Positive Discrimination in India
Positive Discrimination in India
Positive Discrimination in India
A Political Analysis
Partha S Ghosh
Abstract
In a plural society such as India the state generally faces demands from various
caste, tribal religious and gender groups for social justice. Amongst such groups,
the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs & STs), are treated as deserving
cases for historical reasons and on this, therefore, a national consensus has emerged.
There is no agreement among the political classes as far as the other categories are
concerned. Yet as the demands on their behalf for inclusion in the affirmative action
(positive discrimination in Indian parlance) categories have assumed serious
political dimensions the state is under pressure to respond politically as and when
the demands become persistent. In this article four such social categories, namely,
the SCs & STs, the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), the minorities, and women, are
analysed from a political perspective. The scope of the article is limited to an
assessment of the scheme at the federal level. References to the experiences of
individual states are occasional and are only by way of supplementing a point or so.
Some questions have been raised about the future of the scheme if the Indian state is
forced to increasingly withdraw from the social sectors under the requirements of
liberalisation and globalisation of the economy.
Introduction
Any democratic society faces the challenge of harmonising two essentially
contradictory political concepts--one, equality before the law irrespective
of religion, caste, creed, race, and gender, and the other, social justice at
the cost of the same commitment for equality before the law. Even a
developed democracy like the United States is no exception to the rule
and has taken recourse to affirmative action to ensure justice for the less
privileged sections of the society at the cost of individual merit and
equality of all citizens before the law. In India large numbers of people
have experienced social discrimination through centuries on account of
its peculiar institution called the caste system, efforts have been made to
provide redress for these under-privileged sections, through the policy of
reservations or quotas for them in jobs, seats in educational institutions
and legislatures, and in governmental aid, loans and other developmental
assistance.
In all, four under-privileged categories have either received
benefits under the scheme or have been seeking such benefits, namely the
Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Other
Backward Classes (OBCs), the religious minorities or sections thereof, and
lately, the women. This article discusses these categories from a political
perspective. Its scope however, is limited to assessing the schemes both
under operation as well as under consideration, only at the national level.
The experiences of different states have been referred to only occasionally
to provide an example or to make a particular point.
scheme and in rural areas which were dominated by upper castes the
lives of the depressed classes would become even more miserable.
Behind this argument of course was Gandhi’s political understanding that
it would weaken the freedom movement. Whether Gandhi was actually
interested in bringing the depressed classes into the social mainstream of
Hinduism or was just indulging in a political ploy to gain the support of
these classes for the freedom movement without tampering too much
with the Hindu caste structure has been a long debate which has become
extremely acrimonious of late. The political crisis that Gandhi’s hunger
strike had triggered was resolved by the Poona Pact of 24 September 1932
signed between the non-Harijan Hindu leaders and Ambedkar. The pact
was a compromise which provided for 148 reserved seats instead of the 78
separately elected members provided for by the Communal Award. It
also granted certain privileges to the Harijans such as, educational
opportunities, representation in services, and the franchise.2
It had become necessary to list the depressed castes for purposes
of representation at the national and state levels. This schedule was
prepared in 1936 after considerable difficulty following the passage of the
Government of India Act, 1935. It covered 43.6 million people in all,
which meant 28.5% of the Hindu population and 19% of the total
population of British India.3 By the time of the census of 1941 the number
had risen to 48.8 million. It was this list which the Constituent Assembly
later adopted. At the 1991 census there were about 135 million SC people
in India consisting of 15.75% of the population.
So far as the enumeration of tribes was concerned it was
relatively easy because of their cultural and spatial specificities.
Moreover, the British had already treated them separately for
administrative purposes. Since the 1935 Government of India Act
provided for the separate representation for the Scheduled Castes,
separate representation for the “Backward Tribes” was a logical extension
of the principle. Accordingly, a schedule of these tribes was also
prepared.4 At the 1991 census they were about 66 million making up
7.75% of India’s population.
Positive Discrimination
The Constitution of independent India which largely followed the pattern
of the Government of India Act, 1935, made provisions for positive
discrimination in favour of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
(SCs & STs) which constituted about 23% of the divided India’s
138 Ghosh
The Record
As a result of this policy of positive discrimination, there has been some
improvement in the position of these people. In 1957, the percentage of
SCs in the Class I Central Government services was a mere 0.7. By 1971 it
had improved to 2.58%. So far as the Class II and III services were
concerned the improvements were from 2.01% to 4.6% and 7.3% to 9.59%
respectively. In 1947-48, only 650 scholarships were awarded to the SC
students for post-school studies costing the state Rs. 540,000. But by 1973-
74, the number of such scholarships had gone up to 270,420 costing the
Affirmative Action in India 139
Table 1
Population of SCs and STs, their Literacy and Urbanisation as
Compared to Others
SCs STs Others All
groups
1961
Population in millions 64.4 30.1 344.7 439.2
(1) as per cent of All Groups 14.7 6.8 78.5 100.0
Literacy rate (per cent) 7.5 5.1 28.8 24.0
Proportion (%) of
urban population 10.7 2.6 20.7 18.0
1971
Population in millions 80.0 38.0 429.9 547.9
(1) as per cent of All Groups 14.6 6.9 78.5 100.0
Literacy rate (per cent) 14.7 11.3 38.8 29.5
Proportion (%) of
urban population 11.9 3.4 22.8 20.0
1981*
Population in millions 104.8 51.6 508.9 665.3
(1) as per cent of All Groups 15.7 7.8 76.5 100.0
Literacy rate (per cent) 21.4 16.4 41.3 36.2
Proportion (%) of
urban population 16.0 6.2 27.1 23.7
1991**
Population in millions 138.2 67.8 640.3 846.3
(1) as per cent of All Groups 16.3 8.0 75.7 100.0
Literacy rate*** (per cent) 37.4 29.6 57.7 52.2
Proportion (%) of
urban population 18.7 7.4 29.2 25.7
Note:
140 Ghosh
Table 2
SC/ST/non-SC-ST as Percentage of Total Number of Literates with
Technical Degrees or Diplomas Equal to Degree or Post-graduate
Degree by Sex, 1981*
Non
Educational level SC ST
SC-ST
Males
Engineering and Technology 1.22 0.32 98.46
Medicine 2.03 0.51 97.46
Agriculture and Dairying 2.19 0.79 97.02
Veterinary 1.28 0.85 97.87
Teaching 2.30 0.67 97.03
Others 2.61 4.52 92.87
Total 1.76 0.50 97.74
Females
Engineering and Technology 1.36 0.36 98.28
Medicine 1.68 0.67 97.65
Agriculture and Dairying 2.32 0.87 96.81
Veterinary 0.70 1.76 97.54
Teaching 1.13 0.54 98.33
Others 1.75 0.73 97.52
Total 1.23 0.56 98.21
The employment ratio of the SCs and STs is even lower in the
public sector undertakings (Table 4). While our data here is relatively
old, they still reveal that even after almost three decades of independence
the picture remains dismal.
Table 4
Comparison of SC and ST Employment in Government Service and
Public Sector Undertakings, 1975 (%)
Scheduled Castes Scheduled Tribes
Class Government Public Sector Government Public Sector
I 3.4 1.4 0.6 0.3
II 5.0 3.0 0.6 0.4
III 10.7 13.7 2.3 6.0
IV* 18.6 26.2 4.0 11.9
* Sweepers omitted
Source: Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in
India, Delhi, OUP, 1984, p. 102.
Table 5
Representation of SCs in Central Government Services
(as on 1 January 1994)
Group Total SCs Percentage
A 59,016 6,046 10.25
B 1,03,198 12,443 12.06
C 23,81,613 3,74,758 15.73
D* 10,23,285 2,09,423 20.46
Sweepers 2,25,359 1,10,569 49.06
Total * 35,67,112 6,02,670 16.90
* Excluding sweepers.
Source: Government of India, Publications Division, India 1995, New Delhi,
1996. Cited in Kumar Suresh, “The Dalit Situation,” Mainstream,
New Delhi, 16 August 1997, p 24.
An Assessment
From the above data it is evident that there has been only marginal
improvement in the lot of the SCs and STs. Social discrimination still
persists even fifty years after independence and so does the stigma
attached to persons belonging to such castes. The quotas earmarked for
the SCs and STs are often not filled on account of the indifference of the
heads of departments. According to the Chairman of the National
Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, this is done
systematically through a variety of subterfuges -- from destroying
application forms from such persons, to filling up posts through ad hoc
recruitment on the ground that there is a ban on new recruitment on a
permanent basis. He is particularly critical of institutions of excellence in
this regard : “These institutions are particularly resistant to SC
reservation. Not one of them has filled the quota, including the Indian
Institutes of Technology.”10 They are also not filled owing to the non
availability of qualified people even at the standards specifically lowered
for these groups. For example, in 1980, the upper caste Hindus who made
up 25% of the population held 89.63% of the Central Government jobs
while the SCs & STs who made up for almost the same percentage of
population (23%) accounted for only 5.6% of the jobs.
The primary reason for this depressing situation is that caste
feelings still persist in Indian society which does not permit an egalitarian
Affirmative Action in India 143
Dalit Ascendancy
Whatever may be said in criticism against the policy of positive
discrimination it has served at least one purpose. It has made the Dalits
conscious of their rights and they have learnt that in a democratic milieu
these rights have to be extracted through agitational and electoral politics
and not to be expected as charity doled out by the privileged classes.14
The old theoretical controversy between Gandhi and Ambedkar seems to
be coming to the fore once again. That this conflict would generate
144 Ghosh
their most vociferous voice, the Bahujan Samaj Party, can be easily
explained. In UP the party has emerged as a force to reckon with and has
twice ruled the state through political alignments with other parties. It
would not be surprising if in the near future it develops a stake in
national politics as well, with Dalit politics increasingly enlarging its area
of operation.
146 Ghosh
31 December 1980.
By using eleven indicators for determining social and educational
148 Ghosh
Affirmative Action in India 149
backwardness22 and by basing its caste data on the 1931 census (the last
census in which caste affiliations of Hindus were recorded) the Mandal
Report came out with a list of 3,248 castes or communities as OBCs
accounting for 52.4% of India’s population, which meant roughly 350
million people then.23 The report pinpointed social disabilities they
confronted and their economic, social and educational backwardness (see
Table 7).
For the upliftment of the OBCs the Mandal Report recommended a
number of reforms including structural changes in oppressive production
relations. But its most important and controversial recommendation was
that 27% of jobs in government and public enterprises should be reserved
for the OBCs. The report also specified the exact scheme and procedures
to be followed to implement this recommendation:
1. Candidates belonging to OBCs recruited on the basis of
merit in an open competition should not be adjusted
against their reservation quota of 27%.
2. The above reservation should also be made applicable to
promotion quota at all levels.
3. Reserved quota remaining unfulfilled should be carried
forward for a period of three years and de-reserved
thereafter.
4. Relaxation in the upper age limit for direct recruitment
should be extended to the candidates of OBCs in the
same manner as for SC and ST members.
5. A roster system should be maintained for the OBCs in
the same manner as for SC and ST candidates.24
Table 7
Caste Composition of Class 1 Officers in the Central Government
(%)
Class Category Share Population
Upper Castes 89.63 25.34
Backward Castes 4.69 52.10
SC/ST 5.68 22.60
Source: Mandal Report, Part 1, p. 92, cited in O P Mehra, “Backward
Classes: Some Issues,” Vacham (Bhopal), 3 (1), January 1992, p. 40.
The rationale behind the 27% formula was that since 22.5%
reservation had already been made in favour of the SC/ST (in direct
proportion to their number) and since Supreme Court rulings had
150 Ghosh
prescribed that the reservations should remain below 50% it was not
possible to reserve 52% of seats for the OBCs in direct proportion to their
number. “In view of this,” the report said, “the proposed reservation for
OBCs would have to be pegged at a figure which, when added to 22.5%
for SCs and STs remains below 50%. In view of this legal constraint, the
Commission is obliged to recommend a reservation of 27% only, even
though their population is almost twice this figure.25
By the time the Mandal Report was submitted the Janata Party
had split and the Congress was all set to return to power. The
recommendations of the Mandal Commission remained in cold storage
for about a decade. It was in 1990 that Prime Minister V P Singh, partly
for the purposes of refurbishing the social base of his ruling coalition and
partly to blunt the Hindutva edge of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
decided to implement them.26 With this a new chapter opened in Indian
politics and along with it an acrimonious debate over the issue of social
justice started.
The government promulgation provided for a 27% quota in
government jobs for people belonging to the OBC category.
Implementation of the report led to violent protests from the upper castes
and eventually resulted in the fall of the V P Singh government. But the
movement has continued and at present no political party finds it
possible to dissociate itself from the recommendations of the Mandal
Report. The arithmetic of numbers at the hustings has made the OBC
phenomenon almost a permanent fixture in India’s politics. Some of the
South Indian states breached the ceiling of 50% laid down by the Supreme
Court for reservations.27 In Tamil Nadu there is a reservation of 69%; in
Karnataka it is as much as 73%. Even such a strong critic of the OBC
quota system such as Orissa’s late strong-man Biju Patnaik also gave in to
pressure. Announcing the introduction of the OBC quota (within the
legal norms) in his state in September 1994 he said “I must admit we
should have tried to follow the path enunciated for the backward classes
in states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka”.28 In Bihar reservations
have reached 76%. The pressure for similar policies has reached north
India as well.
same argument could be used against affirmative action benefits for Sikh,
Buddhist and Jain SCs.
The confusion is further confounded if one raises the issue of
conversion and compares the SCs with the STs. If an SC converts to
Christianity or Islam such a person is automatically deprived of his SC
benefits.32 But if the convert is an ST he continues to take the advantage
of the ST benefits because those benefits, as the argument goes, are
ethnicity-based and not religion-centric. In short, when the Dalit Muslims
or the Dalit Christians are demanding quotas for themselves, their claims
are advanced on the basis that in reality, India’s Islamic and Christian
societies are as much socially stratified as the Hindu society, the
difference being only one of scale.33
The current official position is that: “No scheme for minorities
below the poverty line is being implemented in the country.”34 Still, there
is a standing instruction of the Government of India “to all the
Ministries/Departments of Government of India that whenever a
Selection Committee/Board exists or has to be constituted for making
recruitment to 10 or more vacancies in Group C or Group D
posts/services, it shall be mandatory to have one member belonging to
SC/ST and one member belonging to minority community in such
Committees/Boards. Where, however, the number of vacancies against
which selection is to be made is less than 10, no effort should be spared in
finding a Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribes officer and a minority
community officer for inclusion in such Committees/Boards.”35
the 1996 Lok Sabha elections had already started the Welfare Minister in
the Narasimha Rao government, Sitaram Kesari, advised his party not to
ignore the Muslims. He said “In the Assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, state party leaders hailing from the
upper castes did not highlight the fact that we gave 27% reservation to the
backwards which included 110 Muslim sub castes. This led to the poor
showing.”39 Kesari’s successor in the H D Deve Gowda-led United Front
government, B S Ramoowalia, repeated the same promise and announced
several schemes for the benefit of Muslim OBCs.40
However the current controversies do not relate to the Muslim
OBCs, but are over reservations for the entire Muslim community as one
social unit and also over the question of quota benefits for the so-called
Muslim Dalits. The first demand for reservations for the Muslim
community was mooted in West Bengal during the regime of the
Congress chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray, during the days of the
Emergency (1975-77). A delegation led by Zainul Abedin, a minister in
Ray’s cabinet, met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and demanded
reservation for Muslims. In 1980, the Muslims of the state made the same
demand before the Gopal Singh Committee. The committee
recommended inclusion of Muslims under the reservation scheme.41
As the issue of quota matters electorally many of the state
governments where the Muslim community figures politically would like
to make commitments in their favour however cosmetic they may
eventually prove to be. For example, in Bihar the Janata Dal leader Laloo
Prasad Yadav had promised 10% reservations for Muslims before the
assembly elections of 1995. In Assam, Hiteshwar Saikia of the Congress
tried to ward off attacks on his government’s inability to stop the killing
of Muslims in Bodoland by promising the community 24% reservations.
In West Bengal, the Congress and the Muslim League leaders launched
agitations to remind Jyoti Basu of his 1977 poll pledge to provide quotas
for Muslims in jobs and educational institutions.42 In U P the Samajwadi
leader Mulayam Singh Yadav wants to make a dent in the growing
popular bases of the BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) by advocating
reservation for the Muslims in the state.43
Following the increasing communalisation of politics in the late
1980s and particularly after the demolition of the Babri mosque on 6
December 1992 the demand has been picked up by the Muslims in several
parts of the country. In Bihar two organisations--the Bihar Backward
Muslim Morcha (BBMM) and the Muslim Reservation Front (MRF)--
surfaced, demanding 20% reservations for the community.44 In April
1995, about 100 representatives of the Muslim community met in Delhi
154 Ghosh
under the leadership of Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the Naib Imam of the Jama
Masjid, and demanded reservation for Muslims on a proportionate basis
in all fields as the minority community was backward educationally,
economically and socially.45 In September, the 95 member strong Jama
Masjid Action Committee adopted a 10-point charter of demands which
included reservation for Muslims.46
Of late, even the National Commission for Minorities, a statutory
body, has appealed to the Government of India to do away with the
proviso in the 1950 Presidential Order for SCs and STs which uses
religion as the criterion for deciding the SC status. According to Tahir
Mahmood, the Chairman of the Commission, there must be the
recognition of absolute equality of all religions and, religious
communities under the constitution and laws. He believes that the 15-
year-old Gopal Singh Committee report on problems of minorities has
outlived its utility and there should be a fresh and comprehensive study
of the problems faced by the religious minorities.47
One of the arguments leveled against the demand for quota for
the entire Muslim community runs along the predictable line that if the
quota is granted to the community as a whole the beneficiaries would be
upper caste Muslims such as the Saiyads, Shekhs and other Ashrafs at the
cost of the really needy classes.48 Dalit Muslims tend to subscribe to this
logic and ask for a quota not for the community per se but only for
themselves.49 To this the Muslim leaders like Syed Shahabuddin have
strong objections. They argue that the Muslim community as such is
depressed and therefore deserves affirmative action and, so far as the
criticism that benefits under reservations would be cornered by the
socially and economically privileged group among them is concerned,
they argue, that it is equally applicable to the entire question of quota for
the SCs, STs and the OBCs.50
Dalit Christians
The question of Dalit Christians is different from the issue of reservation
for the Muslim community or the Muslim OBCs. Dalit Christians are
those who were originally untouchables and who converted to
Christianity. But conversion did not improve their social status and
upper caste converts continued to look down upon them. As a result
casteism continued to exist in the Church in India. In 1929 a delegation of
depressed class Christians stated in a deposition before the Simon
Commission: “We remain today what we were before we became
Christians-untouchables degraded by the laws of social position in the
Affirmative Action in India 155
Lately, the demand has been renewed. In 1994, the All India
Christian Federation in its Memorandum to the Prime Minister,
demanded that “there should be an end to discrimination by the state
against Christian Dalits only on the ground of religion ignoring other
evidences of their social and educational backwardness and, to grant
them SC status ... on par with the Scheduled Castes belonging to the
Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist religions.”56 On 21 November 1995, the
Christian educational institutions in most parts of the country went on a
day’s strike in support of the demand for reservations for the Dalit
Christians. In March 1996, the All India United Christians Movement for
Equal Rights and the National Coordination Committee for SC Christians
advised the community to vote for those political parties which would
include Dalit Christian issues in their election manifestos in the
forthcoming eleventh general election.
Such efforts did not go waste and in the 1996 parliamentary
elections, all the major political parties barring the BJP, included in their
election manifestos the demand that the Christian Dalits be treated as
Scheduled Castes. The Common Minimum Programme of the United
Front also included it. When a 14-member delegation of the All India
Christian People’s Forum met the then Prime Minister Deve Gowda on 14
June 1996 the latter promised the delegation that a bill would soon be
introduced to extend the SC status to the Dalit Christians.57 But nothing
happened, for the reason that the ruling United Front coalition did not
have enough confidence to secure its passage in the teeth of a determined
BJP opposition.
The BJP is opposed to reservations for the Muslim community as
a whole and the Dalit Muslims, as well as to granting SC status to the
Dalit Christians. So far as the Muslims are concerned it is not opposed to
the idea of the backward caste Muslims asking for reservation under the
OBC quota scheme58 but it is vehemently against introducing any quota
for the entire community for it would have “a serious repercussion” for
the nation. It is also against individual states deciding on quotas in
general. It endorses in principle the Supreme Court verdict that total
reservation should not exceed 50% with the exception of Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka.59
The BJP’s opposition is probably based on its Hindutva
considerations. Its premise is two-fold. If the Dalits of other
communities, namely, the Muslim and Christian are granted SC status
then it would, on the one hand, make the Hindu SCs feel insecure for
there would be more claimants on the quota and on the other, it would
discourage “de-Christianisation” of the Dalits, a phenomenon which is
Affirmative Action in India 157
otherwise expected in the given situation.60 The party hopes that the
more the Dalit Christians would be denied the SC status the greater
would be their compulsion to reconvert to Hinduism. In March 1994
many Dalit Christians of Tamil Nadu did indeed re-convert to Hinduism
for getting the SC status.61 Gopal Sardesai of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP) argues that: “Scheduled Caste Christians should return to the
Hindu fold and then claim the benefits of reservation.”62
has been questioned, would not such a move amount to throwing the
baby along with the bath water? As a compromise it has been suggested
that the women’s constituencies, reserved for some categories or the
other, the OBCs for instance, be allowed with due safeguards to the
democratic rights for all citizens as enshrined in the Preamble and Article
15 of the constitution. This may be done through the expedience of
double-member or multi-member constituencies.
The idea of a double-multi-member constituency formula has
been mooted by Justice E S Venkataramiah, the former Chief Justice of
India. In such constituencies while one seat may be reserved for a woman
or a member of the SC or ST categories the other seat or seats may be
contested by men or women not belonging to any of the said categories.
Since the introduction of such constituencies could lead to a considerable
expansion of the size of parliament, which may be prohibitive in terms of
costs, it has been suggested that the same can be effected by better
delimitation of constituencies. If the present size of the parliament
consisting of 543 members is not to be disturbed the double-member
constituency formula may look something like the following:
a. 15 single-member constituencies: all adult citizens, men or
women, belonging to SC/ST or not, are free to contest;
b. 147 double-member constituencies: one seat for women and one
for men, with everybody, whether SC/ST, are free to contest;
c. 79 double-member constituencies: one general seat in each
constituency can be contested by men and women, SC/ST or not;
the other seats (79) reserved for SC-23 for women, 23 for men, 33
for SC open to both men and women;
d. 38 double-member constituencies: one general seat in each
constituency can be contested by men and women, SC/ST or not;
the other seats (38) reserved for STs - 11 for women, 11 for men
and 16 for ST open to both women and men.68
Some Perspectives
Merit versus Social Justice
The most common criticism raised against the policy of reservations is
that it is at the cost of meritocracy and that it promotes mediocrity which
a developing society like India can ill afford. While apparently and
160 Ghosh
Table 8
Selection to Professional Courses (1990): Cut-off Points (%)
(Some South Indian Universities)
Course Open Backward Most SC
Competition Backward
Computer 97.98 96.58 93.25 84.38
Electronics 97.74 96.08 92.16 82.22
Electrical 95.84 95.42 91.48 81.98
Mechanical 95.78 94.10 90.66 79.21
Affirmative Action in India 161
Inherent Contradictions
The more fundamental question, however, is how far have the quotas and
other privileges helped the target groups. As we have seen above the
progress in this regard has at best been marginal. Whatever progress has
been registered by the depressed classes it is more or less proportionate to
the overall progress achieved by the nation. As target groups they should
have shown a visibly better record, but this has not happened. In a
country like India where poverty, illiteracy and deprivation are so
widespread, it is a questionable proposition to think in terms of
upliftment for particular social groups, that too by emphasising
reservations alone. A report on the state of primary education in India
brought out by the India Today portrays a depressing picture of the Indian
state’s failure in this regard.70 The problem as such is much larger and
mere targetting particular sections of society would not do. It is surmised
that since reservations are the least expensive and politically most
rewarding the political parties find them the easiest policy options
available to them.
A related question is whether the privileges are being cornered
by the élites amongst the target groups. One common criticism against
the reservation policy is that it has benefited only a small section of them.
According to estimates only 6% of the SC families have benefited from the
policy. It must, however, be admitted that even this small number has
thrown up leadership for the community to bargain for the larger
interests of the community at large.71 Moreover, it is a fact of life that in
any community within a competitive polity the initial beneficiaries are
invariably the élites.
This criticism, however, is largely valid in respect of the OBCs
where some of the backward castes are way above others amongst them.72
As such, any reservation policy meant for the OBC community as a
whole, is bound to end in ineffectiveness in the long run by this internal
contradiction alone. As most of the underprivileged amongst the OBCs
would ask for their rights there would be cleavages in the OBC identity as
162 Ghosh
is now being seen in Bihar. There the Kurmis and the Koiris are opposing
the Yadavs, both belonging to the OBC category. Moreover, with other
demands being raised for quota allocations by women, professional
groups, the poor from the upper caste Hindus, and so on, there is a
possibility that the entire system of OBC reservation would collapse as a
result of these divisions.
Conclusion
The debate over positive discrimination in India is acrimonious and is
increasingly finding expression in violence. On the one hand the policy is
defended as ethically correct as it is meant to compensate for centuries of
injustice perpetrated against large sections of people on account of their
social origin, while on the other it is assailed as something echoing the
inherently incorrect logic of robbing Peter to pay Paul. But a democracy
which is essentially a social contraption is neither dictated by logic nor by
ethics. At the root of democratic success is social engineering which is
effected through political bargaining. In India the process is on and only
the future would tell whether its experiments were in the right direction
or not.
Social categories are neither static nor monolithic. But in India
the hierarchical stratifications have by and large survived for centuries
and they continue to be politically relevant. In the given situation the
policy of reservation seems to continue for an indefinite period, at least
for the SC/STs. But this is the easiest thing that the state could think of.
The real challenge for the state should be to make the disadvantaged
groups competitive through raising their standards so as to let them be on
164 Ghosh
par with the traditionally successful upper classes. That is cost intensive
and for that there has to be a shift in the dynamics of power. The
disadvantage would have to come to the fore of politics. The present
Dalit movement seems to be straws in the wind indicating this penchant
for transformation which is bound to be violent.79
The same may not, however, be said about the OBCs. Unlike the
SCs and STs the so called OBCs have held political power in different
historical periods in different regions of India. They are neither as
socially stigmatized nor at the bottom of the economic hierarchy as the
scheduled castes. In short they are not such an ostracised lot as the SCs
have been. Given this situation the demand for OBC reservation is indeed
politically motivated, the logic behind which is largely indefensible.
In any case, increasingly the role of the state would be in
question. The assumption here is that the Indian society is traditionally
violent and vertically and horizontally disintegrative. It is the enormous
military power in the hands of the central government, both during the
Mughals and the British, that actually contained it. The apologists for
state power argue in favour of a militaristic role of the state to maintain
societal order while the champions of civil society put the blame squarely
on the state for the growing violence in the society. The debate warrants a
closer scrutiny against the background of the social acrimony that the
policy of reservation has accentuated.
Notes
* The author thanks Professors Suma Chitnis and Imtiaz Ahmad for
their valuable comments on the original draft. The responsibility for
the views expressed in this article lies with the author alone.
1. Gandhi accepted the rationale behind the caste system and its ideal.
He was, however, unhappy about its reality. In fact he was
ambivalent about its continuity. The origin of the word
Affirmative Action in India 165
9 Leave alone the civilian sectors, even the Indian army was not
spared of caste prejudices. During peace times it consisted mostly of
caste Hindus and only during war time when more men were
needed were the untouchables recruited in large numbers. After the
revolt of 1857, various imperial considerations of the British Indian
government led to the raising of Chamar, Mahar, Mazhavi and
Ramdasias battalions. See Stephen P Cohen, “The Untouchable
Soldier: Caste, Politics, and the Indian Army,” Journal of Asian
Studies, Ann Arbor, 28(3), May 1969, pp 453-68.
14. A study conducted in the late 1970s revealed that most of the SC
respondents to a questionnaire favoured continuation of the policy
of reservation. See Suma Chitnis, “A Long Way to Go (Report on a
Survey of Scheduled Caste High School and College Students in
Fifteen States of India”, mimeo, Centre for Social Studies, Surat,
1977, pp 293-95.
Affirmative Action in India 167
15. Rajni Kothari, “Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste”
in Partha Chatterjee (ed.), State and Politics in India, Delhi, OUP,
1997, p 449. See also, Dipankar Gupta, “Positive Discrimination and
the Question of Fraternity : Contrasting Ambedkar and Mandal on
Reservations,” Economic and Political Weekly, 2 August 1997, pp 1971-
78.
16. Gopal Guru, “Why are the Dalits Angry?”, The Hindu, 29 July 1997; J
V Deshpande, “Behind Dalit Anger,” Economic and Political Weekly,
16-23 August 1997, pp 2090-91.
21. See Ravinder Kumar, “Resurgence in the Ganga Valley”, The Hindu,
11, 12 and 13 July 1995 (in three parts).
22. Social anthropologist Roy Burman who was the Chairman of the
Research Planning Team and a member of the Technical Sub
committee of the Mandal Commission and who dissociated himself
from the Commission’s findings, argues that the criteria adopted
were faulty, and suggests what should have been done by the
Commission. See B K Roy Burman, “Formula for Identification of
OBC,” Vacham, Bhopal, 3(1) January 1992, pp 23-25. See also Andre
Beteille, “Is Job Reservation a Good Policy,” Seminar, No. 375,
November 1990, pp 41-42.
26. By this time the BJP had emerged as an important political force, and
riding on the band wagon of a pan-Hindu movement triggered off
by the Babri Mosque-Ram Janmabhoomi controversy it was making
a bid to emerge as the leading political party of India.
29. It may be noted that the BJP was originally not in favour of any
caste-based reservation for any community. It was in favour of
reservations for only the economically depressed classes irrespective
of caste and community. See P Satyanarayana, “Reservations and
Attitudes of Political Parties,” in B A V Sharma and K Madhusudan
Reddy (eds.), Reservation Policy in India, New Delhi, Light and Life,
1982.
31. The Jain community, however, has been included in the list of
minority communities by the National Commission for Minorities.
33. See Pervaiz Nazir, “Social Structure, Ideology and Language: Caste
among Muslims”, Economic and Political Weekly, 25 December 1993,
pp 2897-900.
54. A champion of the Dalit Christian rights argues that the Presidential
Order was wrong as it was biased in favour of the Hindus when the
social malady in India was not religion specific. See Saturnino Dias,
“Dalit Christians: Constitution Grants Privileges,” The Statesman,
Calcutta, 22 August 1996.
60. The fear was expressed in a BJP National Executive resolution. See
Asian Age, 24 June 1996.
Affirmative Action in India 171
64. Madhu Kishwar, “Not a Gender War”, Hindustan Times, 3 June 1997.
65. For two representative views see Brinda Karat, “Gender Justice is
Above Caste,” and Bhagwati Devi, “Elite Women Will Benefit”, India
Today, 9 June 1997, pp 50-51.
71. Marc Galanter, Law and Society in Modern India, Delhi, OUP, 1989,
pp 192-93. See also, Victor S D’Souza, Development Planning and
Structural Inequalities : The Response of the Under Privileged, New
Delhi, Sage, 1990, pp 196-97.
73. Lelah Dushkin, “Backward Class Benefits and Social Class in India,
1920-1970,” Economic and Political Weekly, 14, 1979, p 666; quoted by
Galanter, Competing Equalities, p 550.
172 Ghosh
79. For an analysis of the Dalit politics, see Rajni Kothari, “Rise of the
Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste,” in Partha Chatterjee (ed.),
State and Politics in India, New Delhi, OUP, 1997, pp 439-58.