POLITICAL GRIEVANCES 423
proportion. Government did declare them to be minorities and also fixed their proportion, and for the difficulty that duly qualified candidates may in any given year be less than the vacancies reserved, Government provided by paragraph 7(1)(iii) of the resolution that the residue of the vacancies will be available for the Muslims.
Surely the difficulties which can be overcome successfully in the case of the other minorities cannot be followed to stand in the way of the Scheduled Castes. If Government docs that, it will be guilty of unjustly-defeating the just claims of the Scheduled Castes. It will be accused of using grounds which are not reasons but which are only excuses for sustaining its opposition to the claims of the Scheduled Castes.
Besides the two remedies suggested, namely (1) declaring them a minority and (2) fixing their proportion in the annual vacancies, it will be necessary to sanction other remedies to the Scheduled Castes for securing to them their fair share in the services. They are :
(1) Raising the Age bar,
(2) Reduction in examination fees, and
(3) Appointment of a Scheduled Caste officer to see that the provisions made in the interests of the Scheduled Castes in this behalf are carried by all Departments concerned.
(1) Raising the Age Bar
- Under the present rules for the I. C. S. and the Central Services the maximum age limit is 24. Generally this maximum age limit hits the Scheduled Castes very hard. For owing to their extreme poverty it is not possible for the Scheduled Caste boy to reach that level of education which will enable him to compete with students from higher and well-to-do classes within the age limit. The children of the former have to suffer many breaks in their educational career and have no facilities at home cither for tuition or even for study. The latter have all the facilities for rapid and continuous progress. Consequently the children of the Scheduled Castes by the time they reach the final stage of their education and are in a position to compete they become ineligible on account of age for recruitment in the Public Service. It is therefore, necessary to raise the age limit by at least 3 years. There is nothing very unreasonable in this demand and there will be nothing extraordinary if it was conceded by Government of India. In almost all Provincial Governments where a proportion in the services has been