Question

Do you think reservation are against right to equality ?

Answer 1

Hmm I think so....

Our government has a scheme for backward caste people ( remained backward because of reservation) called reservation. Here you can get admissions in college by scoring half the marks required for other people, get jobs and promotions by showing that you are SC/ST even if your father is CM and your family income is more than 20 Lacs per annum.

Is it not against right to equality? Not for our constitution. But why? We did not made them poor. Then why should we suffer because of them. Raise our voice people. Also you can comment if you disagree or have a better idea.

Hope it helps you ☺✌✌

Answer 2

Reservation is part of the affirmative action which is again mentioned in the Constitution in the Part III - Fundamental Rights in Art. 15(3), 15(4), 16(3), 16(4), 16(4A) and fits in the broader purview of the  objectives of social justice and socio-economic democracy. It can also be derived from Directive Principles in their broader understanding.
 
It would be counterfactual and counterproductive to pit one FR against the other as both address particular concerns of society and can be taken in different contexts. What I would suggest is we must go for the doctrine of Harmonious Construction. Therefore the debate could be steered towards what is the vision of the Constitution and where are we headed vis-a-vis reservations.
 
Although, Art.14 guarantees Right to Equality before law, we cannot deny that reservation has also been enshrined as a proviso. Having said that, the forefathers of our Constitution never envisioned reservation to be deep-rooted in our democracy and be a perpetuity. This can be ascertained from the fact that all the above-mentioned articles are provisos while Article 14 is a standalone. Moreover, the reservation of seats in Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies were made for a decade post adoption of the Constitution in 1950 and not indefinitely. It is our successive governments who have been amending the Constitution to extend it every decade - the latest being the 95th Amendment Act which has pushed the reservations till 2020.
 
The sustained continuance of reservation points at one or more of these:
1) inability to lift the backward classes, SCs, STs, etc. from their predicament and assimilate them into the mainstream,
2) competitive vote-bank politics being played in the name of caste,
3) limited understanding of the goals of the Constitution,
4) lack of a vision of a post-reservation India,
5) unwillingness or inability to address the root of the problem.