled Tribes were also included in this group.
Although Gautam Buddha and Guru Nanak continued to exhort their followers to stay away from caste discrimination, but by being lured by the greed of wholesale votes, the leaders put religion under the feet of caste. Surprisingly, those non-Hindu religious people gladly accepted this anti-religious act of his. Now under their watch, our Muslims, Christians and Jews are also demanding that those who are scheduled and backward should also be given government reservation.
The Modi government calls itself the ultimate nationalist, but it has also agreed to throw the country into the furnace of casteism like the Congressmen and socialists. It has announced a commission, which will decide on the basis of a lot of research whether Muslims, Christians and Jews who have been past Pasmandas, untouchables or Dalit Hindus, should also be given reservation or not. The members of this commission are very experienced and qualified but cannot say what they would suggest.
My understanding is that ‘Kani has a hundred risks’. Caste reservation has already increased the disqualification and corruption in the country. Second, the only one percent of those who are creamy people occupy all the jobs. Real poor people keep staring. Third, if new religions were also added to it, what crime did the Jains commit? I know hundreds of Jain families in South India who were marginalized and untouchable Hindus before they became Jains.
Fourth, with the addition of these new Muslims and Christians, will not the opportunities of the former reserves be reduced? Fifth, he also suspects that this is a very clever ploy by the BJP, which seeks to ‘Hinduise’ Muslims and Christians by implicating them in casteism. Sixth, the opposition leaders allege that this is a new trick of ‘vote bank’ politics. Whether these arguments are correct or not, may be considered separately.
But it seems to me that in 1947 India was divided in two on the basis of religion, now if casteism becomes the basis of our politics, then India will be divided into thousand pieces whether there are land pieces or not. Our land may not be broken but our hearts will be broken into a thousand pieces. All reservations on the basis of birth should be abolished but must be given on the basis of need. Absolutely not on caste and religious grounds.
