Deserving vs Reserving

In movie halls, flights and trains, restaurants etc, there are those who are fighting for space at the last minute, and there are those who calmly walk in and take their seats... the latter deserve to do so, because they had the foresight to reserve the space .. the point to note here is that both sets of people started out on square one, some before the other, and that made the difference.. and so everything is fair.. now, if someone in the late entry set got in by just knowing the right people, thats perhaps unfair...

and so, if we apply the same scope for reservations in the educational/ job system,. everything would be fair if everyone started from square one.. but that isnt the case, and so it makes sense to reserve places to level the scales... but what if, over a period of time, the reservations have done their job and further addition would start tipping the scale against those who normally occupied square one.. thats exactly what is happening... and that perhaps is unfair, because the regular folks havent gotten there by unfair means...

and so perhaps it would be a good time to go back to square one, examine it and define it properly so that reservation is done only for people who are eligible even after multiple filters are put in, and since i am no expert, i can think only of socio-economic conditions as the key parameter... there have been too many changes these past few years for caste to be made a criterion.. a case in example would be that the erstwhile 'upper castes' in kerala are in a much poorer condition than the so called 'lower castes'...

it is absolutely fair that a person should not miss the chance of an education and a good life just because he doesnt have the finance for it... but in the same breath, it is absolutely unfair that a person should cede his right just because he made the most of his adequate finances and worked hard...there is an argument i made quite sometime back on the subject of meritocracy... if educationis the key to a better life, then, judging people by their intelligence levels is also perhaps unfair.. for only so much of intelligence is self gained, most of it is installed without our having a say in it... and so we are back to the theory of survival of the fittest.
until next time, who is fit to decide what is 'fit' ?