Caste Reservation and Casteism

‘’ We are Indians, Firstly and Lastly”

~ B.R Ambedkar

Caste Reservation has been one of the most controversial till now. Reservation is given to the people who belong to the lower caste community. But now the question arises that “Why reservations are still given as there is no more practicing of casteism?

People dwelling in urban areas think that no one discriminates in today’s time, but you will be shocked to know that untouchability is still practiced all over the country.

Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are the 2 states where untouchability is abundant and people still hesitate to stand beside an SC or an ST. Most of the ground reports and coverages in rural areas have proved that people of higher castes still believe that some people are inferior to them. Thanks to the strict rules, discrimination is not as high as it was practiced many decades ago.

“ Casteism is the leprosy of the modern world”

~Namramita Banerjee

Dr. B.R Ambedkar

Being a Dalit himself, Mr. Ambedkar himself experienced the filthy behavior done by the upper caste people. At his office, the clerk who belonged to an upper-caste family used to throw files from a distance toward his desk to avoid getting in contact with him. When the constitution was adopted in 1950, ‘Article 15’ prohibits discrimination against Indians based on religion, caste, race, sex, or place of birth. A movie called Article 15 was also released that told the truth about casteism.

Well, let’s talk about some incidents that had happened before.

-During the water crisis in Uttar Pradesh last year, the water supplies and aids were only for the upper-caste people, backward classes weren’t even allowed to take a single sip out of it.

-In 2018, A lower caste man prepared a mid-day meal in a school, but the food was thrown away as most of the children refused to eat. At the same time, people die of malnutrition, and here the whole food is thrown away just because it was prepared by an SC.

-Last Year, a Dalit boy was beaten by the upper caste men as he was trying to enter the temple.

- Recently, A Dalit man was killed by the upper caste men just for eating in front of them at a wedding,

These are only a few incidents, you can search and find more of them. Manual Scavenging is a very dangerous and life-threatening job that can even kill a person as these drains release poisonous gases. This horrifying job is still done by ‘Balmikis’ a sub-caste of Dalits.

After reading all this we can conclude that until casteism and discrimination is completely abolished, we cannot remove reservations for them but some changes can be done to equalize opportunities for all.

