Women's reservation - psychological benefits

Reservations may not be required in an ideal situation, just like hospitals might not be required in an ideal situation where everyone is healthy. But we have to take into account reality and the more hospitals the better would society be. Similarly, reservation is not a concept that has come out of vacuum. There is something like history and histories largely have predictable trajectories. However, it is man's experience that the trajectory of history, whether medical or social, can be changed. Our history says that certain sections of society were oppressed in certain ways. Reservation was suggested as a way of leveling the playing field. 60 years of experimentation in caste-based social reservations may not have produced ideal results and may have often produced counter-productive results. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that a psychological break-through was achieved and once-oppressed communities have now the confidence to stake their claim in the sunlight of equality. Facts and figures can almost prove or disprove anything. But the psychological benefits, often intangible but real nevertheless, are difficult to quantity. Women's reservation is an idea whose time has come or even come late in the Indian context. Let us have it. Let us support its passage in Parliament and Assemblies and see it as law. Only, we must also ensure that the law would provide for any irregularities and ambiguities to be corrected in the due course of the Bill’s existence in the statute books.