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Suppose you have to select one teacher for a subject for your institute.You have the option of two teachers.<ol><li>The first teacher comes from the unreserved category, has been a brilliant student and possess excellent teaching skills</li><li>The second teacher is an SC/ST/OBC/EWS, has barely passed the examination and possesses hardly any teaching skill.</li></ol>Now suppose, according to the government policy, you have to select the reserved category teacher only, as the seat in this category is vacant.You may justify the selection of a poor-quality teacher on the ground of social justice, but have you ever thought about the justice that the government must do to the students?A typical teacher teaches thousands of students in his/her life, and they all get a poor-quality education in the government college, which affects their career prospects forever.So, the questions arise are,<ul><li>Is it morally right to give benefit to one citizen at the cost of thousands of citizens?</li><li>Will the students taught by such teachers compete with students who are taught by the best teachers in any competitive examination?</li></ul>It is thus evident that the reservation policy may be helping a very small number of people in India but harming a vast magnitude of citizens.Reservation also creates other types of complications in the social structures and institutions.For example, when the unreserved good teacher will see that the underserved teachers are getting the same salary and even faster promotion, they may prefer to quit such institution and join an institution which can pay them the true value of their ability.So, they may join the coaching centres, where they may be paid several times more salary than the schools.As a result, the students shall be doubly penalised, because they have to pay not only to their schools and colleges but also to the coaching institutes.Interestingly, even the reserved category student wants to learn from the best teachers and not from teachers merely on the ground that they belong to their category.<hr>What is true of an academic institution is true for every government institution.For example, if you employ less competent doctors in the government hospitals, you might have done justice to that reserved category doctor, but that doctor would be treating millions of citizens of India improperly and the damage done by him to the citizens would be hundreds of times more. And his patients shall not include only unreserved categories, but mostly the reserved category citizens.Interestingly, even the reserved category patients would like to be treated by the best doctor and not by the doctor belonging to their caste or category.In the same way, every job in government requires the provision of certain services to the citizens, and every job requires competency.For example, I was an IRS officer for more than 25 years, and I know that you require a high level of intelligence and ability to understand tax laws, make good tax cases, and adjudicate them. If you lack competency, you will be doing a poor job as a tax officer causing billions of rupees of revenue loss in your lifetime. The same can be said for any other government department.Moreover, reservation in promotion, make a mockery of merit when you see that reserved category person, who has much lesser competency supersedes you due to his caste. This demotivates the hardworking officials and they become indifferent to their work.Hence, if we want the government system to be efficient and effective, we have to remove the reservation system totally, one day, in a phased manner.Reservation is harming not the general category people only, but the entire country as for the benefit of a minuscule people we are harming almost everyone else in the country.It is leading to identity politics in such a way that people are more attached to the caste identities than national identity.<hr>Unfortunately, the caste-based reservation is such a big political issue that no political party dare to even talk about it due to the fear of annoying the reserved category people, who constitute the majority of the population.Hence, instead of removing it in one go, we must go for gradual elimination of reservation.We can first eliminate reservations in promotion, followed by reservations in jobs, and finally in the educational institutions.Instead of reservation, the government can spend additional resources to educate the disadvantaged section of the society and let them achieve everything on the basis of merit.If the reservation is not stopped soon, India is sure to suffer its disastrous consequence sooner than later.