Today the demand for reservation is coming from various sections and groups in India. There are demands that reservation be extended to women and to Muslims. The private sector and military have been excluded from the reservation system, but there are already demands that both be included. Even the Christians are demanding reservation as well. In the situation, anxiety is deepened by the realisation of the fact that in addition to our old enemies in the form of castes and creeds, we are going to have many political parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Implementation of any reservation or promotion policy on ad-hoc considerations under pressure of political mobs without rational classification as required under the law, may prove to be discriminatory. Thus, it is right to expect that the government would take proper measures to honour the basic mandates of accountability at appropriate levels so as to avert any possibility of unconstitutional functioning and possible cause of contempt of constitution.
Most often, only economically sound people from the so-called lower castes make use of most of the reserved seats, thus countering the spirit of reservation. Especially in this era of globalisation and privatization, multi-national companies will be deterred by this action of the government and foreign investment in India may dry up, hurting the growth of the Indian economy
Reservation of 27 percent jobs in public sector undertakings for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) was based on the central premise of the Mandal Commission that India should proceed from an ideology that rested upon hereditary hierarchy to an ideology that emphasised equality of outcomes, not equality of opportunity. “If a tree is to be judged by its fruits”, wrote the Commission, “equality of results is obviously the most reliable test of our aspirations and efforts to achieve a just and equitable order. A formidable task under any circumstances, it becomes particularly so in a society which has remained segmented in a finely graded caste hierarchy for centuries.” Until 1985, the affairs of the Backward Classes were looked after by the Backward Cell in the Ministry of Home Affairs. A separate Ministry of Welfare was established in 1985, renamed in 1998 the Ministry Social Justice and Empowerment, to attend to matters relating to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs. The Backward Classes Division of the Ministry looks after the policy, planning and implementation of programmes relating to social and economic empowerment of OBCs and matters relating to two institutions set up for the welfare of OBCs, the National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation and the National Commission for Backward Classes.
The 400 castes enumerated in the Mandal Commission report were to be given reservation. The annual number of jobs in government service to be set aside was small, estimated at 50,000 annually, but the government’s announcement triggered large-scale violence across northern India, especially in the universities. Though many of the opponents of reservation did so because they were excluded, there was also a growing sense that a moral injustice was being committed, that equality of opportunity was being eroded, that appointments would be made on the basis of membership in a caste irrespective of whether the individual was economically or socially handicapped, and that the government had extended the benefits for political reasons. The issue of reservation presented before us the extreme polarisation of positions between these groups suggests the failure of social revolution, wherein annihilation of caste has not been accomplished. Instead we have a situation where the “upper castes” believe that only the “lower castes” are stuck with a pre-modern identity while they have transcended it. The Court’s ruling too seems to endorse this belief when it suggests that excessive reservation would have the effect of discriminating against the socially advantaged classes.
Discrimination is now regarded as a problem that the “upper castes” have to grapple with. Within this scheme, what continues to be conceded to the “lower castes” is their “deprivation” or “backwardness”. In the context the court’s approach has taken a observable shift in the discourse on caste- based reservation, from the idea of discrimination to deprivation. In a country like India, once a system of group preferences was introduced, leaders of political parties regarded support for preferences as a strategy for winning political support. Reservation based upon religion and caste is divisive and disintegrative in the long run. Recently and in earlier phase the Andhra Pradesh High Court has declared reservation for religious minorities constitutionally invalid. The government of the day had demonstrated by providing that minority backward classes forming part of the sub-quota were more backward than the other backward classes.
Even of the prevailing caste system and social polarization, political parties take full advantage. They know that reservations are no way to improve the lot of the poor and the backward. They support them because of the self-interest of the “creamy layer”, who use the reservations to further their own family interests and as a political flag of ‘achievement’ during election campaigns. Several studies show that the OBC class is comparable with the general caste in terms of annual per capita consumption expenditure, and the top strata of OBC is ahead in a host of consumption areas. Most often, only economically sound people from the so-called lower castes make use of most of the reserved seats, thus countering the spirit of reservation. Especially in this era of globalisation and privatization, multi-national companies will be deterred by this action of the government and foreign investment in India may dry up, hurting the growth of the Indian economy.
Recently in September 2012, when Parliament was discussing the reservation for SCs/STs in promotion in the light of a judgement given earlier by the Supreme Court of India, in which the apex court had made backwardness, adequate representation and administrative efficiency andatory criteria for giving promotion quota to SC/STs, members of political parties including the Indian National Congress raised the issue of OBC reservation in promotion. V. Hanumantha, a Congress MP in Rajya Sabha and prominent leader from Andhra Pradesh, said, ‘There is a sizable backward class in the country and it should be given reservation in promotion as is proposed to be done for the SCs and STs.” Further in response to the statement of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M. Karunanidhi, who supported the demand for “promotion quota” for OBCs on par with the one proposed for SCs and STs, other chieftains of the cause, Lalu Prasad Yadav, N. Chandrababu Naidu and Mulayam Singh Yadav demanded the promotion quota for OBCs. In a further development, members of the OBC Parliamentary Forum, headed by V. Hanumantha Rao, demanding that the Centre bring a law to institute promotion quota for backward castes, submitted a formal demand to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The issue was again raised on 8 March 2013, and in reply to a Lok Sabha question Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, V. Narayanswamy submitted that government should consider extending reservation to the members of other backward classes in promotion also and bring an amendment to the Constitution to give effect to this proposal. This view was also supported in a Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee’s report in the year 2004 which observed that to meet the constitutional obligation to provide adequate representation to OBCs the government should consider extending reservation to the members of other backward classes in promotion.
