by Nazira Maqbool
J&K’s reservation debate is intensifying as youth question shrinking open-merit opportunities, raising the challenge of balancing affirmative action, economic disadvantage and merit.
In Jammu and Kashmir, nature has never been particularly gentle. The winters can be harsh, the terrain unforgiving, and opportunities often limited. Today, for many young people, the struggle is taking another form; not against the mountains or the weather, but against a system they believe is steadily narrowing their space to compete.
The debate is about reservation. And increasingly, it is about open merit.
Reservation was never meant as a punishment. It emerged as an instrument of social justice, to bring historically disadvantaged communities closer to the mainstream, improve their access to education and employment, and give them opportunities that had remained out of reach for generations.
There is no question that such support is necessary.
But a difficult question remains: while trying to correct historical inequalities, are we creating a new sense of inequality among those competing for open merit?
The changes brought by the reservation policy of 2024 have intensified this conversation in Jammu and Kashmir. With a larger share of opportunities falling under reserved categories, students competing in the open category increasingly fear that the space available to them is becoming too small.
For an aspirant, a seat is not merely a number on a government notification. It can represent years of preparation, sleepless nights, financial sacrifices and a family’s hopes.
Imagine studying for years, scoring well, and then discovering that the road ahead has become narrower than you expected.
This is the frustration many open-merit students are expressing.
Yet, this debate must not become reserved versus unreserved, community versus community, or merit versus social justice. Such a framing only deepens divisions.
Open merit is not the property of any particular community. Candidates from reserved categories can also compete for open seats on merit. The real question, therefore, is whether the overall structure provides a reasonable balance between affirmative action and competitive opportunity.
The concern becomes more serious in Jammu and Kashmir because opportunities themselves are limited. Government employment continues to be highly sought after, while private-sector opportunities remain insufficient for the aspirations of a growing educated population. When the number of opportunities is already small, changes in their distribution naturally produce anxiety.
And behind every statistic is a student.
A student from a poor family preparing without expensive coaching. A student from a remote village travelling long distances for education. A graduate watching recruitment notifications with hope. A young person who believes that education is the only ladder available to change their family’s future.
Not every open-merit candidate comes from privilege.
This is where the conversation needs greater depth. Economic hardship does not ask a student which category they belong to. Poverty, inadequate educational resources and unemployment can affect students across social groups.
Therefore, perhaps the time has come for Jammu and Kashmir to ask whether economic disadvantage should receive greater attention within the larger framework of affirmative action.
This does not mean dismantling reservation. It means examining it.
Any policy created to deliver justice should be periodically evaluated to determine whether it is achieving its intended purpose. Reservation cannot become politically untouchable. Nor should questioning its structure automatically be interpreted as opposition to social justice.
The government must look at representation, educational backwardness, socio-economic conditions and the actual impact of existing reservations through reliable data.
At the same time, the solution cannot simply be to fight over a limited number of seats.
The real solution is to create more seats, more colleges, more courses, more jobs and more opportunities.
When opportunities expand, society does not have to fight so fiercely over the few that remain.
Jammu and Kashmir’s youth deserve a system where a disadvantaged student receives support and an open-merit student does not feel forgotten. These two aspirations are not enemies. They can, and must, exist together.
Reservation should be a bridge towards equality, not a permanent battlefield between sections of society.
The question before policymakers is therefore not “Reservation or merit?”
It is: “How do we protect social justice without making another generation feel that merit has nowhere left to go?”
Jammu and Kashmir cannot afford to let its young people lose faith in the idea that hard work can change their lives.
The purpose of public policy should be to open doors, not to make one group celebrate while another stands outside counting the doors that remain.
Social justice matters. Merit matters. Opportunity matters.
The challenge is to build a Jammu and Kashmir where there is enough space for all three.
(The writer is a BA (Economics) student from Cluster University, Srinagar. Ideas are personal.)
