Why does India need reservations?

Absolutely, Caste based reservations are given to protect backward castes from caste based discrimination. Caste based discrimination is rampant in the Indian society. The upper-castes who dominate the bureaucracy redirect the essential resources to their localities by denying the backward castes of the necessary support to development. These include – schools, health centers, water, roads, public transport. You can see how they are locating the schools in a upper-caste locality makes scheduled castes and scheduled tribes children miss schools and be irregular. Also in terms of services – doctors don’t come, teachers don’t come, rations are not given, there are no roads, no power, teachers make kids sit in back row of the class rooms, mid-day-meals are not provided, they are punished in schools. Most of the 200-300M scheduled castes and scheduled tribes suffer from this discrimination in their daily life.

They can get ‘reservations’ in colleges only if they survive the discrimination in schools.

The upper-castes don’t suffer any such discrimination, they enjoy the benefits of the government schemes without discrimination and are able to move forward in life. The discriminated castes lag behind – increasing the gap between the castes.

Reservations are meant to protect the opportunities of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes who come from such discrimination.

Today, not many come of out this oppression. Many reserved seats for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes go vacant or their cut-off become low because the primary schooling is controlled by the upper-castes (60%) even though they are just 31% of the population. They use this to discriminate these kids early in life, stunting their interest in education. This was part of a human rights watch group report listed below as well.

Reference: India: Marginalized Children Denied Education

Discrimination in urban areas

The same discrimination takes different shape in urban areas. This was also a part of research studies.

Discrimination in employment

According to the research 33% of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes are rejected in the process of screening by knowing their caste in ‘private sector’. This was a study done by sending identical resumes to job portals and measuring the response. This study established a clear pattern where scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes were discriminated in the process of resume screening. What this essentially means? – 1 in 3 is a casteist. Now imagine 3-5 level interview process, there is a 1/3 chance of meeting a casteist. This increases the chances of a scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes being rejected rapidly to 85%.

**Figure: Need for reservations in private sector, evidence of discrimination**

Reference: Urban Labor Market Discrimination

Housing discrimination

This is another study done in the National Capital Region – Delhi. In this study, a team responsible for house listings in the NCR region with scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and backward caste names and upper-caste name; the results were astounding and shocking; 44% of people won’t provide housing in the nation’s capital to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes in urban metropolis.

Any parent will tell you that access to good schools is key to any child’s future. By simply denying housing the upper-castes deny access to schooling to the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes children…

**Reference**: Study shows NCR homeowners turn away scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward castes and Muslims

Untouchability and caste based marriages

This is a well know statistics of how many Indians practice untouchability.

27% of Indians practice untouchability
95% of Indian marriages are caste based marriages.

Reference: Just 5% of Indian marriages are inter-caste: survey

Private schools enrollment

This is the enrollment statistics of DPS in Delhi.

The population of India has 69% SC, ST and OBC. The enrolment data for SC, ST and OBC in Delhi Public School is less than 5%. This numbers indicate that the nation’s capital has discrimination based on caste.

Since there is discrimination by caste in India even after 73 years of independence, we need to provide protection to backward castes and untouchable castes.

Please note that even after reservations, the upper-castes dominate the government jobs and other opportunities.

**Figure: Reservation In India – Status**

Source – http://persmin.gov.in/AnnualReport….

We need reservations since the blue line representing the current distribution; and it is way above the black line.

-edit- from other answers on the same topic

Originally Answered: Does India still need caste based reservation?

Caste based reservations are protection against caste based discrimination in society. They are required as long as there is caste based discrimination in India.

Is there caste based discrimination in India?