The Parliamentary Committee has asked the State government to submit a proposal for reserving five constituencies for Scheduled Tribes and two constituencies for Scheduled Castes in the 40 member Goa Legislative Assembly. As seven of the 40 constituencies will be reserved, it is but natural for some to feel bad. Some of them might have already started to manipulate the caste equations in their constituencies as per their wish, so as to avoid reservation during the delimitation process. One must understand that the main intention of reservation is to bring the backward castes into the national mainstream. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar had already identified in 1949 that if financial and social independence are not bestowed upon the society, then the noose of the caste will become tighter. That is exactly what is happening now. We need to go to the root of the issues to understand the reasons. This reminds us of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar because in order to analyze the situation, we need to go till the inception stage of the framing of Constitution. This drafting of the Constitution was done before independence. In 1946, Babasaheb gave a memorandum on behalf of the Scheduled Caste Federation to the Constituent Assembly on how the Constitution of our country should be. He said, India is facing many issues like the caste, class system created by capitalistic, feudal society and mentality. In order to find a solution to these issues, Constitutional provisions must ensure that in post-independent India, the financial powers must not wrest in the hands of a particular class. The issue of reservation was not in question till then and Scheduled castes, tribes were not accepted by the society. Majority of the leaders of that era were thinking of bringing these castes and tribes into the mainstream through reservations. Hence, reservation was accepted at that time but not on a permanent basis but as an adjustment to the prevailing situation.
A study of Constituent Assembly’s business revealed that while Ambedkar and Nehru were in minority, Rajendra Prasad and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad were in majority. Their efforts were to preserve the system of capitalism and feudalism. Hence, there was no possibility of private owners or capitalists being disturbed. Hence, Ambedkar opined that the problem is being solved temporarily, through the Constitution, and the Constitution will lead to the integration of the society, and build India as a nation. After drafting the Constitution and presenting it to the Constituent Assembly, he had said in his speech, “I am worried about the future of the country. There are three reasons for the apprehensions. Our country literally ‘worships’ individuals and many a times considers a person greater than or above the nation. Therefore, we must first learn to treat the nation as superior, and in comparison, consider a person as inferior. There are people in our society who always betray the common man, and that leads to foreign invasions of the country. But today in this capitalist era, if the development does not reach the common people, then in a sense, the people in power will play the same role of treason that they used to play. In order to integrate the nation, to give social equality, justice, brotherhood and financial equality, political democracy is given. Meaning, one person can caste one vote. But it couldn’t give financial and social democracy. The issues of the country will remain unsolved, till we do not create financial and social democracy along with political democracy.”
We must understand that reservation is the first step to achieve this. We cannot neglect the fact that such unprivileged are yet to achieve social and financial independence.
