FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
TOWARDS UNIVERSALISATION OF RESERVATION
The introduction of reservation in public employment and higher education under the States and then under the Centre, initially for SC's and ST's and progressively extended to, what came to be known as, Other Backward Classes under Article 16(4) of the Constitution has over the years exposed several flaws and limitations, both conceptual and practical, in the Scheme of Reservation. The Scheme has been modified in an ad hoc manner from time to time under political pressure or in the light of judicial pronouncements but there has been no attempt to take a holistic view and recast it, as a whole, in the light of practical experience. The classical framework is no longer adequate and there is need to go beyond the Mandal Report to define a new and comprehensive framework if reservation is to serve as a tool of social engineering and help its forward movement to the goal of a Just Society.
For one thing, a transitory measure for 10 years in favour of the SC's and the ST's has become almost a permanent feature of the administrative and educational landscape. Cutting across religion, caste and ethnic divides, there is a rush for inclusion in the list of SC's, ST's and OBC's and a legitimate resistance thereto, if the quota remains unchanged. Since there has been no Caste Census since 1931, there is no way to check the highly exaggerated claims of population by various groups and sub-groups. And there is no way to relate the quantum of reservation, in any of the 3 categories, to the respective population at the national or the state level. In the meantime, some social groups and sub-groups continue to languish in deprivation either because of a false sense of superiority or lack of political support, despite the fact that as the total quantum of reservation rises, entry become increasingly competitive and tougher for those who are outside the charmed circle. It has been reported that students with above 80% marks belonging to non-entitled groups in the qualifying examination have failed to secure admission to technical courses, because very few seats remained unreserved. This has contributed to brain drain as well as aggravated social tensions. Also, every privileged 'Backward Class' has over the last half a century developed a "creamy layer" which tends to swallow the entire quota allocated for the group. Thus, Brahminism has been replaced by Yadavism or Kurmi-ism, under one name or the other, throughout the country.
Within each constituent class - whether SC or ST or OBC, there is no uniformity of benefit to all constituent social groups or sub-groups, giving rise to the comparatively more 'forward among the backward swallowing the share of the other relatively backward bracketted with them. As the consciousness of injustice and deprivation seeps down, the relatively deprived sub- groups are bound to press for protection, through the institution of sub-quotas within the quota, as demanded recently in A.P. and as partially conceded in Bihar.
Reservation in promotion has caused new social tensions and disciplinary problems because the sub-ordinate today becomes the superior tomorrow!
Once the principle of reservation is accepted, the quota thereof should be treated not as a political but as a technical question. Only in this manner can then inter-group conflict be eliminated.
Every definable segment of the national society claims and aspires to see itself in administration. This aspiration is legitimate in a plural society and in democratic governance, because in a developing society, public service brings social prestige, Izzat, apart from bettering the opportunities for education, employment and upward mobility for the next generation. Also because nearly 75% of the budgetary resources of the state are consumed by its employees.
Reservation is not based on genetic inferiority of a social group, nor as compensation for age-old suppression. It is related only to the fact of current backwardness, reflected in low participation in management of the society and low representation in the organ of the State and the administrative apparatus.
Unfortunately, there is yet no nationally accepted criteria for backwardness. Social backwardness, except in terms of untouchability and access to public places, is not measurable or quantifiable as educational or economic backwardness is. Moreover, untouchability is a thing of the past at least for those members of the SC's which have come up economically. This is the reason why various Backward Commissions have been forced to adopt economic criteria as well, for determining the fact of backwardness and consequent inclusion in the list of OBC's. Strictly speaking this goes against the letter of the Constitution but economic and social status are becoming increasingly inter-related on our developing society.
In a sense, Backwardness is universal and cuts across caste, religious, racial, linguistic and regional divides. There are pockets of backwardness in every forward social group. Conversely there are pockets of forwardness in every backward group, The level of backwardness is not uniform among all social groups, bracketted within the category of SC, ST or OBC. But the level of backwardness can be measured and quantified in respect of any social group which self- conscious and, therefore, identifiable wishes to claim the benefit of reservation, in terms of a set of nationally acceptable and verifiable parameters like the % of families living below the poverty line, the per capita income, the literacy level, the number of matriculates or university graduates per 1000 of population, the level of unemployment, the number of government servants or public employees per 1000 of population, % of families with pucca houses, land holding per family etc. Once the set of parameters is determined, the state or the national average for each parameter can be determined as well as the average in respect of each constituent group or sub- group. The level of backwardness in relation to the State or national average can then be quantified. A group which is above the national or state level (plus) in every parameter is 'forward'. A group which is below (minus) in all respect is "backward", and its index may be set as 100. Statistically it is possible to work out the index of relative backwardness of each social group or sub-group depending upon the number of pluses and minuses and the weightage assigned to each parameter.
If the population of each social group or sub-group is known, its quota can be determined as a multiple of percentage of population and index of backwardness. The total reservation quota for the Union or the State should be the sum total of the quotas of the entitled groups or sub-groups. There should be no arbitrary cut-off, whether 50% or otherwise. The maximum shall obviously vary in space and time; it shall be different for each state and for the Union and, hopefully lower with every passing decade, when a fresh census is taken.
Social groups vary in size and relative proportion at every level. Hence there has to be a uniform cut-off point, say, 1% for the allocation of a separate quota. For those whose index is below 1% (either because of small size of population or low index of backwardness), they should be the option of joining each other or any other larger group of their choice.
How can a social group be defined in the Indian context? This can only be done on the basis of a consciousness of identity based on one or more facets of religion, caste, race, language or culture or hereditary profession, so long as they do not sub-divide into micro-groups. Slowly but steadily the country is moving towards Panch Khamba Raj - decentralisation based on 5 functional levels, the Panchayat, the Prakhand, the Zila, the Rajya and the Kendra. Each level will have public employees and provide public facilities and services. In respect of the facilities and services which are universally available, there is no question of reservation but if there is a process of selection, of pick-and-choose, proportionality or reservation has to be introduced in the welfare or development programmes.
Since upward mobility even the enjoyment of the quota is largely determined by educational status, it is a welcome step that the State has taken to universalise elementary education.
The reservation system outlined above should lift above despair the hearts of those committed to the merit principle. If the entitled lack adequate number of the candidate with minimum qualification, the unutilised quota should go into the general pool. The general pool shall hopefully be larger with every decade, as the index of backwardness falls with educational and economic development.
The concept of social justice has so far focussed only on public employment. What is more important is access of all social groups to higher and especially professional education, to flow of public credit, to public housing, to public distribution system and to state welfare schemes, which are non-universal in application. Contraction of public employment under liberalisation demands extension of reservation to private employment. There is a demand for reservation in the judicial service, the security forces. Moreover, annual quotas in public employment should be calculated not on the basis of current vacancies in the cadre or the service but of the total cadre strength.
Since legislatures are the source of political power, all social groups are demanding representation therein, as already available to the SC/ST. Since reservation is a tool of social engineering, it should be universally applied and each group should be the beneficiary of a quota based on its population and its index of backwardness. Reservation needs to be extended to other deprived and handicapped groups like the religious, linguistic and racial minorities at any level and to women on the basis of an adequate share within the quota for every social group, which should progressively rise to 50%.
The "creamy layer" must be honestly defined uniformly for the whole country so that the benefits of reservation percolate done through the social layers.
No beneficiary should enjoy reservation benefit more than once in education and in employment i.e. not more than, twice in a life-time.
Caste Census in 2001 is a MUST, so that cross-tabulated socio-economic data can provide not only the population but also the basic data for determining the level of backwardness of each social group. All quotas should be subject to re-examination by a duly constituted National Backward Classes Commission, immediately after each decennial census.
The decision to universalise elementary education upto the age of 14 should be implemented urgently in all parts of the country and uniformly, in quantity and quality, so that the deprived groups everywhere have access to education in equal and uniform measure and are in a position to throw up adequate number of candidates for their quota.
To enable them to act as effective watch dogs for the gains made. The existing National and State Commission of Backward Classes should be adequately empowered to deal with situations of injustice and deprivation.
At the parliamentary level, all MP's belonging to SC, ST, OBC's and Minorities should establish a common Forum of Backward Classes for mutual consultation and joint action.
To sum up, Social Justice in terms of participation of all social groups in governance has been universally accepted by all political parties and the empowerment of the backward classes has been growing and the participation in national affairs has been increasing. This is a matter of satisfaction. But the movement for social justice appears to be losing momentum, having been caught in internal contradiction and reluctance to resolve them. To take the people forward on the historic march towards Justice, Equality and Fraternity in the Indian society, contradictions in the reserve system which have largely arisen due to ad-hocism and politicisation have to be resolved, new targets and goals have to be set within a coherent framework and the people have to be mobilised for the next phase of the continuing struggle.
New Delhi,
1 December, 1997
[Correction: Please read 'Quran' for 'man' at the end of the editorial in November, 1997 - Editor]
