Reservations in India and affirmative action in America (are meant) to uplift a historically disprivileged community. Just as the scheduled caste and tribes in India have suffered on account of sustained injustices against them, so also have blacks in the United States. It is not just that there exists prejudice among them, but actual acts of injustices over a long period of time have prevented these communities from acquiring skills and expertise that are socially valued and coveted. Moreover these disadvantaged peoples both in America and India were also in a minority in their respective countries ...
The major differences between reservation in India and affirmative action in America crystallise around the question of quotas. All other divergences between these two forms of preferential policies flow from this basic distinction. In India, from the start, reservations have been operationalised on the principle of quota. This, in proportion to their population, approximately 23 per cent of jobs and educational opportunities are reserved for the scheduled castes and tribes. In America, on the other hand, Title VII, which is the main weapon of the affirmative action programme, makes explicit that the quota principle will not be entertained at any case, mean the lowering of qualifications and the undermining of merit. It is interesting that on this issue there has been a near unanimity in American politics ...
This is no way should suggest that racist attitudes have died in America. Though white males in America constitute only 43 per cent of the population, they hold 95 per cent of the top executive jobs in the country. Black adult males have an unemployment rate that is five times higher than the national average. Even the judicial system is weighted against blacks ... Though about 13 per cent of drug addicts in America are blacks, which is roughly equal to their proportion of the American population, yet 74 per cent of those serving jail sentences for drug possession are blacks.
In spite of all this, many blacks still feel reluctant to take advantage of the affirmative action programme. American democracy from the very beginning has been strongly individualistic in character ...
Contrast this individualistic spirit of the Americans with the Indian case. During the Constituent Assembly debates over the making of the Constitution, the sub-committee on fundamental rights held that "it is difficult to expect that in a country like India where most persons are communally minded, those in authority will give equal treatment to those who do not belong to their community". In fact, the Constituent Assembly". In fact, the Constituent Assembly proceedings are littered with instances of community considerations over riding those of the individuals.
Ambedkar's Vision
Even so, it must be mentioned to the credit of Ambedkar that he saw reservations as a time bound policy, o-pen to periodic appraisals. Often the time-bound feature in the original formulation of the reservation policy is picked up by opponents of reservations without enquiring as to whether or not the aims of the policy have actually been met. If onslaughts of this kind had continued, there is no doubt that the quota system in India would have met with an early end. That it survives today and shows no sign of diminishing is because it was picked up by the superior castes to further their community ends.
It first began with the DMK in Tamil Nadu, and then quickly spread in the early 1970s, with Indira Gandhi's encouragement, to Karnataka and on the other parts of India. The dominant peasant castes in India, from the Vokkalingam in the South to the Yadavs, and Kurmis in the north began to apply the quota system to advance their own ambitions. This tendency climaxed with the Mandal recommendations. From this point onwards, the reservation programme in India departed from Ambedkar's vision. Reservations now were no longer for the downtrodden but to help powerful agrarian castes to consolidate themselves in cities. The politically superior communities are now the beneficiaries.
Hollow Ring
Once reservations and quota were adopted by these superior communities to realise their community ends, the earlier emphasise on raising the downtrodden by enlarging socially valuable skills was given up. The quota system was now charged with the express purpose of capturing jobs and educational opportunities for the materially and politically better off. Naturally this led to willful abandonment of qualifications, merit and institutional standards ...
It is because powerful agrarian castes in India saw the quota system as a way of adding to their economic viability that the reservations for the scheduled castes and tribes have survived. If these superior castes were not allowed to play the quota system then the general animosity against scheduled castes and tribes in this society would have long seen to the demise of the reservation system ... (Source: The Times of India, 26 September, 1998)
Shahabuddin's Letter to Times of India, 3 October, 1998
Dipankar Gupta's "Question of Quotas" slurs over the fact that reservation for SC/ST in public employment under Article 15(4) and 16(4) is subject under Article 335 to maintenance of efficiency of administration. This measurement involves the criteria of minimum qualification though not of comparative merit (which measurement in my view is hardly credible in our society).
Shri Gupta's thesis that participation in governance at political and administrative level or sharing in development and welfare benefits should be limited to historically disadvantaged or elitist thinking. The responsibility for managing the society should be shared equitably by all social groups - including the Brahmins, the Shudras and the non-Hindus.