10 per cent reservation for general category poor untenable

Neo-poor among the middle-class may soon, if Parliament and half of state legislatures give their nod, get 10 per cent quota in jobs and educational avenues. Photograph shows fliers waiting to board their respective airbuses at Terminal 2 launge of the IGI Airport, Delhi. (Photo ©Sindhustan)

India devised a unique way of dealing with social inequality with the adoption if Constitution. It implemented a policy to economic empowerment of thosefound to be weak in their social status. It provided for reservation in jobs and education to those found to be socially and educationally backward. It was the time when only a few Indians were earning enough to sustain themselves. A handful had the resources to run businesses and business houses. Less than 12 per cent Indians were educated to take up government or corporate jobs. 

Practically the whole of India could easily have been categorised as socially and educationally backward. 

Economically, per capita income of an average Indian was less than Rs 250 in 1947. Economic backwardness was as universal throughout the country as illetracy and social backwardness. The framing of Constitution saw intense yet open minded debates. The result was provision to give economic power to those socially and educationally backward. It was considered okay for a period of 15 years to rein in talent and power in the matters of jobs and education. 

But who should be given this benefit? The whole of India was backward and upbeat after Independence. The British were there earlier to be blamed for all the ills and ailments. Providing earning through jobs or private vocation was the most difficult task. A commission called the Kaka Kalekar Commission was set up by the government in 1953 to decide who could be considered socially and educationally backward. The commission had to evolve its own criteria for identifying the people who could be classified as backward. 

Identifying individual backwardness would have been a mammoth task only to be matches by an honest conduct of census process. Not possible in 1953. Focus, that's why, must have shifted to community identification of backwardness. India's old communities had already classified itself in castes and the boundaries were invisibly thick. Kalekar Commission couldn't have pierced through these walls and formed new communities or future caste groups of people suffering from backwardness. Team Kalekar, hence, proceeded to identify 2,399 castes who could be termed backward.

But Kaka Kalekar was not happy with the findings. He penned a letter to the President of India requesting him to look for other alternative for economic empowerment of socially and educationally backward people. He argued that caste-based reservation in jobs and education was not in the interest of the nation. Incidentally, the government, too, didn't find the report convincing and it was rejected.

But those running the government were convinced that Indians needed protection and should be given concession in jobs and educational avenues as the topmost political leaders of the time were from socially and educationally forward class and also had relatively better economic background, they believed the have-nots were not capable enough to make a mark for themselves in generally backward society of India despite having seen the likes of BR Ambedkar establishing themselves as stalwarts of the same society. The problem was that the decision makers were not confident of their own ability to work for creation of enough jobs, education and earning avenues. 

Fearing a backlash from society, well-trained, by now, in Gandhian way of demanding rights, in the same way as against the British administration, a formula for reservation was enforced. Needless to state that only the forwards among the declared backwards benefitted from the limited earning and learning avenues that India has generated under the guidance of the government. 

There has never been enough in India, at least in the living memory. Population growth was organic due to societal belief and lack of other entertainment alternatives. This theory doesn't need any further authorisation after recent experience from Nepal, where massive power outages a few years ago coincided with unusually high number of pregnancies and child-births. 

While population kept rising, the penetration of scientific temper eroded people's belief in the theory of karma. Globalisation and internet fuelled their aspirations further. Money, muscle, sex, youthfulness and remaining central in and under all circumstances became the focal points of life. This aspiration was not compartmentalised by the invisible thick walls of castes. The cumulative effect is putting pressure on the government to provide for everything that the people can't get themselves. After all, the freedom was won in the name of prosperity, now better worded as achchhe din. This achchhe din is missing from everyone's life, almost everyone. 

If SC/ST or OBC individual gets an earning or learning avenues and a person from the other community sees this happening, she feels strongly agitated. Then she learns that it is the government which facilitated it. She first rallies for abolition of inequal rights failing which she demands such a right for herself. 

If elections are to be won to run government, people need to be on the side of ruling or aspiring to be ruling group, the party. Jobs and educational avenues are not enough to be offered to every desirous individual. So, what should a government do. Offer equalising proposal of reservation.

The government announced 10 per cent quota I'm jobs and education for non-reserved category aspirants. This means the offer is valid for all religious grouping, a secular offer. But this offer came on a ground that was first rejected, by virtue of its omission, by Constitution and then by the Supreme Court.

Nearly 25 years after the Kaka Kalekar Commission report was rejected, another commission came up in 1979, called BP Mandal Commission to decide on the proposal of provding reservation. 

Mandal commission reported in 1980, an election year, that caste-based reservation should be given to uplift socially and educationally backward people. For 10 years, the report was wrapping itself in dust before VP Singh facing threat to his PMO chair and a certain loss of power, brought the quota report out and issued an Office Memorandum to implement reservation for identified and declared OBCs. Reservation, 27 per cent, to OBCs failed to save Singh from losing power. 

The next in line, PVN Rao tried to counterbalance it in 1991 by giving another 10 per cent quota to the poor from general category people. 

Both the decisions were challenged in the Supreme Court, where Indra Sawhney case of 1992 still Stan's out as a landmark judgment. The court herein rules that caste-based reservation is constitutional, quota on the basis of economic backwardness not valid under constitutional arrangement and that total number of reserved seats can't breach the ceiling of 50 per cent. 

The new proposal, the 124th Constitution Amendment Bill, provides for raising the ceiling to 60 per cent. It is bound for a test in the Supreme Court. 

The Bill, interestingly, proposes to declare those having annual income for their nuclear family less than Rs 8 lakh may avail this quota benefit. Commensurate arrangement has been prescribed for land and property ownership. But taking one earning person per family, the Rs 8 lakh cap translates into asalary/income of Rs 65,166 per month. Compare this criterion of economic backwardness with the existing cap for BPL identification, just for fun 😊

It wouldn't take a genius of Chanakya to understand that the target community of this reservation scheme is a major chunk of middle-class, who is said to be angry with the government. In any case, if jobs in public sector are dwindling, what good use this 10 per cent cap can bring to the neo-poor community of the general category people?

WHITHER RESERVATION POLICY

I wrote this piece long back in April 2006. Surprisingly, my opinion on government's reservation policy has not changed much. I am reproducing the article here. It is a immature in construction, but I feel it is good enough for my blog.

Thanks to the new amendment in the article 15 of the Constitution the reservation policy is back in debate. The Constitution of India provides for the laws being made for the uplift and sound development of the weaker sections of society. The founding fathers of the Constitution carved out such provisions to correct the historical wrong/injustice done to a segment of our society, generally clubbed as Dalits, in modern day politics. The governments in the Independent India have on record tried to achieve what the Constitution makers thought would help developing a balanced and equality based society of India. Needless to say that something has definitely gone wrong in the process else India would have succeeded in developing a dream society of its own.

It would be insane to think that the Constitution makers were wrong in intent or logic. They adequately identified a problem of grave concern and provided for a constitutional solution hoping that fifteen years would be ample time to do away with the economic-social injustice, and that the government would do enough to realize this constitutional ideal. But, the spirit of framing a constitution and that of running a government are two different things. One treads in the realms of idealism whereas the other in the sphere of pragmatism. Running a government is driven for sure by ambition (previously called lust), for power, status, popularity et al.

The result is, another constitutional amendment providing for the admission into IIMs and IITs. This clearly goes against the spirit of the Constitution, as getting admission into IIMs and IITs has nothing to do with the basic needs of life and livelihood what was the primary concern of the Constitution makers. Moreover, one who has to fight for his daily meals does not and can not think of getting into these premier institutions. Obviously this move of the UPA government has something else in its intent, may be due to upcoming elections in the states or god knows what

So to say that government in India has failed the idea of governance as envisaged in the Constitution would not amount to committing a crime. For, fifty-six years (in 2006) are not spent in a day. Shortage of time has never been a problem for India's political community but the will.

The problem warrants a wider debate and deeper analysis. In the first place the meaning of reservation/quota needs to be understood. Literally it implies giving opportunities to a defined class of citizens or public. But, practically it means preferring less competent people to more competent ones for a particular purpose. Such policy does not augur well for a developing country in modern age especially if it is India.

The argument that by giving reservation to the underprivileged segment of society, it can be brought at par with rest of the society does not hold much water. The sense that we get from the working at medical and engineering colleges or even the government departments does not toe the political line of pro-quota policy. It is commonly said that the people getting jobs through reservation do not perform as well as others. That they do not meet the minimum qualifying standards for the jobs at hand and the reason for this quality gap does not lie in their birth but in the process of their qualitative strengthening, which the quota policy doesn't focus on.

The reservation policy has been here for quite long now and it has not yielded what was expected of it. The main problem is that it is caste based. The benefits of the quota have gone overwhelmingly to the better-off people among the reservation category castes. So, the policy has always missed the real target and it's been known to all (the stakeholders). Nevertheless the rules and laws have kept coming up on the same line and the present one is just an addition to the list.

The son of a marginal farmer or a farm-labourer in a remote village without doubt is not going to draw any benefit from quota in IIMs and IITs as he/she would not be able to fill-in the application form and meet the traveling cost for appearing even in the written examination and group- discussion thereof. So, who is the real target of such an amendment is hard to fantasize even.

This move is certainly going to aggravate the problem of unemployment among the educated youth. The unemployed educated people are more susceptible to anti-social activities. All the government and other reports suggest that the unemployed muslim youth fall easy prey to the propaganda of jehad. In fact, in Jammu and Kashmir it is a popular perception that getting into the rank and file of terrorism draws more money than getting into the all-elusive jobs. The government definitely should have looked at this angle too.
The call of the hour therefore is not to implement the amendment in haste. The issue should be looked in wider perspectives. The problems being faced by the weaker sections must be looked at with great care and in such a manner that it does not give rise to another problem in our society

The weaker sections of our society first need to be clearly defined and identified if the government's intent is to improve their lot and not to gain some hidden insane benefits only. Caste can no longer be taken as a basis for any such demarcation. No caste is weak or strong today, it's the position of an individual that is weaker or stronger. The lopsided reservation policy has only corroborated this. The people from the weaker sections must be at first ensured jobs at their own places. Their children must be ensured a healthy life and a healthy school education. Other embedded aspects are the population size and the growth rate of population among the weaker sections. The people sensitized to understand the relation between the size of population and the rate of population growth on one hand and jobs, poverty, health and effectiveness of governmental measures on the other. Let's hope the government would show enough courage and sense to provide the " governance with real human face".