Any reservations, ultimately, are doomed to fail as they just foster the exact same type of cronyism with the fractal levels of definitions of castes/reservations. Reservations in general encourage it, as someone has to decide who is ‘in’ the group, and that is never merit based.
Ultimately, blind meritocracy is the only option - but that is also extremely difficult to do. See the historic Chinese style civil service exams for how that can be implemented, and its pros/cons.
One major issue with blind meritocracy is it strongly favors those from families who can invest in their children - aka the rich. Though, there is a path for improvement for those with raw intelligence, unless the tests favor brute force memorization. Like most Chinese tests historically have.
Ultimately, blind meritocracy is the only option - but that is also extremely difficult to do. See the historic Chinese style civil service exams for how that can be implemented, and its pros/cons.
One major issue with blind meritocracy is it strongly favors those from families who can invest in their children - aka the rich. Though, there is a path for improvement for those with raw intelligence, unless the tests favor brute force memorization. Like most Chinese tests historically have.