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While ideas and concepts inspire generational changes that have resulted in tremendous progress when minds undergo changes that are relevant to the given situations, however the most self defeating aspect against progress is when mediocracy is given precedence of meritocracy. This is the substance of what is known in India largely as ‘reservation’ or ‘quota’. This is the consequence of the politics of appeasement which has unfortunately blunted meritocracy in India. While the reservation issue for ST\/SC as a national policy makes sense somehow; the same being pursued within the reserved categories in other states makes less sense. However, on closer scrutiny, at least with respect to Nagaland, it would point to a situation where some areas inhabited by some tribes do not have equal opportunities to education and jobs etc. Economic and moral arguments are specious as the economy or ethical standards of conduct are not entities that exist in a vacuum. The Cabinet Sub Committee Working Group for reservation in government services (CSCWG) is mooting that the reservation policy in the state be based on Census 2021 data. How this criteria will be formulated is one aspect while the more challenging one is whether such formula will be accepted by tribe or community. Ironically, while Nagas like other north eastern tribes are classified as economically and educationally backward and are classified as scheduled tribes (or those living in the forests); within Nagaland itself there are some tribes that are classified as backward. This leads to a situation where a backward state like Nagaland within itself has backward sections or backward within backward. When those who feel they are not in a position to leverage the best they can out of the social system, they re-engineer it democratically or otherwise. One cannot pay lip service to democracy and impose the same social conditions that led to the disparate development in the first place. The issue has taken a new turn, perhaps like the situation in mainland India where there is growing clamor for expanding reservations to more communities. While the SC\/ST quota in central services has remained at 10%, the same has been showing a marked increase in Nagaland. The NSF has stated that the percentage of reservation in Nagaland at 41% is very high. The students body said 4% is for physically challenged, 6% for Chakhesangs and Pochury, 4% for Zeliang, 2% for Sumis of Kiphire and 25% for ENPO. NSF said that if the government accepts 45% job reservation be made for ENPO as demanded by the 6 tribes of eastern Nagaland, the total percentage of reservation in the state will shoot up to 61% and leaving a pittance of only 39% for open general candidates. The cabinet is seized of the matter and has proposed to decide on the criteria on the basis of the 2021 census data. If this is done, then it will make the reservation more economic-based than on merely being a member of a community. There are many ways in which economic backwardness among some sections can be improved and certainly it is not by conceding to demands from all and sundry for reservations. The reservation issue is an abstraction layer that represents the reality of our society. It would be more enlightening if the issue of reservation has with it, the required data from surveys on the areas and people that are considered less developed so as to provide a broad picture for implementation of the policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Backwards within backward<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}