After the Patidars in Gujarat and Jats in Haryana, Brahmins have now begun demanding reservations for the caste in government institutions and jobs. In a first, around 2,500 Brahmins from across Delhi-NCR, under the banner of the All India Brahman Jagruti Sanstha, are expected to participate in a conference here on Sunday to demand reservations. The conference is solely dedicated to the Brahmin fraternity.
Members of the Sanstha, a five-year-old non-political organisation that aims to raise issues concerning the fraternity at the national level, have been demanding for long that the “unfair treatment” meted out to the Brahmins by society at large should be stopped. Dharamvir Bharadwaj, president of the Sanstha, said that the reservation system in the country only creates divisions in society. “Our goal is not reservations, but we know for a fact that the government has no intention to end the reservation system. Thus, we are demanding that reservations should also be given to us because we have now become a minority community in society. Our organisation has given a call to the Brahmin community and we will hold a conference of all Brahmins, where we will debate and demand 25% reservations for Brahmins,” Bharadwaj told The Sunday Guardian. He also claimed that the Brahmin community is one of the weakest in society in terms of financial strength as the “benefits do not reach us”. “Our kids are being deprived of good education and jobs in government institutions because of the reservation system. We do not want them to go through what we have gone through,” Bharadwaj said.
The Brahmins’ conference would discuss and deliberate on the “contours of reservations” that the fraternity is demanding. Anil Kaushik, secretary of the All India Brahman Jagruti Sanstha, said that a memorandum would be submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with their demands. If the demands are not considered favourably, they would start a peaceful agitation to make their voices heard, he said. Mahaveer Sharma, a member of the Sanstha, said: “We have been at the receiving end for the past 65 years. We have suffered, but do not want our children to suffer. The government should also think about us and provide us reservations with immediate effect or bring an end to the system of reservations altogether; otherwise, we will be forced to protest.”
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