Maharashtra will shortly be going for state elections to elect a new Legislative Assembly to form a new government. Maharashtra’s ruling Congress Party sent only two MPs to National Parliament while its coalition partner, Nationalist Congress Party could elect four of their MPs. The Congress Party having suffered a humiliating defeat at the national level, wants to avoid such a scenario in the ensuing state elections. Therefore it could think of only one of trodden step of capturing its vote bank by extending reservation to Muslims and Marathas! The cabinet recently, decided to reserve 16 percent of seats to Marathas and five percent to Muslims in educational institutions and in employment.
Marathas are a dominant caste in Maharashtra wielding economic power as it owns 75 percent land in Maharashtra. It has also controlled political power in the state so far, having had 10 out of 17 chief ministers. The Muslim community has traditionally supported the Congress, all these years. This has once again initiated a debate in favour or against the policy of reservation.
Historical background
For an unbiased understanding of the reservation policy it is necessary briefly to know how it all came into the Indian political thinking. Since Indian caste system initially considered as an ancient device to achieve social division of labour, has degenerated into a hereditary fact, the people performing menial work are treated as belonging to lowest caste; were not only treated as untouchables, but were condemned to follow caste-related functions and denied access to education. Hence, during national freedom movement, Mahatma Gandhi and several others advocated reservation to these extremely backward castes, generally called Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/ST) were assured in the constitution of reservation of a percentage of seats in educational institutions and in employment. It also meant a certain dilution of conditions generally applied for admissions or employment, to other castes in the society.
Thus, Indian Constitution that came into force on 26 January 1950 provided for reservations to persons belonging to scheduled castes and tribes for a period of 10 years. Participating in the debate in the constituent Assembly over the issue Dr. B. R. Ambedkar had envisaged the reservation as a short term measure to achieve a degree of equality between upper castes and the scheduled castes, and providing a level playing field to the down-trodden to come up in life.
However, after 64 years of working of Indian Republic, the current policy of caste-based reservation has reduced it to a political joke wherein every political party has been promising reservation in competition with one another. The smaller the party the greater and louder is its commitment to ameliorate the current pathetic situation of the backward castes. No one remembers its underlying original limited purpose. Thus, reservation as a policy has been reduced to a mockery!
Though the Supreme Court has ruled that the reservation policy cannot go beyond 50 percent in any field, the reservation policy covers in different states much higher percentage than that. After the economic liberalisation in the country, politicians aiming to preserve their shrinking and fragmenting vote banks succeeded getting reservation extended to public enterprises. Since their craving is not satiated, now they are lobbying to get included in private and minority educational institutions and private sector jobs as well within the ambit of reservation policy.
Consequences
This kind of vote bank politics has certain serious long term consequences that will damage the very survivability of Indian society and polity, raising questions of cohesion and unity of political system and the very concept of India as a nation. Let us examine a few important unforeseen or seen but ignored consequences for immediate political gains, of the present reservation policy.
First, during the independence movement, prominent freedom fighters, political thinkers and social reformers had all stressed on one aspect of the Indian social life: Abolition of caste system and creating a casteless society. Contrary to that goal, everyone is made conscious of his or her caste. The caste factor has become a predominant fact of life for creation of: social groups for pursuing a hobby, provision of education, or self-help activities. During the independence movement, educational institutions came up on the lines of nation building. Lokmanya Tilak, Gopalkrishna Gokhale, Mahadeo Ranade, Dr. Ambedkar among others established educational trusts and started educational institutions to provide modern education. After independence, particularly after state reorganisation, trusts came up to provide education to linguistic communities in different states. But today it is only educational trusts established on religion or caste lines that have come up and survived.
Second, caste combination has emerged as the main sustaining force of politics in Indian democracy. Therefore, by appealing to primordial loyalties of individual citizens, depending upon the caste of the election-contesting politician, he would appeal to his voters belonging to his caste group by promising special treatment to his people.
Third, this has strengthened caste consciousness amongst the citizens. When caste alone could not help in achieving political aspirations of a leader he would try to create a large group by promising reservations in education and employment to several communal and caste groups. In Gujarat thus, we have a classic case of Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslims or KHAM. This kind of policies initiated by the Congress party has been pursued since then as a sure path to success by every political party.
Fourth, when the BJP countered these caste coalitions by raising the Ram Temple issue to unite Hindu votes, the then Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh who was heading a minority government dusted out an old report of 1978 and announced 27 percent reservations to OBCs (Other Backward Castes), thus expanding caste-based reservations. OBCs are not an oppressed caste or class but may be a poor lot.
Fifth, this has only led to continuous efforts to divide and fragment Indian society—from broad religious basis to sub-sects lines or from the caste lines to sub-caste basis. The politicians are on a continuous mission to find sects within the sects and castes within the castes. It was reported that Mulayam Singh Yadav a few years ago had faced in his constituency a Yadav candidate. He went on to mention that his gotra was superior to the other Yadavs. The Congress led by Sonia Gandhi gave reservation benefit to Jats and Jains using caste and religion to drive home that “you are backward caste or community and need state favours of reservation policy”.
Sixth, there is a premium today on backwardness; very few will be ashamed to claim that he is a member of backward category. If one gets a position without much effort put in or undeservedly, why not take advantage of it? I had a classmate in the early sixties who told me that he gets a scholarship as he belonged to scheduled/backward caste though he was staying at Malabar Hill with his Income tax officer-brother. More seriously, I have seen after the transformation of the Bombay University into Mumbai University, reservation policy came in more rigorously and the quality of teaching, objectively speaking, declined drastically in every department.
Seventh, the creation of sectarian consciousness is only a first step to lead towards politically fissiparous tendencies. If ‘we’ are different from ‘they’ and ‘we’ are continuously looked down by ‘them’, why should we continue to live with them and accept their leadership here and there? If I want to be the Chief Minister or the Prime Minister and they deny me an opportunity to lead, why not I as the leader of this caste or that community try to divide the territory to create an independent homeland?
What is the way out?
During the period of campaign for the 16th Lok Sabha elections, Congress Party General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi mustered enough courage to publicly call for an end to all reservations and quotas but provide only for economically weaker sections by bringing all communities under its ambit. He was, however, silenced by Sonia Gandhi, who said that the Congress is of the “firm opinion” that reservations for SC, ST and OBC must continue. She justified by stating that it is essential to end the “discrimination imposed by centuries of subjugation and oppression.”
Mr. Dwivedi’s suggestion should be examined by the new government by taking gradual steps. While reservations for SC and ST could continue, OBC is not a subjugated or an oppressed class and can be taken care by the general quota for economically weaker sections as suggested by Mr. Dwivedi.
It should stand a scrutiny by the Supreme Court as it has already directed government to exclude persons from the creamy layers from the quota. Reservations could be further modified to all categories only at the entry level in education as well as employment, further promotions etc., should only be done on merit.
Muslims can also be included to benefit from economically weaker sections. Recently Minister for Minority Affairs, Najma Heptulla rightly observed that “reservation on the basis of religion is not permitted under the Constitution”. She also said that reservation “kills the spirit of competition. To raise the importance of merit in public administration, it is also necessary to restrict continued reservations to SC and ST only to entry level”. For instance, if the reservation is provided at the entry level and then teachers are made to compete later for higher positions without any reservation applied, there could be a balance between level playing field and promoting quality. We moan that we do not have even one traditional university that comes in top 200 universities of the world. If we continue to divide Indians into backward castes just to create and enlarge nationally or within\ a state a political vote bank for a party, it is unlikely that we could ever think of having a single world class institution. If that is fine with the majority of mediocre political class, we can go ahead further dividing our society on caste lines.
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Dr. P M Kamath
The writer is former Professor of Politics, University of Bombay and currently is Hon. Director, VPM’s Centre for International Studies affiliated to Mumbai University.[/column]