Do you think there should be reservation of seats for ST/SC in colleges in India

I absolutely agree with your opinion. If government does not make wise decision the poor will be bitter and our society can have its peace disturbed also. Personally, I feel that when some people argue against reservation of any kind in the name of justice, I think, they are just, may be unintentionally, promoting inequality where the rich will get richer and the poor being left behind to rot.

Thanks for your opinion. "Lower caste" like the children of Lalu Yadav or Mulayam Yadav et al are millionaires but there are millions of Dalits who struggle to get two meals a day. I think in rural areas that's still true. But the worse is the condition of the tribals. However, for those rich "lower caste and rich tribals" I think we can have a different pattern. But do you think a normal Indian would be willing to marry a person from lower caste/tribe who is well educated and so on? If such discrimination is not there we can say there is equality. But if people get discriminated during marriage, I would say, we still need much to improve.

I agree with your point of view. But younger generation is ready to marry without considering the caste; it may be a love marriage and should be against the consent of their parents. We have to wait so long to get that kind of equality……

I think younger generation are a lot more open than older people. But then we still keep reading in newspaper about 'honour killing' by relatives and khap panchayat. I guess things down below is worse than what is reported in newspaper. Newspaper may be reporting only the tip of the bigger iceberg. But yes, things are better!

So what do you think should be done? If we do away reservation in totality we may be throwing away the baby with the water. I think we can identify who are the ones who actually need reservation and then give reservation to them. I felt that instead of giving reservation based on caste/tribe we can give it based on financial condition. Thus if a Brahmin is so poor then he can be given reservation. But a rich tribe/caste can get out of the the reserved category.

That's one thing. The other side is to say if either parent is a gazetted officer or earning certain amount of money then the reservation will not be applicable to the kids, I think this will also work.

yes, financial condition should be the one and only criteria for reservation. but it should also be limited to one or two person per family. so that people should understand importance of family planning.

Fair enough. And thanks for response. I think we all are arriving at a consensus that income or financial condition should be the yardstick for such plan. I hope govt will change policy gradually and make that as the reason for reservation rather than caste/tribe status.

Suppose there are two children in a family. The older one was struck with polio and so he could not walk without external help. The younger one is healthy and does not need support. Now as they grow bigger parents send them to school. And if both the children are expected to walk 500 metres without any external help because parents felt that they should be treated equally do you think it's fair? I think in this situation because of condition of the older son equality would mean that the older son is provided with bicycle or something like that to commute. Take another example. When a child is sick should the parents give extra care to the child who is sick or should the parents give equal amount of time to both the sick and healthy? I think equal treatment would mean being 'bias' to the one who is sick. That is justice. I think as long as some section in the society is sick or paralysed they will have to be given more time and more care.

But suppose you got the best education because your father is well paid, and there is someone out there who just got out of govt school where as soon as he finished school he had to work in the field cos his father was illiterate, we can expect the two to be equally good. And the poor is poor many times because of government's policy. So we should expect the govt to relax on its policy in certain ways. Don't you think so?