Caste Politics is perhaps the ugliest part of Indian democracy. Those leaders who claim to be supporting the weakest, often are those who grab their opportunities away, all in the name of political vote banks.
Caste based reservations in jobs and in schools and colleges was a very bad idea to start with. That is why it was planned to be applicable for a limited period of 10 years. But the corrupt politicians made the policy become an eternity – as they secured them strong vote banks from amongst beneficiary castes. The list of so called ‘lower’ castes was regularly enlarged in order to attract votes from maximum castes possible, and even those castes which took pride in being ‘upper’ are now fighting for a ‘lower’ tag. It is indeed a race towards the bottom. To ensure the politicians get patronage of maximum voters; they expanded the bracket of ‘Creamy Layer’ income limit. Therefore, today the poorest among the benefitting castes (from reservation policy) remain in oblivion while richest among the same benefitting castes (covered under quota) grab and swallow all the seats meant for the poor.
In a very welcome move the Supreme Court has allowed a petition which challenges this unfair raise in Creamy Layer income limit:
Creamy layer income: SC admits plea
TNN, Dec 13, 2010, 08.51pm IST
NEW DELHI: The SC on Monday admitted educationist P V Indiresan’s petition challenging the legality of the UPA government’s decision to raise the creamy layer income limit from Rs 2.50 lakh to Rs 4.50 lakh per year for OBCs.
Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate K K Venugopal said that by this increase, the poor among OBCs would be pushed out of reservation benefits by the rich among the backward classes.
The government had defended the decision saying it was a reasonable increase despite many elected representatives demanding raising it to Rs 25 lakh.
This is good news. I believed Creamy Layer limit has been hiked for political aspirations of corrupt leaders. It should be set at 1 Lakh maximum, otherwise the rich among the OBCs swallow the seats meant for really poor. Let us hope some sense prevails in the “mad rush to the bottom”.
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