The Reservation Theory Part 2

This post is the second part of a series that I have started so that I can write down about what I feel towards reservations and the quota system. You can check out the first post of this series at 'The Reservation Theory Part 1'

Reservations tend to limit the thinking of some sections of the society as they are given ‘benefits’ which they think will work towards their betterment. What they fail to realize is the fact that they won’t arrive at a better position in life, depending only on these reservations. My colleague Kushal Sharma read my previous post and he told me “Dude, do you think the government really wants these people to come up in life? If they really do want this to happen, then why are they not making policies that will help the poor?” I thought about it and I said “Yes, dude. You really have a valid point”. I like to think and I thought deeply about this. I racked my brains and then I realized the fact that if the government or rather the political parties really wanted to help them and bring them out of the puddle, then it would have had achieved it by now. During every election phase, every new candidate promises “upliftment of the poor”. I ask, why hasn't it been done in the last 60 years? This has not been done because this is the strongest point which gets the political parties their valuable votes.

In the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, Morgan Freeman says, “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free”. Hope. This is what these people have. They hope that at least one of these electoral candidates will help them in living a better life. However, only hope can never set anyone free. You have to work towards it. Sadly, people in India rely heavily on help from outside rather than helping themselves. This is where the government comes into the picture and uses them as pawns for its benefit.

The government according to the constituency of democratic India is ‘by the people, of the people and for the people’. I understand ‘by the people’ as we make the government i.e. we vote for the candidates and then they are elected in their power. What I fail to understand is the concept of ‘of the people and for the people’. Of the people essentially means that the people of a country own the government as they are the ones who have elected it. In India it’s the other way round. The government acts like it is the creator of the people in the country. It imposes rules, regulations, policies, reservations, systems etc on the people without even bothering to think about the well being of the people. The prime reason for this is corruption. People from the highest power to the people in the lowest power are corrupted to an unimaginable level. In India, you can bribe anyone from a small time traffic cop to the, ahem.., Chief Minister, Governor or even the Prime Minister. Or else, how can you expect a person who earns (estimate) around 43k INR per month and still has enough money to support his future generations even after retirement?

In India people from the ‘ruling’ political party are amongst the richest people. Ruling. This is the exact term that is used by the bureaucrats when they have to mention political parties. The political party which is running the government is termed as the ‘Ruling’ party and the one opposing it is termed as the ‘Opposition’ party. I understand the term Opposition as it signifies that the ‘a certain political party is opposing the other one, which is essentially the political party that is running the government’. However, I fail to agree to one term. Ruling Party. How can a political party rule in a democracy? Democracy itself means ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’. Then how can a political party rule the people? I would really like someone to explain this concept to me. Why do we say ‘the ruling party’ when we are the ones who actually run the country? Is this what we mean when we say ‘of the people’? If yes, then I don’t see the ‘people’ anywhere in the picture....