It’s now a reality that there will be a 10% quota for the economically weaker sections in the society in Jammu and Kashmir as proposed by the J&K reservation bill. This proposal has been formally passed by the cabinet. The passing of the J&K reservation Bill is the first step to integrate Jammu and Kashmir constitutionally with the rest of the country which essentially means the first step towards the abrogation of the Article 35A.
The senior editor Pallavi said, “essentially what it says is that up to 10 percent reservation for the economically backward section in Jammu and Kashmir in public employment and educational institutions.”
Many BJP leaders have been talking about the fact that as long as you act on Article 35 A, Jammu and Kashmir can never be integrated. There will always remain the feeling of acting completely different from the rest of the country and therefore passing of the J&K reservation bill is a necessity. Prakash Javadekar said “ it has been approved by the cabinet. This will improve and provide social justice to the poor people of Jammu and Kashmir and there is a large number and therefore after many reservations which are now implemented in Kashmiri and last month, we have also given reservation for people living on international borders which were available earlier to only people living on Line of Actual Control. So that is now available to international borders also so these reservations support back to back in two months will help Jammu and Kashmir poor people and they will get the opportunity in employment and education.”
Earlier, the J&K reservation bill made an amendment to provide a 10% reservation in education and employment but it was available only to the residents of Line of Actual Control (LAC). Now, it was extended to the residents of the International Border (IB). The 77th Constitutional Amendment of 1995, which provides reservation for promotion of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, as amended by the Cabinet in which it also applied the 103rd Constitutional Amendment of 2019, providing 10% reservation to EWS. This quota is above the 50 percent reservation cap. The Centre defined those with an annual income of less than 8 lakh rupees to come under the category of economically weaker section and the new J&K Reservation can only be claimed by them.
What Jammu and Kashmir require is inclusivity that people should be given a chance to develop and it requires special needs but appeasement is not the way out. What we need to do is to provide an opportunity so that they can match up with the rest of the country and this task has been fulfilled by the J&K reservation bill.
