Jammu, Mar 13: People’s Conference (PC) legislator Sajad Gani Lone Wednesday said that the reservation policy had pushed Kashmiris out of the competitive space.
“With every passing day, we see less number of Kashmiris passing competitive exams. It is not because they are incompetent, it is because their space is being steadily shrunk,” Lone said while speaking on the demand for grants on the floor of the house.
He said that Kashmiri were a distinct ethnic group and they were being crowded out of the competitive space because of the system of reservation.
“Of the 60 percent reservation, 8 percent is allocated for Scheduled Castes (SCs), despite there being no SCs in Kashmir. Similarly, 60 percent of Scheduled Tribes (STs) are in Jammu, while only 40 percent are in Kashmir. As a result, a significant portion of Jammu’s population falls under reserved categories, whereas Kashmir remains largely under the Open Merit category,” Lone said.
He said that there was already a regional bias and “now there is bias within the region”.
“Initially, Kashmiri-speaking candidates would come under the RBA category, but now its proportion has been lowered from 20 percent to 10 percent,” Lone said.
The PC legislator drew the attention of the house to the selection of Kashmiri candidates in KAS over the last three years.
According to him, 19 percent of Kashmiri candidates made it to the coveted service in 2023, 25 percent in 2022, and 17 percent in 2021.
“Conduct an internal survey to determine how many candidates from the Kashmir region would have qualified if there were no reservations,” Sajad asked the government.
He alleged that efforts were being made to impose social supremacy on Kashmiris by disempowerment.
“Place your hand on your heart and tell me, when you visit the secretariat after 20 years, how many Kashmiri-speaking KAS officers will be there,” Lone said.
He said that social-ethnic bias was a reality at the workplace and would persist indefinitely.
“It would go on and on,” Lone said.
Terming the reservation policy unfair and a posted-dated cheque for disaster, he said that the people of Kashmir had just come out of a conflict after 30 years and there should be some special measures for recovery.
“Instead the discourse from Delhi appears to be like ‘to teach them a lesson,’” Lone said. “That script was written by the enemies and this script is written by us.”
He questioned where Kashmiri students would go if the government pushes them to the wall by denying them admission to colleges.
Lone said that the government should act and do away with the system of reservations.
