{"id":584,"date":"2003-05-07T20:17:47","date_gmt":"2003-05-07T14:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madmanweb.com\/2003\/05\/07\/job_reservation\/"},"modified":"2003-05-07T20:17:47","modified_gmt":"2003-05-07T14:47:47","slug":"job_reservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/2003\/05\/job_reservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Job reservations in the private sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ugly word "reservation" is making an appearance again in the
\nlegislative circles. Now, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati is considering passing
\na law<\/a> making a certain percentage of private sector jobs available only to backward castes. <\/p>\n

Job reservations for "backward" castes, regardless of merit, have
\nbeen present in government and public sector jobs for a long time now. Isn’t it
\nenough that we have to endure the appeasement of vote banks by shameless
\npoliticians? Why should the government interfere in the running of private
\ncompanies and dictate its employment policies? Unlike the government, social
\njustice (or the appearance of it) isn’t one of the responsibilities of private
\ncorporations. A corporation exists to make money for its shareholders. While you
\ncould argue that it has a duty to its employees, it doesn’t have a duty to
\nemploy<\/i>. A private corporation should be free to hire whoever it wishes,
\ncompetent or not, justified or not, and pursue whatever path it thinks will lead
\nto profitability. The government’s meddling will only result in more social
\ndivisions. Do they honestly think people who get hired only because
\n"there’s a quota for them" will be welcomed with open arms by other
\nemployees or that they will have a great career path? <\/p>\n

Reservations were originally intended to be a temporary measure; something to have in
\nplace while the government tried to provide education to the so-called backward
\ncastes and get them to equal societal and economic status. That they continue to
\nexist only points to the utter failure of the government to do so in the
\nlast 55 years since we became independent.<\/p>\n

You’d expect a politician like Mayawati to resort to such tactics, but what
\ndo you say when members of the intelligentsia also support these policies? JK<\/a>
\npoints to this news article<\/a> in which Narayana Murthy, the Indian media’s God of
\nthe software industry, opposes caste-based reservations proposed by Karnataka
\nChief Minister S M Krishna. He, however, extends his support for economic
\ncriteria-based reservations in our companies. In other words, Murthy wants us to
\nreserve a certain percentage of jobs for the poor. No, it’s not for
\ngovernment jobs but in the private sector. I’m not sure why Murthy, a capitalist
\nfor sure, is making such a statement. Why does he want to force philanthropy on
\nus? Why isn’t he content with just hiring the best people, regardless of their
\neconomic background?  <\/p>\n

His hypocrisy shows through in that he
\ndoesn’t think his own company, Infosys Technologies Limited, is a good place to
\nstart practising what he preaches. Does Infosys reserve any percentage of its
\njobs<\/a> — and I mean the serious software development jobs, not the lower end
\n"office attendant" type — for poorer people? No, they certainly
\ndon’t. If Murthy is serious about his intentions, let him put his money where
\nhis mouth is. That may, however, present a problem because there’s something
\nalready there. <\/p>\n

His foot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ugly word "reservation" is making an appearance again in the legislative circles. Now, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati is considering passing a law making a certain percentage of private sector jobs available only to backward castes. Job reservations for "backward" castes, regardless of merit, have been present in government and public sector jobs for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}