Reservation system and its history:The idea of caste based reservation system was envisioned by William Hunter and Jyotirao Phule in various forms in 1882 and implemented by Chatrapati Sahuji in 1901. The term was changed to "Depressed Class" in 1932 by Ambedkar and later to "Scheduled Caste/Tribes" during the framing of the constitution in 1950. The idea was that a vast majority of the poor were from a very small caste group and they needed a social net so that they can be accommodated into society as full fledged members. It is important to note that this part of the reservation was for electoral rights first (to guarantee political representation - Poona Act 35) and a education/job rights issue second. Also note that education was made free in these early attempts so that poverty does not hinder their education by these early efforts. If not for Dr.Ambedkar's efforts, even this would not have come through during Independence. Ambedkar remains an icon for minority causes even today and is revered because of this. Enough of history. Fast forward to today.

Objectives of Reservation: Uplift lower strata of society Ensure proper political representation of minority groups Ensure that minorities are not discriminated in job selections and promotionThe caste based reservation system is built around these three objectives.

Equality of Opportunity & autonomy/social safety net Vs Equality of Outcome:

In an Indian caste context, what thisideallymeans in theory is:

Equality of opportunity :If a member of lower strata applies to a job and has the right qualifications and is a better performer compared to peers, he should get the job. Ie, their caste/economic status should not decide which jobs they apply/get selected to. Equality of autonomy :If a member of lower strata wants to become a rocket scientist, and has the intelligence and is willing to work towards this goal, there should not be any barriers to pursuing this goal. Ie, they should not be at a disadvantage when choosing their course of life because they were born poor/belong to a particular caste. Social safety net :When certain members of society did not have these privileges earlier and the government wants to help them, certain non contributory (free) measures are taken to help them. Ie, members of a disadvantaged group are given free financial incentives so that they are not trapped in the present position/do not fall into a life of crime and poverty. In short, a midlife boostto success.Since the disadvantaged groups of India have been discriminated against forcenturies, and are still not protected despite the numerous laws(40% of crimes are committed against this 22% of the population), before equality of opportunity and autonomy, a social safety net is needed - ie a boost or ladder is required so that the more advanced forms of equality can be introduced and society can bebalanced.

Contrary to popular opinion, a social safety net is the most effective way to raise the standards of disadvantaged groups - this has been proven using data from various countries. It isfair discrimination. The key point here in the practice of this is - there are no people from disadvantaged groups in the upper echelons of society, and as long as they do not have a percentage equal to their share in the population in these elite groups - administrative, education, political etc, these measures are necessary as they do not have theeconomic or educational resourcesto get to the top. In short-

"Without access to education, the poor will always be poor"

These things sound great in theory. Opponents of caste based reservation(myself included) have a valid opposing idea, whichpracticallymeans:

Equality of outcome :By helping people even though they are not have equal credentials/qualifications (reservation gives leeway of 10 - 40% reduction in various parameters in India) it is not equality of opportunity but anunfair playing field- there is no incentive for better performers and it becomesreverse discrimination.

The catch with a social net is that it has to be done short term and reduced over a period of time so that the other forms - opportunity and autonomy can take root and grow. This never happened in India. Besides, reservation is not justified in niche fields and higher education when a graduation is already a requirement - ie how many time should a person get theselife boostswhen it they are already have the same qualification and reached alevel playing field? At this point, a loan to fund education makes more sense than a free pass irrespective of performance. In short

"Reservation system based on a social net contradicts itself"Government should not play Robin Hood

I will leave applying these concepts to job/education sectors to the readers imagination, as it varies by sector and locality. Done with philosophy of reservation. On to real world data.

Demographics related to Reservation:The statistics for India related to reservation are:Population of India, split up by caste:

Reservation percentage, split by caste:

Percentages are almost the same when it comes to reserved percentage vs population statistics.

Number of people with educational qualifications, by social strata:

Graduates are 3.6% of the general population (including SC and ST), whereas it is 1.4% and 0.9% in SC and ST categories.

We are getting more kids admitted into schools (85% is really good) , but only 60% make it to 5th grade and 52% to high school. Only 7% of those admitted into the school system finally pass. Final graduation rates from colleges are close to 3.6%, as mentioned in the previous chart. This is not because the kids are not able to perform academically, but because of simple reasons like no teachers, financial dependency, etc. The relative percentage of kids making it to secondary school and college has not improved over the past 30 years.

Ie, admissions into primary education is increasing, but drop out rates and final graduate output is almost the same. The number of graduates has increased, but not as a relative percentage - it merely represents the increase in population.

Number of people who benefit from reservation every year:Education : India has about 436 universities and 25938 colleges with about 2-3 million graduates(if non technical diploma, etc are included) a year as of 2010. Educational institutions are required to surrender 50% of their seats to the government and very few minority run institutions are exempt from this. From that, 49% of the graduates benefit from reservation, so about 25% or 0.75 million people are direct beneficiaries of reservation in education. This percentage however varies between states and type of study (medical vs engineering vs arts vs law etc) and type of institution (deemed, private, minority run or trust run, government run colleges have 49.5% of their seats under the quota).

Jobs :

The GoI (state,central,panchayats,etc in the same order of number of employees) employs 17.8 million people or 3.6% of the total workforce of India (487 million workers) and 8% of them retire annually (because a vast majority of them were hired during the 82-93), so that is 1.4 million vacancies. Because of this, 0.7 million people get jobs under reservation quota annually. There is no data related to economic standing of students, job seekers and their future income, but a fair argument can be made by comparing wealth distribution over the past 40 years.

Distribution of Wealth and poverty rate:Poor, in an Indian context implies absolute poverty - can't buy the next meal poor or the person is unable to make Rs.20 (36 cents) a day. By international standards, it is $1.25 a day and 32% of Indian population is poor by that definition.

Over the past 40 years, the reservation system has hardly changed anything in terms of wealth distribution (one of its objectives) - the upper 20% of the society controls 40% of the wealth, while the lower 20% is left with 7%.

This is the distribution of poor people by caste, accounting for split between rural and urban population and normalising:

It is to be noted that upper castes account for 36% of poor people and backward classes account for 16%. This 36% of poor people do not benefit from any of these Welfare Schemes when it is based on caste.

The official numbers are always disputed by other agencies which say that poverty is reducing by 8-12% annually like clockwork and Indian government is cooking the numbers related to poverty. This deserves a mention here - according to them,

(Economist)

(Center for global development)

Performance of the Reservation system when compared to its stated objectives:Though lower strata term is relative, the reservation system has not changed anything drastically when comparison of poverty rates and income of the bottom 20% of society is relatively the same compared over the last 40 years. This is more evident in rural areas. There are a significant portion of upper caste (6% of national population) who are poor and do not benefit from reservation. Cost of education has increased12.5Xover the previous decade - even the cheapest institutions have five percent inflation a year. Overall, the Caste based reservation system has achieved very little for the rural poor and has mostly fallen flat on its face in most of the metrics. It has failed because (unfair debate left out, as what's fair to me may not be fair to someone else) :

It has not improved dropout rates It has not improved income share of poor people It has not performed in terms of quality of education (India ranks 72nd in the world by PISA scale - pls comment if you want more details) It is not inclusive of all the poor sections of society (poor upper castes are left out) It is based on fixed percentages creatingselection bubblesie, there is no incentive to perform for those with reservation and there is no motivation for those without reservation as competition is higher There is no data to support reservation based on caste has met any of its objectives after 4 decades of practicing itFuture:The caste based reservation system is a part of the Indian Constitution and unlikely to change. The window of opportunity to make effective long lasting changes to any Indian system is 10-15 years, and the political landscape is too busy on other things rather than trying to wrap their wits around this. It has affected who we are as a society and it will continue to affect future generations to come. The changes to this system can only be made by a bold government prepared to take action with a long term vision and goals, and that is not going to happen anytime soon.

There is no accountability in Indian politics

My take on this:

Reservation ofany kindwill not work 100% efficiently under the current scenario. I am all for competing with a peer group which is fiercely competitive (I guess most Quorans would agree as most of us would have done just that) and leaving a portion of opportunities for poor people without resources, but in the current conditions it isunfair to people competing in general quota and poor people-the data proves it. While reservation is necessary for social good, I believe that in its current form it is not helping the majority of the targeted audience and unfair to the others. Without bringing poor kids who are out on the streets into a educational setting and retaining them, reservation hardly justifies the negatives it has. It is archaic and should be dispensed with in favor of aincome based reservation system, where quota percentages are determinedbased on poverty levels, say every 5 years. Long term efforts (spread over 20-30 years or a generation to take root) should be to phase out reservation entirely in certain segments like higher education as equality of opportunity is provided from primary education onwards. Same can be argued for the job sector.Fine. After writing the income based reservation part, I got thinking that this measure deserves to be scrutinised as well. Is it truly a good way to go about welfare schemes? So I proceeded with some calculations to see if this argument has any reasoning behind it. Implementing a income based reservation system is tougher than most people think:

Current public (read popular) demand:Income based reservation, below poverty line with 49.5% quota:If a reservation by income scheme is implemented retaining the 50.5:49.5 ratio of open vs reserved quota, giving 49.5% for poor people below the poverty line, then all castes are represented across the board:

(this is just to contrast caste split between the existing and proposed system - ST category is actually under represented in the existing system)This system would ensure that people who deserve the social net benefit from it while relatively rich people compete among themselves as they have access to facilities etc. Seems fair to everyone right? poor people get their quota irrespective of caste. Smiles all around.

But there is apractical problemwhy this cannot be implemented - only 3% of poor people make it to the stage where they can avail reservation - meaning even with 100% enrollment rate in primary school, 47% of the 49.5% poor do not make it to high school. There are no poor people below poverty line reaching high school to give away reserved seats to (30% of engineering seats reserved for SC/ST students lapse in certain states already, without this system). So, this scheme cannot be implemented without 47% of seats lapsing to general students anyway.

Alternate Demand:Income Based reservation, with relative income as a parameter between students:Implementing this system is dumb too. For instance, what really is the handicap that a student with parents of income say Rs.400K a year have compared to a student with parents having income of a 5 million rupees? Maybe in 70s, the rich parents hired a super cool tutor, but in a digital world, the advantages are close to none - a broadband connection makes these students even on access to resources and study materials as textbooks, tutorials etc are available for free. This system, if implemented, would be a farce on so many levels.To conclude, we are back to where we were 60 years ago - there is a very poor, highly discriminated section of society that needs help and we have no well defined educational policyin practiceon a national level that helps them.So, whats the final solution?I do not have a clear answer to this nor the expertise, but my take would be:education reform spread over at least 2 decades is necessary, as there is no silver bullet to this problem. The only way to help them is to improve the education system so that more students are retained, and provide students with access to internet so that there is equality in access to information.

Education:A income based reservation system with reduced quota (30% among students below poverty line) along with increasedretention of studentsin terms of access to education should be the priority short term. Long term, mainstream primary education sector should be focussed on socialistic public education (public schools mostly suck today), compulsory and partially free (retaining mix of private and public schools with elements of Germany(Gymnasium system), China and UK education systems in the same order) and higher studies should be capitalistic (elements from USA, China and UK education systems in the same order). Private schools for the gifted and differently abled should be allowed - with regulations. India can take a lot of inspiration from China in this - these problems were faced by China 3 decades ago. China opened up its doors to foreign universities and collaborations, which we have not done yet. Chinese schools are ranked as the best right from primary education in terms of science, math and reading skills. Instead of trying to write history books with an agenda, both state and central governments should get started on these short term and long term changes on a war footing.