Policy of Reservation: A Study on the Relevance of Caste Based Reservations in Higher Education of India

Abstract

Diversity is an identity as well as unique nature of Indian society, where the socially and economically weaker section of the society always discriminated, deprived, exploited, and excluded since the time of immemorial. They are known as socio-economically disadvantaged sections, Dalit, Untouchable, Abarna, Harijan, etc, which termed as scheduled caste, and scheduled tribes in Indian constitution. During the time of British Raj, several social reformers and voluntary organizations or associations tried to remove such types of inequality, discrimination, exploitations from Indian society, but they didn’t successes at all.  After the independence, the constitution of India provides some affirmative action’s, positive discriminationor policy of reservation for the socio-economic and educational upliftment of theweaker sections as well as to remove and compensate historical injustice, inequality, discrimination, exploitation, and to established justice, equality, fraternity in the Indian society.  Some proponents claim that the policy of positive discrimination or reservation is a significant way to rectify the past injustices against socio-economically disadvantaged section of the society. This reservation policy makes it easier for depressed classes to get into higher educational institutions or get a government jobs as well as political representation to some extent. On the other hand, some opponents claim that reservation policy creates perverse incentives that strengthen traditional caste boundaries and encourage backwardness in Indian society.In this particular research paper, we would like to analyze the actual need of caste-based reservation policy specially in the field of higher educational sector in India. This article is purely based on the secondary sources of data, collected from various books, journal articles available in internet.