REPORT ON THE FIRST SESSION OF THE DPS YOUTH CONGRESS

Topic: Does Modern India Need Reservations?

The session commenced with 72 students (6 from 12 sections each) being seated in random groups.

One of our members addressed the gathering and introduced this absolutely new concept and platform to the students.

The discussion on the topic was carried out in phases.

Phase I: The participants were shown a presentation which showed certain basic facts about the reservations issue i.e. the history of the practice in India, Mandal Commission I, Mandal Commission II etc, who the SCs, STs and OBCs are etc.

This phase was an interactive one wherein the student’s mind was provoked to think rationally about the issue and not form any biased opinion. We constantly asked them questions to test their knowledge and remove common misconceptions. A common misconception was them confusing the SCs and STs with the poor sections of society.

Phase II: The participants carried out an informal discussion within their groups with of the organizers facilitating the discussion to ensure that each group has a holistic discussion on the topic and concentrates more on finding solutions (preferably at their level) to the problem at hand.

Phase III: The participants were to summarize their discussion i.e. an analysis of the problem and the solutions on a piece of paper. Later they were read out on the stage so that all students could hear them out.

Conclusion: Seeing young minds at work for their country was a very encouraging sign for us as we could see our dream take shape. When so many young minds work together, fruitful conclusions were ought to be drawn.

We were successful in making the students realize that just cribbing about the problem would not help rather we, the youth of this nation must provoke our inner selves to take action.

There were a lot of students who supported reservations till an extent, however they too strongly opposed the criteria on which this was granted as they felt it it should be merit based.

A summary of the solutions suggested:

At the national level:

• Awareness campaigns should be held in the isolated areas (that would include tribal and rural both) so that the people can be made aware of their right to education.
• Access to primary education should be made a Fundamental Right enforceable in court.
• Government should strengthen the infrastructure in government schools so that people with lesser means can also have access to a good standard of education. They must also set up institutions to provide coaching to students at lower costs for various entrance exams so that they can also have a fair chance.
• Reservations should be extended only to one generation of such classes and thus some sort of identity card should be issued to them which would be stamped once reservation is availed.
• This system of reservations would thus help in removing reservations in a phased manner and also ensure that the benefits reach the people who really require it.
• The private sector must recognize its moral obligation and form a system which would include setting up institutions which provide good standard of education at reasonable costs and also grant scholarships to people from these classes.

At a personal level:

• We all must listen to the call of our conscience which itself would guide us to take the right steps.
• We must recognize people from these classes which may include our domestic workers, collegues etc and show them the light that being educated brings with it. We could perhaps work on the philosophy of “each one teach one” which would make reservations unnecessary and bring about a change.
• We all must raise our voice against any sort of injustice that the government is doing and become more aware citizens.
• Take an active role in the working of NGOs or various literary missions that help in spreading necessary awareness among these classes.

We see a light in the citizens of tomorrow. These students showed us another dream…the dream of a country where there would be no reservations needed …where society would not be divided into so many castes and sub-castes…the dream of a truly united India. We are determined to fight for this cause and hope that through this session we aroused this dream in a lot of the participants too.