What if there was never any reservation in services and educational institutes?
It would have brought about a disaster. Job and educational reservations were very vital in the view of Dr Ambedkar. In fact, while he advocated a 10-year period for the reservation of constituencies, he wanted reservation in services and colleges to be permanent. If those reservations were not put in place, there would have been a People’s War Group in every Indian state. The oppressed classes would have never found a channel to come into the mainstream. What would have been denied to them, they would have taken by force. In fact, I foresee the future generations taking up violence if this madness of privatisation continues. Job opportunities for Dalits are shrinking because of privatisation. So ‘what-if-there-were-no-reservations-after-independence’ is close to becoming a reality. And the way the poor Dalit youths will respond will answer the question what would have happened if there were no reservations in free India.