India ready for quota? Question merits debate

The Supreme Court verdict this on OBC reservations for higher education could change the face of education in this country. It has also raised certain very important questions:
In a balancing act, SC upholds 27 per cent OBC reservation in higher educational institutions but keeps the creamy layer or the well off out of it. Is it the right decision?
All political parties have welcomed the judgment. Have quotas become a political weapon?
Both pro and anti-reservationists have something to celebrate but will this verdict end up dividing the campus?
The HRD Ministry says SC judgment applicable to the IIMs as well. How prepared are they to implement the quota and where is the infrastructure?
To discuss and debate these points on a CNN-IBN special show The Quota Question was an eminent panel comprising politicians, sociologists, Supreme Court lawyers and the most affected community – students.
The show was moderated by CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai and on the panel were National Spokesperson of Congress, Jayanthi Natarajan; Senior Counsel, Harish Salve; Advisor to HRD Minister on reservation, P S Krishnan and Professor of Sociology Dipankar Gupta.
The SC judgement: Reading the fine print
Supreme Court has held the 27 per cent quota for OBCs in Central higher educational institutions legal and valid. This means that total reservation will go up to 49.5 per cent.
The apex court has ruled creamy layer among the OBCs will be excluded from the quota benefits.
The Supreme Court has allowed quotas in only state-run or funded colleges for now; private institutions have been kept out.
The Court wants Government to review the 27 per cent quota after five years.
It has ruled that not extending OBC quota law to minority educational institutions is legal.
The SC has also observed that reservation is one of the many tools that are used to preserve and promote the essence of equality.
And it says the concept of social equity must prevail over any concept of merit when it comes to reservations.
Dipankar Gupta explained the SC verdict and pointed out reservations were meant to give the ones who have been dispriviledged for centuries some help in order to ensure they “come up”. “I think the Chief Justice is correct that it’s one of the many tools. Because the other tool is anti-poverty programme. Because if you forget that and concertrate exclusively on reservations, a whole lot of OBCs and SC/STs will be left out.”
Which is precisely what the SC observed. It noted that caste cannot be the sole determinant of backwardness. The CJI said in his judgement: Determination of backward classes cannot be exclusively based on caste. Poverty, social and economic backwardness are all criteria to determine backwardness.
Caste vs Class
But doesn’t look like the UPA Government be willing to consider this, which would essentially mean going against the spirit of the SC judgement. However, P S Krishnan defended the Government with a terse argument. “It’s not correct. The Constitution of India mandates equality not only between individuals but between social groups because equality has been casuality of India’s civilization history over centuries. It’s nobody’s case that backward classes are identified only on the basis of caste.”
However, with General Elections fast approaching, that’s exactly what the Government is planning to do – giving reservations not on the basis of economic backwardness but purely on the basis of caste.
Krishnan vociferously rejected the statement. “We are taking caste as social unit and different commissions have worked out criteria of backwardness – social, educational and economic criteria and applied them to each caste unit and found out which of them were below the standards.”
But the inadvertent fallout of the judgement has been a strengthening of sorts of the Indian caste system. More castes have been added to the already existing structure and no where has it been heard or suggested that income be made the criteria of deciding backwardness. Essentially, the Government is perpetuating caste as the fallout of the Supreme Court judgement.
Jayanthi Natarajan replied to the argument, saying it was not the caste but a class of people that was acriteria. “Even the CJI has given a yardstick for that. For example, if more than half of the caste is not graduate, it can be a criterion. Therefore, it’s an issue about the backwardness of a group of people not perpetuating caste system,” she explained.
But the irony remains that no political party is willing to say that a certain class will have to drop out because they have achieved a certain measure of social and economic stature.
Jayanthi countered that politically difficult statement with a politically correct one. “After the Indra Sahni case, when we’ve had reservations for OBCs in employment, only 5.4 per cent of those seats have been filled. So until social inclusiveness is totally achieved, I don’t think it’s time yet to talking about leaving people out. It may be a very attractive argument. It’s also not true to say that it replaces merit,” she said.
Quotas = “socially inclusive” society?
Jayanthi’s argument raises an interesting point of debate. The general argument made in the favour of reservations is that of achieving a “socially inclusive” society. As per the National Sample Survey, out of 1,000 Hindu, upper-caste people in urban India, 253 were graduates. For Hindu OBCs the figure is 82 out of 1,000. Therefore, the “social inclusiveness” argument seems to work in this case and looks like the judgement has gone a long way in achieving that.
Gupta said it was pointless arguing if OBCs should be given reservations. He said the more important point of debate was that of the creamy layer. “Look at the formula that Mandal devised to denote backwardness and you’ll find that economic backwardness has been given the least emphasis,” he said, explaning how if one is not educationally or economically backward, social backwardness didn’t apply either.
“Reservations should be reserved for those who have been dispriviledged (sic) in the past and have not been allowed to schools, temples, village wells etc,” he said.
But what could be the ideal index to determining backwardness? Gupta quoted the RC Prasad Committee (it was set up soon after the Indra Sahni case) that provided a criterion for the same. The only contentious issue, Gupta said, was considering land as a measure of wealth.
Lauding the apex court for the judgement, Gupta said it was time to move beyond caste. He explained that the idea of OBC judgement was to bring class back in. “Constitution has been very careful in pointing out that it should not be on the basis of caste as in Scheduled Castes but on the basis of other social and economic classes. It was not supposed to be caste. It plunges a knife deep into the Mandal body of reservations.”
In an effect, SC is asking the Government to review the concept of creamy layer. The bottomline of SC judgement seems to be this: Through the years, the creamy layer has benefited, the elite among the OBCs have always had it good. The question is whether the Government will consider a revision of this.
Krishnan remained defensive and said it was not correct to make these statements. “I know large numbers of SC and STs who have come from the bottom of the society. It’s a travesty of truth to say that only the upper castes have got the benefit of reservation. It’s also a travesty of truth t o say we have believed only in reservations. Reservation is one of the tools and we have always given great emphasis to land reforms, land distribution, developments of waste lands etc. There has been a consciousness that social justice is a large package out of which one very important tool is reservation.”
Vote bank: Cashing the quota cheque
But the argument clearly turns on its head when one talks of access to education, health and other facilities. Clearly, an effort is seriously wanting in this direction. It’s one thing to say that reservation is the way forward to social equity, but whether it’s primary or secondary education, there is simply no access and quota looks a soft option.
Krishnan argued quotas were not related to vote bank, as popularly perceived. He said quotas were started by the royals – Maharajas of Kolhapur, Mysore, Travancore and Cochin – who did not even care for votes. ”Reservation came to independent India much later. To relate it to vote bank is travesty of truth.”
But despite Krishnan and Jayanthi’s argument the public perception seemed to be tilted against SC ruling. Seventy-two per cent among the total votes cast online felt SC was not right whereas only 28 per cent agreed with the ruling.
The equation: Caste – Creamy Layer = Class
Senior Supreme Court counsel Harish Salve joined the debate at this juncture. Salve was the lawyer for the petitioners in the case. It would certainly be interesting to know Salve’s arguments in the court. Did he concede defeat? “On the contrary, I am very gratified that most of our criticisms of the law were accepted,” he said, adding, “The first and foremost was the Constitution provides for social engineering on the basis of class. What they have done is engineering on the basis of caste. When you take away creamy layer from caste, you have a homogenous class. That was accepted. We also said you cannot have lists formed by political considerations. The court has expressed gross dissatisfaction in the manner in which the lists have been drawn up and has thrown this open to judicial challenge.”
CNN-IBN
Published on Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 02:44, Updated at Sun, Apr 13, 2008 in Nation section