“General category,” the most affected category in the contemporary era

No doubt, the government is doing injustice to people belonging to the general category. Today, nearly half of all government jobs and institutions are reserved for people of color. This is totally unjust and goes against the right to equality. But I know that almost the majority of SC, ST, and OBC candidates will oppose this idea because this reservation has made their lives easier.

The general category is suffering because of caste reservation?

Most of the general category students are suffering due to reservations. There is no reservation for the general category (in the sense that even general category seats are not available exclusively for them).

Let’s make this clear to you. The general category is an open category. This means that anyone from SC/ST/OBC can get it. Quoting a live example: Take the example of junior statistical assistant toppers held in 2021. If the topper (suppose Rank-1) is from SC, he/she is put under general merit, which means that he/she is included in the general category. But if the same person was getting a rank of 100 and 90 was the closing rank, only then would the candidate be allotted the reserved seat. This means that general category students are the ultimate losers. As long as there is a reserved category candidate above you (a general category candidate), he/she will be allotted a general seat, thereby reducing the seats for a general category candidate, which results in vacant reserved seats in most cases. 

In short, as long as the general vacancy does not get filled, it’s irrespective of the category (SC/ST/OBC) there by keeping the reservation for the SC/ST/OBC intact.

Also, UPSC allows a general category candidate to attempt 6 times and some reserved categories to attempt as much as they want. The hypocrisy is that these are the same people who preach the RIGHT TO EQUALITY!

It’s high time general category people fought for their rights.

India will progress by leaps and bounds the day it removes reservation.

Also, never ever bring up the topic of brain-drain! They aren’t treated equally in their own country, and then what else do you expect?

If not removing the reservation, at least keep the general category seats intact for the general category students and not give them to a reserved candidate who exercises double powers and the general category candidate who is suppressed to the greatest depth.

PS: From a candidate who missed the post by just one rank. If the general category seats were not allocated to a reserved candidate I would not have to study a year again (whose outcome I am still unsure of).

There should be different merits for a category and an open merit category. This means each category’s competition should be with category one only. Let’s see another scenario. If an area is in the RBA category, then children of doctors, engineers, etc. also get into the RBA category while they live in cities with high-class facilities.

And if a total of 100 posts are advertised, 50 of them are already allotted to the category. From the top, about 20 posts are reserved for open discussion, which ultimately means the posts’ ratio is not 50:50, but 70:30 (Reserved: OM).

The picture below surfaced on the internet a few days ago. What we suppressed is the general category of aspirants’ feelings right now. This picture depicts it perfectly. “Injustice”. We don’t blame reserved category candidates for it; we blame the system and those people who do nothing to end this injustice.

Views and Proposed Solutions by Aspirants

• Proper verification of EWS certificates:

Reservation policy must be restricted as much as possible, including that it shouldn’t exceed 6% in any of the categories. There shouldn’t be any reservations in the teaching vacancies of the education department when recruitment will be held.

• Reservation is harsh, but in a country with 200+ million untouchables, there is definitely a need for reservation. But this needs to be rationalized. But for that, there has to be political will, which unfortunately is lacking currently. Some financially very strong families have the benefits of reservation, while some living in extreme poverty fall into a general category.

• I think the newly introduced EWS would have been a really good way to make amends wherein the faults lie, but this extra reservation policy has only created more problems than it has solved.

• Currently, there is no chance that this faulty system is going to change at once, but what can be done is that the government should first fill the reserved seats, then move to open ones. Aspirants who come under a reserved category should be allotted a reserved seat unless there are no seats left in their category, and then the remaining students should be allotted the open merit seats. In this way, no reserved seats would be left vacant and more and more open merit seats would go to deserving general category aspirants. 

Conclusion

It’s totally an injustice to general category students. According to opinion, the percentage of seats reserved for different categories should be reduced or totally eliminated. Also, reservations should only be on a financial basis and only for the handicapped so that “The Right to Equality” becomes true in our country.

(The views expressed in the above article are personal views of the writer)

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Mudasir Koul

Mudasir Koul is an author at The Chenab Times