Let’s listen to the RSS chief. Contentious issues about India’s reservation policies need to be examined

We need to examine some highly contentious issues about our reservation policies: How far have the benefits percolated down the ladder? Has an elite within the SCs/STs monopolised all the benefits of reservation? Should we extend the exclusion of the creamy layer to SCs/STs as well?

We need to certainly examine some highly contentious issues about our reservation policies. (Illustration: CR Sasikumar)

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal,” said Aristotle. India has all kinds of unequals who were historically disadvantaged and exploited. Should they be treated now at par with the upper castes or as equals is the crux of the matter that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has raised. He has not opposed reservation and the Opposition is unnecessarily targeting him. He has just called for a debate on reservation in a harmonious atmosphere between those who are for social justice through quotas and those who favour “merit”. Reservation is considered anti-merit and a compromise on quality and efficiency of administration. Of course, no one really knows what “merit” and “efficiency” really mean. The RSS itself does not have clarity on reservation and that’s why not only has it been talking in multiple voices but even Bhagwat has been contradicting himself on the issue.