That is precisely the contention -- that it is not benefiting the people who want it most.
Dr R K Prasad: One day you are saying it is not helping the poor people. Will they be able and have the moral conviction to accept that the persons who were supposed to give them reservation were all from the upper class?
It is the ruling class that is responsible for not providing the 1 crore jobs. The poor cannot snatch jobs from you. Every time you write that a suitable candidate is not found, your career is gone. Numerous people have lost their careers because of that one line.
Dr Kapil Yadav: Then you remove the minimum qualifying (marks) also na? They say how can we give a seat to a person who is not competent? Then when it comes to education -- they say education is the job of the government. After 50 years if you can't open high schools in every village, you can forget about the Dalits. But nobody is questioning that. We talk about the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, still there is an 80 per cent dropout rate.
How long can India continue with reservation?
Dr Kapil Yadav: It should continue in the absence of any other measures. Intervention is most effective and that would be inter-caste marriages. You make inter-caste marriages mandatory and you don't need anything. Caste is a double-edged sword, you have to maintain the divisive nature and exclusive nature also. Oppression is only one part. Exclusiveness is what perpetuates it, otherwise how long will oppression alone continue.
Our fight is you should implement reservation that is due. First you put 27 per cent quota and if that gets full, you exclude the creamy layer. Last year at AIIMS, 5 per cent OBCs have been selected in Senior Residency, before that, since 1993, it was never done. When we asked why they said no one asked for it. This is the logic.
Dr R K Prasad: It is not a question of how long. It is about the government, the bureaucracy that is empowered to implement it. How fair they are in implementing the reservation policy will decide till what time we need it.
If for 50 years, the government and bureaucracy have failed to adjust around the 8 to 10 per cent reservation, then you can see the magnitude of callousness in Indian society. Unless casteism, which is deep-rooted in Hinduism, unless that goes it will not change.
Dr Rajesh Paswan: In times to come reservation will be confined to politics. In jobs your ability will be asked, not your caste. That is why we are coaching our kids to be more capable. If a non-Dalit student speaks very good English, I want my child to speak it as well and I will bring him up towards that.
Transformation is happening very slowly in Dalit society. Many Dalit children of IAS officers are doing MA in History etc, they are not doing MCA, MBA or Biotechnology. Those children whose parents are well off should go into areas where they can struggle and find a place for themselves. They should take risks that non-Dalit kids take, that's how I am going to bring up my kids.
But at a policy level I will not recommend that it should not be done. Reservation is still needed for another one or two generations because there has been unfairness, like we have seen in job selection.
Image: Dr Rajesh Paswan is the first Dalit lecturer in a 100-year-old college
Also read: What is the Dalit/OBC voice on quotas?
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