A survey conducted by SARI, Social Attitude Research for India found out what people in metro cities like Delhi think about reservation policies.  In Delhi, about half of the respondents say they do not support it. Responses vary by social category, and support is more common among people from reserved categories. The graph shows differences in opposition to reservation by social categories. The lowest opposition is among respondents from the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC), while the highest opposition is found among general caste respondents.

Reasons for such opinion-

• Undermines Merit-Around 56% of the respondents said that jobs and seats in schools should be allocated on the basis of “merit,” they are referring to the fact that people from reserved categories are often given a concession of a few points on exams and in interviews.
• Violates Equality- Some of the respondents said that they opposed reservation because they believe in equality.
• Income based- Some people say that they oppose today’s reservations because they believe reservation should be made on the basis of income rather than social background.
• Political misuse- Misuse of reservations for political gains- political parties have misused the tool of reservation for their vested interests which has hampered the real objective of granting reservation.
• Reserve category candidates have been charged of not working hard as they do not have to compete with the general category students.
• Present generation of general category do not understand why they should suffer because of the wrongs committed by their ancestors.

Many of the above mentioned reasons like undermining of merit, violation of principle of equality and income based reservation do not stand the test of rationality due to following points,

• When people complain about lack of merit due to reservation, they overlooks the important disadvantages that people from reserved categories face in going to school or getting a job today. Reservation is a useful tool to level the playing field: we cannot expect groups who have been historically deprived of education, skills, and access to other means of economic mobility to suddenly start competing with those from groups who have had access to these means for centuries. Social transformation and building of economic and cultural capital takes time to be passed on from one generation to another. It is an all too commonly held belief that people from general castes are meritorious inherently. Yet, the ability to decipher test answers or speak confidently in an interview is often the result of being nurtured in an environment that is a result of accumulated economic, social and cultural capital. Children who grew up in a dominant caste household are often encouraged, supported, and helped to succeed by other members of their caste groups, while reserved category students rarely have such networks to draw on.
• People are often wrong when they say that reservations violate equality. Reservation is a policy tool that promotes equality rather than undermines it. The primary reason why reservation was written into India’s Constitution was to ensure representation of all social groups in positions of power. When people from all social groups are represented in government, higher education, and in business, it is less likely that traditionally marginalized groups will continue to be denied fundamental rights and access to their fair share of society’s resources.
• Similarly reservation is intended not to be an anti-poverty program. The government has many programs which are, in principle, accessible to all poor people. Reservation exists because, in addition to being more likely to be poor than general castes, Dalits, backward Muslims, and Adivasis face social discrimination and exclusion that poor people from general caste backgrounds do not face. The fact that the right to education, the right to own land, the right to conduct business or to pursue a well-remunerated occupation has been reserved for men from high caste backgrounds for generations means that government must take steps to correct the unequal distribution of rights.

How these opinions can be changed?

• Most of the mentioned reasons are due to wrong mindset, incorrect perspective and immature thoughts about the reservation policies. Thus first thing is to change their mindset and attitude towards reservation system.
• Educating youth about impact of caste system, its existing discriminatory practices in present Indian society and still prevalent exclusion because of caste system.
• Government needs to scale up the educational and employment opportunities both in private and public sector so there should not be conflict and fight between different communities.
• The progressive steps should be taken to make sure that poorer section among the backward communities should get the benefit of reservation system.
• Political parties must not be allowed to use caste or reservations as political tools which defeats the very purpose of granting reservations.

Conclusion-

The principles of Justice, Liberty and Equality are integral part of our constitution and the policy of reservation was adopted to entitle these rights to historically degenerated classes. Thus government and civil society work in tandem to realize its true purpose.