Educator and social activist Milind Chandwani, husband of actress Avika Gor, has entered the ongoing reservation debate with a nuanced personal account — arguing that the core question is not whether reservation should exist, but whether India has built an education system that makes it unnecessary. He shared his views via an Instagram video on 28 July, drawing on his dual experience as a competitive exam aspirant and a teacher in under-resourced government schools.

The Personal Experience Behind the Argument

Chandwani recalled a pivotal moment from 2013, when he scored a 98.5 percentile in the CAT examination and failed to receive IIM calls, while a friend from a similar middle-class background secured calls at 58 percentile through reserved category seats. 'To be honest, this friend didn't need it. He used to come from a middle-class family, I used to come from a middle-class family. But I had it, so why not use it? To be honest, I used to feel really bad after seeing all this,' Chandwani said in the video.

He was careful, however, not to let that experience define his entire position — acknowledging that one case of misuse does not invalidate the policy.

What Teaching in Government Schools Revealed

Chandwani's perspective shifted after he joined Teach for India as a fellow and spent five years working with children from low-income communities in government schools. He found students who genuinely needed reservation as a lifeline — but lacked the awareness to access or utilise it effectively. 'I saw such children who needed this reservation and it was very beneficial for them. But they didn't understand how to use this reservation, what is the benefit of it, what is the work of it,' he said.

This gap between entitlement and awareness, he argued, is as much a failure of the system as the more widely discussed issue of creamy layer misuse.

His Core Argument: Equal Opportunity Before Removal

Chandwani stopped short of declaring himself either for or against the existing caste-based reservation framework. Instead, he set a condition: 'If we have to remove it, then we have to give equal opportunities to every child who doesn't have equal opportunities — whose background comes from lower-income communities. We have to give better education, we have to give equal exposure so that when they finally come to the job market or in the competition exams, they can fight for equality.'

He framed the video explicitly as 'a pro-education reel' — neither anti- nor pro-reservation — and called for respectful public discourse. 'Maybe the question isn't should reservation exist? Maybe the question is who actually needs help, and how do we build an education system where one day, nobody needs reservation at all?' he wrote in the caption.

Why This Debate Keeps Resurfacing

The reservation debate has periodically intensified in India, particularly around competitive examination cycles and Supreme Court rulings on sub-classification within reserved categories. Chandwani's intervention is notable because it comes from someone with direct classroom experience in under-resourced settings — lending it ground-level credibility that purely ideological arguments often lack. His framing aligns with a growing strand of opinion that distinguishes between the principle of affirmative action and the current implementation of caste-based quotas.

As India's education and employment landscape continues to evolve, Chandwani's call for systemic reform before any policy rollback is likely to resonate with educators, policymakers, and a younger generation navigating high-stakes competitive exams.