Reservations in Karnataka: a hollow promise

 Much is made in politics and public debate about reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward classes and minorities. But after seven decades of implementation, it is worth asking whether this policy has truly delivered what it promised. Successive governments have spoken of empowerment through reservations in education and jobs, yet the reality in Karnataka tells a very different story.

Take the case of government employment. According to official figures, more than 2.5 lakh sanctioned posts remain vacant across departments in Karnataka. Every ministry—from education to health, revenue to public works—operates with skeletal staff. The governments, regardless of party, have found it financially impossible to fill these posts. Salaries and pensions for existing employees are often delayed by months, and on many occasions the state has admitted to financial insufficiency. If the government cannot even afford to pay its current staff on time, how can it promise jobs to lakhs of unemployed youth under the reservation system?

Instead of regular appointments, the trend has been to hire on a part-time, contractual or guest basis. Nowhere is this more visible than in education. Thousands of guest teachers are taken in for ten months a year and paid a fraction—sometimes one-fifth—of what regular teachers earn. They are relieved at the end of the academic session and left to fend for themselves. It is hardly enough to spend it on conveyance and meals than the salary they take home. Other departments too have resorted to similar arrangements, saving money while exploiting educated youth. What meaning does “reservation” have in such a situation, when the jobs themselves have no dignity or security?

The picture is no brighter in higher education. With the mushrooming of engineering, medical and professional colleges in Karnataka, seats are going abegging. In many cases, anyone with the ability to pay some capitation fees can secure admission. Reservation quotas therefore lose their edge as a tool of empowerment, because access is no longer the barrier. Quality and affordability are the bigger concerns, and these are precisely the areas where the state has abdicated its responsibility.

It is in this backdrop that one must re-examine the entire idea of continuing reservations endlessly. The intent behind them was noble: to undo centuries of discrimination and exclusion. And undeniably, they have helped many families from SC, ST and OBC backgrounds enter universities and offices. But today, with government jobs shrinking, higher education commercialized, and fiscal bankruptcy staring at the state, reservation has become more of a political slogan than a meaningful instrument of justice.

The hard truth is this: Karnataka’s governments do not have the resources to sustain large-scale recruitment, nor the will to improve public universities. In such a climate, repeatedly invoking reservation amounts to little more than cheating the very communities it claims to protect. The time has come, at the very least, to admit this hollowing out. Whether one argues for scrapping or for reform, the present model of reservtions has lost credibility