RESERVATION

Mani Shankar Aiyar's Open Letter to Shahabuddin

The concept of the "backward classes" was introduced into our Constitution through the First Amendment in 1951. While great care was taken to use the expression "class" rather than "caste", the Mandal Commission, in its wisdom or lack of it, chose to take caste as the basic unit of our society and so based its identification of the "backward classes" on caste rather than class. The Supreme Court has sought to reintroduce the distinguishing element of "class" rather than "caste" by ordering the exclusion of the "creamy layer" from the special measures that are taken in favor of "backward castes".

The Muslims, as a community, (are) as a backward class. I am sure you would have no objection to the creamy layer of Muslims being excluded from the operation of (any) affirmative action.

Even the Mandal Commission, however, restricted itself to proposing reservations in Central Government employment and educational institutions for the identified backward castes it did not suggest reservations in our legislatures.

The local bodies constitute the third tier of governance, not the third tier of government precisely because they are empowered through devolution and decentralization, not through legislative authority of their own. Therefore, reservations for the backwards in the local bodies does not of itself legitimize similar reservations for them in the legislatures. That will require a Constitutional amendment. No one, thank God, has proposed that yet!

The legislative proposal for reservations for women does not base itself on Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution. Nor does it base itself on the Mandal Commission recommendations, Mandal did not consider women a "backward class". Nor does the argument in favor of reservations define or treat women as a backward class. The argument in favor of reservations for women is based on recognizing that women are woefully under-represented in our legislatures and considering that it would be beneficial to the polity as a whole.

I think Muslims, other than those in the creamy layer, should be included among the beneficiaries of all employment and, above all, educational programmes based on Mandal. And I think you should persuade your party colleagues to extend to backward Muslims the special measures that have been devised for backward Hindus. You would agree with me that if Mandal were extended to backward Muslims, Mandal should also be extended to backward segments of other minority religious communities. I would take that logic further to include the backward segments of the so-called "forward castes".

Community-based reservations cannot, however, be limited to one community; all unrepresented or under- represented communities would, in equity, have to be given the same opportunity. Since India is a congeries of communities, we will end with a congeries of reservations. In effect, proportionate representation for the communities will have the same consequence as separate electorates. That is a disaster both of us would want to avoid.

The way forward is for us, jointly and severally. to press for more allotment of seats to Muslim candidates in our respective parties while, at the same time, ensuring that, as a mature democracy, it is not left only to Muslims to take up Muslim issues or to Hindus to take up Hindu issues.

 (Source: The Indian Express, 6 November, 1996)

Shahabuddin's Letter to Mani Shankar Aiyar, 11 November, 1996

Thank you for your open letter in the Indian Express of 6 November, 1996.

Permit me to correct your impression that I belong to Janata Dal. For the moment I do not. I am enjoying this spell of partylessness, though I remain committed to the ideological goal of Social Justice.

Secondly, much before Mandal Commission wrote its report, Caste had been recognized as a social unit for the measurement of backwardness. There is no other convenient label under which the vast Indian Society can be dissected for close examination. In any case, as Lohia pointed out, in the Indian context caste is largely synonymous with class. The lower one goes in the caste hierarchy, the more he is likely to encounter deprivation, injustice and adverse discrimination. The only other basis for classification is religion. But, once bitten twice shy,we remain allergic to religion, after it led to the tragedy of Partition, though religion as a factor in politics appears to retain, nay, to have increase its hold.

Thirdly, the creamy layer must apply to all social groups based on caste, religion, race, ethnicity, language. and culture, wherever affirmative action is prescribed to ensure that the benefits thereof are not tapped by the elite, the upper strata of the group who least deserve it but are best equipped to take advantage. So, on this point, we stand together. You should have no doubts on this score.

Logically, every social group or sub-group is horizontally stratified in both the social and economic sense. Therefore, the measurement of backwardness must not be based on the identity of the group but on its level of backwardness. The level can be scientifically measured on the basis of a set of nationally accepted parameters and the position of the group in relation to cach parameter, above or below the average (for the country, the State, as the case may be). For greater accuracy, the exact degree of variation, plus or minus, for the average can be taken into account, though it may not be necessary. The SC and the ST receive now full weightage for their population. Their index can be taken as 100 and the rating of other groups can be fixed in relation thereto. Thus, for example, the index of backwardness of Muslim community, as a whole (including the creamy layer) may be 90 and off the Brahmin (again including the creamy layer) may be 20. The reservation quota for Muslims should be 90% of their population and that of the Brahmin 20% of their population. Mandal has arbitrarily taken the index of backwardness of the so-called OBC's as 50. Perhaps he was trying to go along with the ruling of the Supreme Court or his misunderstanding thereof.

The total or maximum reservation should therefore be:

RM      =   PG X BG

PG          =   Population of a Group

BG       = Index of Backwardness of the Group with SC/ST 100, as the base

It would and should obviously vary from State to State and for the Union as a whole, depending upon the number of social groups within their jurisdiction which are found to be backward by a competent authority and their respective indices of backwardness. The Supreme Court "limit" is arbitrary. So are the limits set by various States. In the case of your State, it is arbitrary to the point of absurdity and your party wanted to amend the Constitution to accommodate it!

Having det ermined the group quota, the real question is the identification of the individual beneficiaries. They can only be individuals belonging to the families which are in fact "back ward". Therefore, the Supreme Court has applied the correction though it has left the states free to nullify it in practice as Kerala is trying to do and as Laloo Prasad Yadav did it by drawing the line so as to include practically the entire creamy layer and not to exclude it!

In the process of implementation of reservation, it has become crystal clear that neither the SC nor the ST nor the OBC's constitute a socially or economically homogeneous category. The result is the emergence of some social groups (castes or tribes) among each of them which are lapping up their entire quota to the continued deprivation of the other groups bracketed with them. Under non-reservation. the high castes had the whole cake at their disposal. Now within each reserved category, the "dominant" or the most advanced group has the whole of the share cof the cake assigned to the whole group. Thus, in Bihar, the Yadavs, the Kurmis and the Koeris are the main beneficiaries of the OBC quota. They constitute only 20% of the 52% of the population of Bihar which OBC's form. Thus 40% BCs are feasting.

free of competition from the higher caste, at the expense of 60%-the MBCs.

Theoretically some Muslim Sub-communities are included in the list of OBC's By Mandal's arithmetic 4.3% of the 27% OBC quota should be available to the Muslim OBC's. BUT IT IS NOT. Firstly, because the Muslim BCs are not forward" enough to compete with the "Forward" Hindu Backward Classes. But also, because the Muslims, whatever be their caste and class, suffer bias and prejudice the end result of the Partition and the communal poison in the system.

The question, therefore, is not the "extension" of Mandal to other Backward groups. There can be no equality among unequals. And, therefore, the Mandal's OBC quota has to be distributed among various Backward groups which are lumped together and asked to compete against the Forward among themselves. Also, among the Forward BC's themselves there is rising rivalry. This is what gave rise to the Samata Phenomenon in Bihar a counter-weight the Kurmi demanded to balance the Yadavs!

What is the solution? The only solution is Universal Reservation. Each self-conscious and identifiable group should, in theory, be entitled to its quota, determined by a multiple of its population and its index of backwardness, subject only to a cut-off limit of, say, 1% quota. Micro groups, defined as a group which is entitled to a quota of less than 1%, should either aggregate among themselves to form a viable group or join a large group of its choice with which it feels a sense of affinity. May I add that since many groups will not enjoy full weightage of their population, there shall be a residual pool for the operation of the merit principle for the induction of Aiyars and Syeds!

It is in this context that I have been pleading for a separate reservation quota for the Muslim community which, I am glad, you agree, is a Backward Class today. Yet even within this community, there are layers and strata. If any Muslim Sub-community feels apprehensive of losing out to the Syeds, the Sheikhs and the Pathans, it should be allowed a quota of its own mutatis mutandis. But I do not concede the view that because the Hindus are having caste quotas, so should the Muslims! After all the Hindus form 82% of the population and do not suffer the thrust of majoritarianism! Muslim solidarity in the face of continuing religious bias and prejudice calls for a Muslim quota. But I cannot stand in the face of social logic. So, if the Momin Baradari wants to stick out on its own, so be it.

I would like to emphasize that the Muslims do not demand reservation on the ground of religion alone, as a religious community but on grounds of persistent backwardness. Article 14 and Article 15(1) apply to religion and caste both and if caste coupled with backwardness can escape free into the realm of positive discrimination, so can religion, if coupled with backwardness. In any case, reservation does not amount to separatism or secessionism. Partition cannot be used as an argument against the right of Muslims to equality under the Constitution.

You are not right when you say that the OBC's have not demanded reservation in legislation. They have and they are. In the last session, a Private Member's Bill was long debated- I myself took part in it and a large section of the OBC MP's, cutting across party line, supported it. I have been drawing the attention of the parties and the government to the fact of dwindling representation of Muslims in the Union and State legislature. Today the situation is scandalous. In some legislatures like those of MP, Rajasthan and Gujarat, they are not represented at all or hardly, would you blame them, if the political parties. continue to deny them tickets and set them up in constituencies where they have a reasonable chance to win by virtue of Muslim concentration, or Party following, if they demand reservation in legislature? After all it was proposed by the Committee on Fundamental Rights of the Constituent Assembly and was provided for in the Draft Constitution. I do not and shall never support Separate Electorate which was and is the key to political mischief. And you know that I consider Partition to be an unmitigated tragedy for the Muslims of the Sub-Continent, in particular.

I shall not cross swords with you on the question of reservation for women. But you have yourself pointed out how "local government" is different from legislation. Yet, if you insist and if you want to be fair to all sections of the Society, let there be quotas within the quota, 30% reservation for women in the reservation for each social group, the SC's, the ST's (and the OBC's) for the present)