Caste-based Reservations

(Reply to a friend)

I have serious objection to the Reservation policy which on the giver’s side is a sop or lollypop not to upset the vote bank already created in the pre-Independence period and on the taker’s side mere entitlement psychology welling from the power of the block-votes.

Now let us look at those “right questions” the learned judges of the Supreme Court were expected to ask:

“When will caste-based discrimination come to an end? Why are the backward classes not represented in the higher positions of state services, including the judiciary? Why is reservation not being implemented in its letter and spirit? Why backlog vacancies of these classes are not filled in? What is the sanctity of economically weaker sections reservation when economic backwardness was not accepted as a stand-alone ground for providing reservation in Indra Sawhney (1992)? How can the Union government recruit directly to higher positions in civil services through lateral entry, bypassing the constitutional provisions? Why are public enterprises being privatized on such a large scale? Why is there no reservation in the private sector?”

These are notable for their shrillness just as much for their shallowness. The proponents of the caste-based reservation cannot swallow the ground reality that the poor Brahmin is as deprived as the poor Dalit. Likewise, there are no special difficulties for the poor Muslim or the poor Christian which the poor Hindu does not suffer. This is my view even as I agree that India does need welfare policies such as Reservations and quotas as there are millions in the bottom of the pyramid for not much fault of theirs. As Warren Buffett put it, they just did not win the ovarian lottery. So, affirmative action policies are needed.

I think a deprivation-based system should be applied for all reservations and the upper limit should be 50% and affirmative action such as good schooling, scholarships, financial growth, and hostels should be stepped up and eventually reservation should be gradually tapered off.

Now, though the caste system which is prevalent to date has been a fundamental part of Indian culture for time immemorial, I maintain after going through the literature on Caste system that it was the 1881 Census conducted by the British India Government which for the first time enumerated castes and arranged them in a hierarchy. To my knowledge India does not record a single caste war in its written history of 2000 years, or in its literature!

The philosophy of caste system had actually disappeared following the preaching of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Dayananda Saraswathi among others and only the morphology remained. As that too was crumbling, when the modern movements apparently rooted in progressive ideals have brought back the castes, (particularly recasting ‘Harijans’ as the oppressed classes-Dalits) into political toys through an attractive and addictive reverse discrimination. We now see clans and communities aspiring for ‘backward’ tag for reservations and other short-term benefits. These benefits have brought a special sense of competitive entitlement into the social system, making caste animosities deeper and more aggressive! “Jaathichoadippin” (ask for the caste) has come up as a slogan in the identity politics of recent years as against oft-quoted words of Shree Narayana Guru “Ask not, say not, think not caste”!

Unfortunately among the various identities an individual caries in India, the caste identity is the most potent one. On the positive side it facilitates group identity and helps in group activities. Many ignore its influence in business relationships in the Indian economy which is still predominantly “relationship-based”, not a “contract” or “value” based. It secures jobs and in many parts of India facilitates initial capital formation and credit for doing business and also risk mitigation. Caste elders consider failure a part of the process of learning and don’t frown upon it.

Reservations for the SC/ST categories was a Constitutional provision that was "purposefully discriminatory". In law, it is a form of affirmative action whereby a percentage of seats are reserved in the public sector units, union, and state civil services, union, and state government departments and in all public and private educational institutions, except in the religious/ linguistic minority edu­cational institutions, for the socially and educationally backward communities and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes who are inadequately represented in these services and institutions. Parliament routinely extended reservation for SC/ST fixed at 10 years first, without any free and fair revisions. Later, reservations were introduced for other sections as well.

MISUSE OF 9^th SCHEDULE: The original intent behind creating the ninth schedule was to ensure that land reforms were not thwarted by judicial pronouncements in favor of the right to property, which would only have benefited landlords. But thanks to the desire of politicians to do everything without the judiciary having the right to review bad laws, governments have not only put land laws in this schedule, but an entire bunch of laws, including one to overturn a Supreme Court-mandated 49 percent limit on the reservation. Some states of the Union like Rajasthan have implemented a 68% reservation that includes a 14% reservation for forward castes in services and education, and Tamil Nadu made it 69%. These Reservations pose a systemic risk and they benefit more often the better-off among the lower strata!

In the modern context this unique institution – caste-  has been in use for political mobilization. Those social reformists and social engineers who argued for a “casteless society” fell on the wayside. They have perhaps been helpful in reforming the caste system, but not in abolishing it. Interestingly, the one-man-one-vote system of representative democracy has led to the integration of many sub-castes into a larger cast identity. The best example is Nairs! The caste system in its present form has become therefore a valuable social capital that gives a cushion from the shocks in dealing with the larger society, and more so in the interaction with the State for families and individuals! Everywhere else in the world, the individual is alone in the society with his constitutional/legal rights!