Reservation for Backward classes

[rktpro]

In a number of countries, some sections of the society are backward, both socially and economically. The government of such countries, for ex. India, has granted reservation of certain percentage in the governmental services. This percentage is 27% for India. This means that people who belong to reserved class will get 27 seats out of every 100 in department, if they apply for the respective jobs.

The advantage of this system is that people who are socially and economically poor can get benefit and raise themselves as active citizens.

The disadvantage is that those who have better qualities and belongs to general or unreserved section of society get no job and those who even being less qualitative but belonging to backward class avail jobs easily.

Also, the reservation is for only those backward classes who are not socially and economically well-up. But, all citizens of this category avail this service eve if they are far above the poverty line.

So, according to you, is reservation for certain quotas necessary and what are it's advantages and disadvantages?

[lemur]

I suppose it would depend on what you see as the ultimate goals of economic structuring and how you want people to live in the long run. The economic effects of distributing money through jobs in government, corporations, contracts, grants, etc. can be analyzed and evaluated. I usually find it a bit short-sighted to act as if most jobs are really a question of qualifications, since they are often relatively meaningless functionary positions. Ideally, everyone would have access to the means to economically self-sustain and do so but since this doesn't occur in many cases, you're stuck with the dilemma of how to intervene and how not to and why.

[Marat]

If affirmative action programs are addressed to real, personal, and objectively measurable disadvantages then they are ethically far less questionable than those based on membership in a group which has in the past suffered historical discrimination, even if the particular beneficiaries in that group have not themselves experienced any disadvantage. No one objects to a blind student having a special typewriter and extra time to take an exam, but it seems a bit odd that an impoverished American white male who overcame childhood leukemia (and now no longer qualifies as disabled) and who has struggled to get excellent grades in high school has to take second place behind a wealthy American black female who grew up in Paris and who may have had the benefit of private tutors and a private school education.

 

The whole original goal of the civil rights movement in America was to ensure that people would be judged as individuals and not on the basis of their race, and yet now, under affirmative action, everyone is judged according to the racial stereotypes that all white males are advantaged and that everyone else is disadvantaged.