Why the Policy of Reservation is killing India

First things first, this post is in no way meant to be a Casteist rant. This post is meant to give solid reasons as to why India is being driven into the ground by the policy of Reservation, both caste-based, as well as reservation based on other criteria. You don't necessarily have to be an Upper Caste male to understand these reasons, rather, what you simply need is some common sense and a basic ability to use reason and logic.

Now that we've gotten all that cleared up, let me tell you why Reservation hurts our country so much. Firstly, in India, even though initially Reservation was only restricted to caste/tribe based quotas, it has today extended its tentacles much further. Today we have reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, religious minorities, Persons with Disability, Domiciles, and of course, for women. And this isn't restricted to just the Institutions of Higher Education, nope sir, we also have Reservation in all the three tiers of Government as well as the Civil Services Examination and you also have this dirty policy being implemented for Promotions.

What all this boils down to is that Reservation in India is not a policy that is implemented on a very limited scale, but rather it's a policy that touches most institutes and spheres of National importance, and this has an effect of compromising overall quality. Hence we have students of sub-standard intellect and merit being admitted to great Institutes of learning which also has the effect of spoiling the atmosphere for  meritorious students. In fact, a significantly greater proportion of these students who enter Institutes of Higher education through Reservation tend to fail miserably in their Academics and extra-curricular activities.

Thus the Government wastes crores upon crores of Taxpayer money on undeserving students who will go on to further decrease the quality of the work done in the wings of the Government they end up working in. Also, interestingly, it must be noted that most students tend to get a heightened awareness of  Caste based differences once they leave High School. This is another one of the detrimental effects of the Reservation System; it actually leads to the greater inculcation of caste based differences in the minds of students and this can actually lead to Caste based Antagonism and animosity among the students.

Furthermore, Reservation in Politics and the Civil Services leads to a large number of intellectually untalented people making it to the top echelons of the State who then hinder the proper and effectual functioning of the State; and it is indeed sad that there is now also a 1/3rd quota for Women in the Panchayats(the third tier of Government at the local level in rural areas). Panchayats are the lowest tier of government which need to in fact work the hardest to improve the condition of the rural masses but they are very greatly hindered by the burden of quotas which result in untalented and ineffectual leaders running the show.

Reservation also has a rather indirect fallout. It causes the emigration of a great number of our country's best minds who become sick and disgusted with a system in which their Caste/Gender/Community is more important for success than their talents and skills. This brain drain is a loss to India that simply cannot be allowed to continue. Indians in the States are a community with one of the highest IQs and educational qualifications, even higher than the Ashkenazi Jews. They also tend to be one of the highest earning communities. It is truly sad to see such talent going out of India in droves and leaving us with an ever greater proportion of the untalented and the unintellectual.

But things just don't end there. Reservation in recent years has grown so much worse with the introduction of several more reservations such as Domicile quotas and Women's quotas that now the truly open seats are barely a third of the total seats. This has already and will continue to lead to the deprivation of millions of our talented youth who will be unfairly deprived of significant opportunities just due to the selfishness of cunning politicians who wish to use Reservations as a means to appease selected communities and turn them into personal vote banks. But this cannot continue forever; when such a large section of the talented population is deprives of their deserved opportunities, such a situation will inevitably lead to social conflict and civil strife.

North Indians vs. South Indians: A rational Analysis

We've all heard or experienced an argument regarding the issue of the many differences between North Indians and South Indians, and we've all heard different contentions as to which one of the two groups is superior. Most Hindi speaking North Indians see South Indians as a very alien people with respect to their languages and culture. Many North Indians take pride in the fact that North Indians on average are fairer and taller than South Indians. South Indian men are regarded by many in the North as being very effeminate and unmanly.

On the Other hand, South Indians have their own multitude of stereotypes about North Indians. Northerners are regarded as savage, aggressive, rude and utterly uncivilized. Furthermore, many South Indians feel that the average North Indian is much less educated and less intellectually sound than the average South Indian. So which side is actually right? How does North India weigh against South India? Let us analyze this issue in an unbiased and rational manner.

First of all, we take four North Indian States that will be represent the North Indians and we weigh them against the four South Indian States. The four North Indian States we will take are Rajasthan, UP, Punjab and Bihar. We will analyze these states in comparison to their South Indian counterparts, namely, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

First of all, let's take a look an Economic indicator; the per capita incomes of the states mentioned earlier(the figures are for 2012-2013 unless mentioned otherwise) :

1. UP- 33269
2. Punjab- 88783
3. Bihar- 28317
4. Rajasthan- 53735 (2011-2012)
5. Tamil Nadu- 98550
6. Karnataka- 77015
7. Kerala- 80924 (2011-2012)
8. Andhra Pradesh- 78177

Now, after you have a look at these figures, it becomes clear that the South Indian states far outstrip most of the North Indian states we have selected in terms of per capita income, with the notable exception of Punjab. Thus economically it would seem, the South Indian States have beaten their North Indian counterparts. Now let's move on Literacy rates, which will definitely be a better social indicator of the standing of each of these States(figures are for 2011):

1. UP- 71.7
2. Punjab-79.7
3. Bihar- 63.8
4. Rajasthan- 67.1
5. Tamil Nadu- 80.3
6. Karnataka-75.6
7. Kerala- 87.89
8. Andhra Pradesh- 67.02

The picture becomes less clear after one looks at this data regarding the Literacy rates. The gap between the Literacy rates of South Indian States and North Indian States is not as great as in the case of their per capita incomes. In fact, one South Indian State, Andhra Pradesh has a literacy rate worse than all the North Indian States except for Bihar but it must still be conceded that South Indian States are also ahead as per this indicator. Now let us look at the Life Expectancy in each one of these States(figures are for 2006):

1. UP- 60.0
2. Punjab- 69.4
3. Bihar- 61.6
4. Rajasthan- 62.0

5. Tamil Nadu- 66.2

6. Karnataka- 65.3
7. Kerala- 74.0
8. Andhra Pradesh- 64.4

Even the Life Expectancy data does not show much disparity between North Indian and South Indian States though even in this case, the South Indian States do have an edge. After analyzing these three socio-economic indicators one can safely reach the conclusion that as of now, the South Indians are doing better on average than the North Indians but this conclusion has to be taken with a pinch of salt. I say this because statistics also show that South Indians are grossly underrepresented in the Armed Forces, they also wield nowhere near the same amount of political and bureaucratic clout as the North Indians in our country. Furthermore, North Indians are culturally far more numerous and dominant. But on the other hand, we also know that the IT industry and the scientific community in India have a much greater proportion of South Indians relative to their population. Thus one has to acknowledge that both these groups have their own spheres of influence and dominance.