Like other socially conscious citizens, I too have been concerned about the protracted agitation against reservation in institutes of higher education for OBCs, and the impasse created by the rigid stand taken by both the government and the agitators. The supporters of reservation argue that the backward classes have been deprived of equal opportunity for good education and hence their children cannot compete with those from the prosperous upper castes and require reservation to bridge the gap.

If we accept this, we have to ask ourselves whether the reservation route is in fact the best means to bridge this gap. Based on my own experience over the last 45 years as a teacher and researcher in the field of rural development in premier institutes, I am convinced that: one, securing social justice for everyone — and not necessarily only for the people belonging to SCs, STs, and OBC — is a desirable goal. Two, as borne out by the experience of the last half century, reservation is not the best available instrument to achieve the goal of social security for all. Three, the proposed reservation will not secure social justice to those who are deprived of it — it will only benefit the creamy layer of the eligible classes who are neither poor nor in need of social justice. There are other alternatives to reservation which are financially more efficient, socially more equitable and politically more acceptable.

For the sake of brevity, I have tried to encapsulate my proposed solution in the form of a package of recommended lines of action. First, we need to provide equal access and equal opportunity to free quality education to everyone, irrespective of caste, creed, and economic status, right from the primary to the higher secondary school level. For this we will need to build reasonably good schools equipped with modern teaching and learning facilities, recruit and train teachers in large numbers, and entrust the management of these schools to panchayati raj institutions.

... contd.