levels gap in salaries of both -- lower government workers and workers in private sector -- make preference of government job

Lucknow University organised four days symposium on Neo-liberalism, consumerism and culture where Sonalde Desai, University of Marryland, USA, addressed the conference in Lucknow last week. She said in her analysis over the rising demand for reservation.
The past decade has seen rising demands for reservation from a variety of relatively prosperous agricultural communities; namely, Jats, Marathas, Patels, and Gujjars. These demands and underlying frustration have emerged in a decade when the economic narrative tends to focus on high rates of growth and declining poverty.

How do we reconcile these two competing trends? Using data from the National Sample Surveys between 1983 and 2012 we find in this paper which shows that, before the adoption of neoliberal policies, Indian economy was dominated by large and medium farmers who were both numerous and able to earn a reasonable standard of living.

 However, the past decades have faced a decline in their economic power, which has turned once prosperous farmers into subsistence farmers.

 Simultaneously, there has been substantial increase in the incomes of white collar salaried workers and professionals, while job opportunities for white collar work has experienced only a modest growth..

Data from India Human Development Survey show that many agriculture base families find almost all avenues of upward mobility blocked.

Successive pay commissions have created a rising gap between the salaries of lower level government workers and the workers in the private sector – the levels gap of both side have made the preference of government job highly desirable.

However, downsizing of government employment makes this an almost impossible dream. Coveted modern occupations in private sector demand skills and credentials that are beyond the reach of most rural students.

Although educational attainment in rural India has grown, a vast proportion of rural students are attending the institutions that fail to equip them for the modern world.

 Not surprisingly, these blocked mobility aspirations come together into a demand for reservations in government jobs and institutions of higher learning resulting in political mobilization of agricultural communities.