SRINAGAR: People’s Conference president Sajad Lone on Wednesday took a dig at the Jammu and Kashmir administration’s handling of reservation policies, accusing the government of reducing a complex social tool into a blunt political instrument aimed solely at electoral gain.
The issue of reservations is all set to come up for discussion again. I will be honest. I don’t have a lot of hope. The committe formed by the present government is a typical run of the mill, time buying, excuse-making bureaucratic gibberish.
It will end up with either seeking…— Sajad Lone (@sajadlone) May 28, 2025
Posting on his X handle, Lone said he had little hope from the recently formed government committee set to deliberate on reservations in the Union Territory. Calling the committee a “typical run-of-the-mill, time-buying, excuse-making bureaucratic gibberish,” he predicted it would either defer decisions or issue ambiguous statements, or worse, recommend another committee.
“The government neither has the brain nor the brawn,” Lone wrote, arguing that dealing with reservations in Jammu and Kashmir demands both intellectual clarity and political courage. “From what I have understood, the present government is blinded by lust for votes. They can’t see beyond the ballot box.”
According to him, the administration views the reservation policy not as a means of social upliftment or a balance of merit, but as a tool of electoral arithmetic. In a pointed critique, he said the government has privately assessed that communities falling under ‘open merit’ do not form a homogenous vote bank and therefore are politically expendable. “So why take the trouble?” he asked rhetorically.
Lone argued that reservations, in their current form, have become one of the greatest societal challenges since 1947, urging for a more nuanced and layered approach to the issue. He called for both objective and comparative evaluations — one that assesses the social costs of suppressing merit and another that takes into account the specific socio-political dynamics of Jammu and Kashmir.
“Excessive reservations crowd out talent, disincentivise intellect, and subjugate meritocracy for all times to come,” he said. Drawing parallels with global powers, he suggested that nations like Britain and the United States achieved greatness by nurturing excellence through rigorous academic and professional standards, not by diluting them.
While acknowledging that reservations play a role in addressing historical injustices, Lone warned that they must remain within optimal limits. “There is a societal threshold to tolerate mediocrity. Mediocrity has to be the exception, not the rule.”
He accused the planners of using reservations as a “magical reset button” to achieve a new societal normal — one that, according to him, carries a strong undertone of retribution against specific ethnic and geographical groups. He added that local governments in the past have “willingly become pawns” in the hands of such planners, enabling an “excessive dose” of reservations.
Calling the current administration a “lame duck, fumbling and bumbling and mumbling miracle of a government,” Lone said rationalising the reservation system would be an immense challenge even for a capable government, let alone the present one.
Despite his harsh critique, Lone concluded on a cautiously optimistic note: “I am convinced there is a solution. But for that, you need to be able to comprehend the problem in all its shades and forms. And you also need the will and courage to take on those who want to script a new normal in our society.”
He warned that the issue of excessive reservations is “not about numbers” but a far deeper malaise. “It is a post-dated cheque for disaster. Societal resets have not worked anywhere in the world and will not work here,” he said.
