Reservation, Religious Conversion and Development of Schedule Class (ST/SC) in
India
Sudesh
Kumar 14/6/2008
Tribal and Christian are already two big social classes separate to each other.
Jharkhand High Court (HC) should not call Tribal-Christian to people
in official term since; it’s not giving any benefit to them for their past
life being a Tribal. By saying Tribal-Christian HC is itself creating new
social class in country. In better way HC should defined all converted people
as Christian. So that, people could be better off as Christian or Tribal coz
neither of them are minority as a whole in Indian context but, if new class
will be promoted as Tribal-Christian then, it will certainly bring a minority
class as per population size etc.
Also, I had been hardly heard the term - Tribal-Muslim or Tribal-Hindu asking
for their ST status. From my personal experiences, I know, govt. has no
objection if Tribal is Hindu (Tribal by origin + Hindu by faith=Tribal-Hindu)
and enjoying ST status to get all reservations. In real example – one of my
Oraon friends is Hindu (by faith & possibly from last many generations) and
he is enjoying ST status. Similarly, if another Oraon friend of mine is
Christian then he should be equally enjoying ST status like my Tribal-Hindu
friend do.
Why and how should the reservation be from my view?
If you go to get caste / tribe certificate from local govt office, at that time
officer does enquiry and verify your family backgrounds, such as
your family (sir) name etc. So, if you belong to particular tribe /
caste then possibly you would be carrying its Sir Name. But, when
religious conversion takes place, some people change format of their
traditional name including Sir Name. Also, at the same time, some people change
format of first and middle name but don’t change their Sir Name.
When people carry Sir Name means they feel proud to show their origin and
community or family identity of past life and generations. Now, if we find
people who still embrace their Sir Name but, namelogy or format of first and
middle name has changed due to religious conversion. In that case
person should be fully eligible to get Schedule or
Reservation status. Why? To better understand it, we should first know the
- why people need reservation and why they get it? It has needed to promote
everyone equally by a state. As we simply know, “a person / community deserve
to have schedule or reservation status if s/he is away from mainstream of
society and in trap of socio-economic-political backwardness (i.e., called
poverty circle in development economics language) more than the general
population.” Our governments have given reservation to a Tribal and
Dalit-Outcaste (person who is not associated to caste pyramid as
per ancient Hindu Religion) because they deserve to get it as per above
mentioned definition of need of reservation.
And this govt reservation policy certainly up-lifted many but, of course not to
everyone since, it was not that much perfect for everyone whoever comes in
Scheduled Status. So, some people of this status look for better-offs
through their individual efforts and out of these some got in catch
of religious conversion in order to speed-up their socio-economic-political
development, so that we can treat them equally.
>From the above discussion here, we find two elements to
>promote development of Schedule Status granted people.
1. Govt Development Policy for entire scheduled community;
2. Individual Policy - (education, job, business, access of future insurance
instruments and religious conversion etc). Here, religious conversion and
better access of Christian missionaries support is best individual development
tool in short run for one person or one poverty trapped community in Indian
context.
Now, the question is for how long this Scheduled Status should be granted to
people? After having better use of above mentioned both policies suppose,
people has been developed more from their previous level of life at all fronts
such as socio-economic and political etc. Then does it changed their past life?
Of course not and obviously it can change only present or future but not the
past. So, from their past life they have been carrying problems of long run
nature and it will take a long time to solve their problems of long run nature,
possibly it can take couple of generations. Now, we should be agreed to take
out reservation policy after certain time, let say after 3rd generations since,
it was granted. So, Dr Ambedkar was absolutely right, as he said this
reservation policy should be removed after certain numbers of years.
But, does present reservation policy did give equal development to all
scheduled status granted people? As we see, more than 70 percent of
people didn’t get benefit as much govt. have expected to provide them in order
to connect them from main stream of society. On the other side, there are also
30 percent of scheduled status granted people, who have used it at best. And
still these 30 percent people are using it even if they don’t deserve it. So,
our govt reservation policy is out dated now.
Here it can be concluded that – there is no question of how long reservation
policy should go but, the point is failure of govt reservation policy (either
due to political un-stability or whatever reason). Also, the problem that is
being faced by above mentioned 70 percent of Scheduled status granted people is
still main issue of concern because, if it goes on then we will have more added
problem such as - Naxal, Religious Conversion etc. So, can we look for such a
good policy that can finish poverty-circle of those 70 percent of Scheduled
status people including general people regardless of their caste, religion and
communities?
First Posted @ http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=5991
