Rethinking Reservation Policy: The Case of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in Orissa
[1]
Balgovind Baboo, Senior Academic Consultant, Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur, Odisha, India.
The system of protective discrimination or the reservation policy, for some neglected sections of the Indian Society, better known as the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, has been in vogue ever since India became a Federal Republic. Since then these groups of people have been enjoying several rights and privileges not available to other normal citizens in India. It is felt that even after six decades these people have not come up as a group (exceptions are there) in the social ladder. On the other hand, people from other caste groups, meritorious and deserving ones have been feeling deprived as they do not get the special benefits of representation, subsidies, scholarship, employment opportunity, housing and others. They feel that the SCs and the STs have wasted, rather misused the opportunities that they did not deserve. This might lead to social conflict and divide the society which is already being capitalized by the political parties.
Reservation, Protection, Discrimination, Meritocracy, Mediocracy
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