I believe that the impulse to have reservation is the same as the need for smaller states: to find a voice for those who don't.
There were representations made to the British by the SC/ST and Muslims to have proportional representation in our legislatures but the Congress turned it down as unacceptable since it would end up dividing the society along caste and communal lines.
But the demands of a long suppressed mass of people had to find a voice and reservation has assumed a logic that cannot be reversed.
The need for all political parties to back quota and reservation is the only single point to stay in power.No other programme is capable of generating the kind of consensus as caste and religion,and nothing is as important today.Even the threat to the country,pales into insignificance.
It is only a matter of time when the society will split into a number of countless castes,all living with each other in uneasy peace.
It is well that the country introduce proportional representation in the legislatures to cap this relentless Balkanisation.
