.BERRYBEAT.

Celebrated on Republic Day, shielded by AFSPA, still organised by community names. India's Army is the one institution we rarely let anyone question on caste.

The village council that bans, boycotts and punishes often has no legal power at all. The elected one has the law, and sometimes cannot give a Dalit president a chair.

The oppressed do not automatically become non-oppressors. Inside India's Scheduled Caste list sits a second ladder, and the people at its bottom are dying in sewers.

The question of whether caste-based reservation in India truly serves the communities it was designed to protect remains largely unspoken in political circles. This silence is no accident. Reservation has become a powerful tool for electoral mobilisation, making any discussion about reform politically risky. Yet, recent data from the Rohini Commission OBC findings and landmark judicial decisions like the Davinder Singh Supreme Court 2024 case reveal deep inequalities within t