Answer:

The reservation policy was a corrective step towards the castes that were subjugated and marginalized since centuries. Since, they were not in position to compete openly for the employment and education opportunities, reservation came as a great equalizer.

It has been useful in ensuring justice and equal opportunity to the socially oppressed groups due to following reasons:

♤ Increase opportunities – It provides greater opportunities for the backward classes to break the shackles of oppression in a society where still caste plays a dominant role.

♤ Equitable distribution of benefits of development – It increases the possibility of distributing the benefits of development equally and reduce inequality in the society.

♤ New social order – It helps in securing a just position to the underprivileged in the society and an opportunity to rise on social scale.

♤ Political and economic power- It has led to emergence of political and economic leaders among the lower castes giving them confidence that had been missing for centuries.

However, reservation has been a matter of continuous debate in Indian polity. It is opposed due to following reasons:

♤ Hardening caste identities and promoting caste based politics.

♤ Replacing of merit by mediocrity especially in cases of promotion.

♤ Political attempts to include more and more castes in the reserved list for votes

♤ Reservation and anti-reservation agitations triggering violence like that in Haryana and Gujarat.

♤ Increasing discontent among advanced castes due to misuse of this policy.

♤ Concentration of reservation of benefits by the well to do segments of the lower castes rather than benefitting the needy amongst them.

Thus, without doubt the policy has been proved to be a great equalizer, but it is also true that it has been misused. Moreover, it leaves out the poor and marginalized of other sections that need a push. Hence, it would be judicious to review the policy by improving its accessibility to every stratum of the lower castes. A gradual movement towards reservation based on economic criteria is now a feasible idea with the advent of ICT tools like ADHAAR.