In Defence of Reservation

The support for the Women's Reservation bill reaffirms India's faith in affirmative action even as it highlights its dichotomous allegiance to 'meritocracy' at the cost of inequity

- Rakhi Bose

IN  the first week of September, a joke did comedian Swati Sachdeva in. Responding to a fan’s Instagram comment about ‘reserving’ a seat at Sachdeva’s concert if she happened to perform at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi, the comedian had quipped: “Quota wali aadatein gayi nahi tumhari” (You are not through with the quota-seeking habit yet).

Sachdeva received flak on social media for her now-deleted joke on reservations, especially because it came against the backdrop of the ongoing debate around caste discrimination leading to ‘institutional deaths’ in IITs and other premier education campuses in India.

On September 2, a Dalit student committed suicide inside the IIT Delhi campus. It was the second instance of an SC/ST student’s death by suicide on the same campus in two months, even as claims were made from some quarters that the victims’ caste identities were intrinsic to their respective suicides.

No wonder, Sachdeva’s seemingly innocuous joke led to outrage.  The two contrasting incidents, the suicides on one hand and Sachdeva’s controversial remark on the other, reveal the existing schism over reservation policies in Indian society. They also shed light on the challenging situations faced by the communities that are supposed to benefit from the reservation policy.

Affirmative Action: Why India Chose Reservations