KOCHI: The Supreme Court’s direction to scrap reservation in higher education has elicited sharp reactions with activists and community organisations pointing out that the court was overstepping its limits.
Lashing out at the Supreme Court observations on reservation, Dr Fazal Gafoor, chairman of the Muslim Education Society (MES), said that they are nonsensical and amounts to playing with fire. “The judge was quoted as saying that ‘some privilege remained unchanged 68 years after Independence,’ which is totally wrong. They should read history more. In the case of OBCs, national level reservation was implemented only in 2005,” the MES chairman pointed out.
The judgment seems to have internalised the Sangh Parivar ideology on reservation. They should look at the history of reservation in India. Though OBC reservation had been implemented in some states including Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the OBCs’ reservation came into national debate with Mandal Commission report which was submitted in 1980 but remained frozen till 1990, Dr Fazal Gafoor said. States began to implement OBC reservation in 1995 but it came into effect in the national level in higher education sector in 2005 only. Though the Mandal Commission had recommended 27 per cent reservation, it remains 6 pc to 8 pc now, he said. “The judgement deceives ‘class thinking’ of the judiciary,” the MES chairman observed.
M Geetanandan of Adivasi Gotra Mahasabha, said that the judgment, apart from being an unconstitutional one, would further strengthen the Sangh Parivars’ Fascist ideology on reservation. “There is no reason to review the reservation policy at this juncture. The caste census, which was initiated by the government, is yet to be released and the data is to be analysed to take a call on reservation in a scientific manner,” he pointed out.