- DIMAPUR — The Konyak Students' Union (KSU) has
expressed agreement with the Five Tribes Committee on Review of Reservation
Policy (CoRRP)'s call for a comprehensive overhaul of Nagaland State
Reservation Policy.
- In a press release issued on Friday, the union underscored
the need for a population-based reservation system to ensure representation of
disadvantaged sections. It called for ensuring demographic landscape as the
primary criterion for proper rationalisation of the reservation policy.
- According to the KSU, even as the reservation policy in
India is a constitutional measure to uplift marginalised communities in
education and public sector employment, its implementation in Nagaland over the
past 48 years has failed to benefit the Konyak tribe adequately.
- It stated that faulty implementation of the policy and
unfair distribution of quota have combined to perpetuate the Konyak tribe’s
“status quo as one of Nagaland’s most socio-economically backward communities.”
Also read: Reservation Row: 5 tribes launch multi-district protests in Nagaland
- “With a population exceeding 2.50 lakh, which is
approximately 12% of Nagaland’s tribal demographic, the employment figure of
Konyak tribe in government jobs remains glaringly dismal, as also highlighted
in the report by Department of Economics and Statistics in 2019.
- “We have not just villages but entire ranges and even
Assembly Constituencies without a single NPSC-recruited Class I gazetted
officer to this day. The 2011 census records Mon district as having Nagaland’s
lowest literacy rate at 56.60%,” it stated.
- According to the union, the combined effects of educational
deprivation and exclusion from public sector employment have deepened the
socio-economic disparity faced by the Konyak people.
- Despite repeated appeals and representations to the state
government for a policy review, the union expressed disappointment over the
continued lack of ‘positive response.’
- In this context, the KSU endorsed the proposal from the Five
Tribes Committee.
