Left Behind in the Mountains

Reducing reservation for Residentially Backward Areas in Jammu and Kashmir leaves the most isolated communities behind, deepening inequality instead of creating fairness.

- Bakhshi Mehmooda Ahmad

The decision to cut reservation quota for Residentially Backward Areas (RBA) in Jammu and Kashmir affects those who have lived on the margins for decades.

Officials call it "rationalization," a word that sounds fair, but for people from remote regions, the impact is anything but.

RBA reservation is about geography. It is about communities left without basic facilities for generations. It is about villages that remain cut off from electricity, roads, hospitals, and schools.

The new quota structure leaves SC and ST communities untouched, but the RBA, representing some of the most neglected populations, has been asked to pay the price.

Rationalization begins with those who already have the least.

To understand what backwardness means in an RBA, it helps to see it on the ground.

In places like Marwah and Warwan, electricity is unreliable, internet access almost nonexistent, and snowfall cuts off entire regions for months.