Political Diary

New Delhi, 2 April 2011

Caste Cauldron

MEDIOCRITY RULES ROOST

By Poonam I Kaushish

Buying time has become the favourite pastime of the UPA Government. And setting up committee after committee its stock in trade. Be it on the Telengana imbroglio, CWG scam et al.  If it runs out of these, it merrily doles out promises in the hope that as time goes by the issue will be forgotten or perhaps overtaken by another hot scandal. All busy in populist bravados and mindlessness. The aam aadmi? A loser all the way!

The latest in this series is the Central Government’s pledge to give serious consideration to the issue of reservation for Jats under the OBC quota. In keeping with its vote-bank philosophy of making quotas and queues the perfect fodder for its electoral milch cow. Merrily converting positive affirmation into vote percentage. Welcome Mandal II.

Indeed, history is repeating itself. Following the Vajpayee-led NDA Government’s decision granting Rajasthan’s Jats OBC reservation in 1999, today the Jats of Haryana and UP are demanding similar status. And are employing the same strategy that Rajasthan's Gujjars employed in 2007: mass mobilisation, threats to disturb the peace and destroy public property, and confrontation with the police. On the fallacious plea that violence has great communication value.

Undoubtedly, the Haryana Jats have a point. Despite constituting almost 30% of the population and having an iron grip on Haryana’s power structure they are not adequately represented in Government jobs in the State. Worse, although, reservation for them was announced in 1991 by the then Chief Minister of Haryana Hukum Singh after Justice Gurnam Singh Commission recommended reservation for 10 castes including the Jats, his successor Bhajan Lal got it stalled by approaching the Supreme Court.

What aggravates the issue is that Jat Chief Ministers have ruled Haryana for nearly 30 out of the 45 years of its existence. Of which the last three neither did anything to provide reservation for their community.  Moreover, Delhi, UP and Rajasthan have already provided reservation to Jats but the Haryana Government is still not ready to do it. Chief Minister Hooda has promised to set-up a Haryana Backward Classes Commission to consider the community’s demand.

In UP while Baghpat and Mathura account for 40% Jats, in the West they are roughly 17% of the population and call the shots. In UP, Jats enjoy reservations under the OBC quota in State Government jobs but are now demanding Central jobs. More. To gain a toehold in west UP where the BSP’s presence is negligible, Mayawati is supporting them.

Given the level of dishonesty and irresponsibility which governs our political system, what is happening today was expected. Given our netagan’s penchant for electoral expediency all care two hoots for the long-term consequences of a facetious seemingly reformative but inherently dangerous policy of reservations, an invitation to disaster.

It should be remembered that social justice and equal opportunity is not the prerogative of a chosen few. How does it better the lot of the mass of SCs and STs or of the myriad castes and sub-castes lumped together as OBCs by Mandal if a few persons fro these castes or tribes get jobs? Also, groups already in the OBC category would not welcome reduction in their quota of privileges. Second, people of this group in other States would follow suit.

Sadly, those who feared that reservations would land India in a quagmire have been proved right. Initially introduced for only ten years by the Constitution framers, reservations of seats for the SCs and STs in elections have been extended time and again --- decade after decade. Thanks to the politicians, beginning with Nehru himself.

What is deplorable is that in pandering to the vote banks, the Centre has unwisely opened the floodgates of demands for an increase in the quota of reservations. Mandal I, introduced in 1993 for central government jobs, has already led to such a proliferation. There has been a 90% increase in the number of centrally notified OBCs from 1,257 castes in 1993 to 2,297 in 2006.

From the bench mark of 50 per cent set by the Supreme Court to 85 per cent in some states. In the north-eastern States of Meghalaya and Nagaland, reservation adds up to the extent of 85 and 80 per cent respectively. Karnataka has 73 per cent and Tamil Nadu 69 per cent. One of the oddities in the Central list is that the tiny territory of Pondicherry has contributed 262 castes while the largest state in terms of area, Rajasthan, has only 65 castes.

Pertinently, all seem to have forgotten the first commission under Kaka Kalelkar meant to identify backward classes, notwithstanding, it never saw light of day.  Instead it unfortunately ended up listing castes as if they were synonyms. Arguably, caste and class are two different things. While a caste can be divided into several classes, rich or poor, a class can cut across several castes.

True, many backward castes families are poverty-stricken. But it needs to be remembered that poverty exists in a family unit and not at the caste level per se. If one has to eradicate poverty, then all poor families belonging to a caste should be eligible for State privileges. But at the same time this would not ostracise those poor families belonging to castes not listed as ST, SC or OBC.

Importantly, reservation is not the sole panacea for eradicating poverty, nor is it a guarantee that members of castes or tribes will get Government jobs or seats in Parliament and State Assemblies. How will the Government respond if each caste begins to complain of non-representation in political parties or Government departments? Unsurprisingly, merit has been replaced by casteism and by domicile. Forget Government jobs, demands have now come up for quotas in private and public sector employment.

Questionably, is reservation an end in itself? No. Has anyone assessed whether those provided reservations have gained or continue to loose? Not at all. Has an objective study been made to find out the end result? Never. According to Justice Shyam Sunder, former Chairman of the National Commission on Backward Classes, the politicians have converted reservations into a circus”.

Today politicians are falling over each other in positioning Ambedkarism as the ideological alternative to Gandhism. But they need to heed Ambedkar’s own wise words even as they go about this task.

Said he: “Supposing, for instance, reservations were made for a community or a collection of communities and the total came to 70% of the total posts under the State and only 30% posts retained as unreserved, would anybody say that the reservation of 30%, of giving effect to the principle that there shall be an equality of opportunity? It cannot be, in my judgment.

In sum, reservations are no answer to fulfilling: people’s aspirations. Social justice is undoubtedly desirable and a laudable goal. But it cannot be at the cost of good governance, need-based development and the country’s promising future.

Quotas in the name of charity are bad. As reservation promote dependence, and hence parasites. By doing this we will only condemn India into becoming a nation of mediocrity. This, if unchecked, will be India’s death knell. The fat is in the fire. Do we want India’s goose cooked? ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)