RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has said that reservation should continue for as long as the social discrimination that necessitated it persists, while calling on beneficiaries whose circumstances have improved to consider making space for others who remain disadvantaged.Bhagwat made the remarks at the 15th anniversary celebration of the India International Model United Nations (IIMUN) after being asked whether reservation in education and employment should continue indefinitely or whether the time had come to curtail it.Rather than proposing a timeline for ending reservation, Bhagwat invoked BR Ambedkar.”I will not answer you directly. I will ask you to go to what Babasaheb Ambedkar thought about reservation,” Bhagwat said.”If honestly we follow his advice, then there is no problem.”He then linked the continuation of affirmative action directly with the persistence of discrimination.”Reservation exists because of social reasons. As long as social discrimination exists, reservation will continue,” Bhagwat said.At the same time, he said those who had benefited from reservation and reached a position where they no longer needed its support should demonstrate the generosity to allow its benefits to reach others.Bhagwat pointed to demands for categorisation within beneficiary communities as evidence of an emerging debate over whether the benefits of reservation were reaching all those for whom the policy was intended.According to him, a view was developing even among some beneficiaries that reservation was intended for uplift rather than as a permanent advantage for the same individuals or families.He said such thinking should be encouraged so that benefits could progressively reach people who had not yet received them.Bhagwat, however, strongly cautioned against politicising reservation.He argued that affirmative action was introduced as an instrument of social unity and uplift but that its political use had generated resentment between communities.”In itself, the measure is not wrong,” he said, arguing instead that problems emerged from how it was wielded.Bhagwat suggested that sincere implementation of measures intended to eliminate discrimination could eventually reduce the need for reservation itself.But until the underlying social inequalities were addressed, his remarks indicated, withdrawing reservation simply because it had existed for several decades would not be justified.