‘RESERVATION REVISITED
Reservation is a highly debated topic in India. This system of positive discrimination remains mostly unimplemented in many sectors. Although it was intended to carry on a democratic revolution in the areas of education and employment, owing to red-tapism, official negligence, and a whole host of other factors, it has not achieved its targeted change. One of the reasons also includes the banal idea that the recipients of reservation (which was originally proposed with the idea of amelioration of the depressed classes) are drawn from the “creamy layer” e.g. children of highly educated and well-employed parents belonging to the backward and scheduled castes. We find that another equally important concept used in stopping the effective reach of the reservation policy is the “Merit syndrome”, whereby the privileged classes resent and rally on the false premise that reservation policy destroys merit.
India adopted democracy to bring social change. to remove inequality, social justice, and national unity. Therefore, to bring social justice and to countering social discrimination, we put socially-economically backward classes in DPSP of Indian Constitution. To bring the social change we adopted a policy called Reservation. Other OBCs accounts for 52% of the Indian population. Most of them are from the service sector, artisans, etc. They are a very important section of the economy as well as Indian society. Out of this 52 %, 50% were most backward. They were not touched by modernization. To deal with the demand for social justice, there were several movements demanding social justice like Anti-Brahmin Movement in. South India artisans/peasant’s social movement in North India., a movement started by Socialist’ in North India, 1950 onwards the agenda was to remove social inequality. In this context, in 1950 the first Backward Classes Commission, headed by Kaka Kalekar was constituted. The Commission had recommended a reservation for OBCs in professional and technical institutions. The government of the day, while rejecting the report, noted: “If the entire community, barring a few exceptions, has to be regarded as backward (the commission had listed 2,399 communities as backward) the really needy would be swamped by the multitude and hardly receive any special attention or adequate assistance”. In Aug 1961, the Centre asked various states to apply their own criterion for backwardness, while arguing that it would be better to apply economic criterion than caste.
 The second effort was made in 1979 when the Janata party came into power. The report was published in 1980. Janata Government withdrew again.
 In 1990, the first visit of Reservation was done when the government of the day reviewed Mandal Commission. Recommendation of Commission contained two parts. Improvement in conditions of OBC life to implement land reforms, to bring reform in the education system, to remove the idea of caste and 27% reservation for OBC in Central Service. There were two indications—one for Hindus and other for Muslims.
 The Report was not synonymous. This 27% reservation will not have MBC. No one can agree for blanket reservation. In the long run, OBC will take over MBC. There was no recommendation for MBC. The recommendations of the Commission were not implemented from 1900-90. For the political reason, out of total garnet of resolutions. the government took one (2nd recommendation) No effort was made for the implementation of the first recommendation, which is a fundamental aspect of social equality. It remained untouched.
What has not changed the grammar of politics? The UPA Government in a recent decision to implement 27% quota for the OBCs in institutions of higher learning with the backing of all political parties was a throwback to the 1950s. At the same time. the Government also said that it will try to persuade reservation in private sector. Once again, after 16 years idea of OBC’s renewed efforts to promote social equality.
Sixteen years also mean that the very nature of protest has undergone a sea-change. Sixteen years ago, it was college students from Delhi and neighbouring states who took to the streets protesting then PM. V.P. Singh’s decision to reserve 27% seats in government jobs for OBCs. In 2006, it was the medical students of Delhi/Kolkata/Mumbai who were spearheading the protest. Their demands were—reassess the impact of reservation for the last 50 years, review the entire policy if not reviewed then suspend it, what is the statistical basis of 27%. Protestors now wanted the government to institute a commission to look into the issue of reservations and come up with a white paper.
 There is a need to address the critical issues that form the crux of the argument against reservation. The first issue is a basic question as to whether the reservation is indeed the best way of rectifying inequalities. The second issue is of whether quotas and academic excellence are fundamentally incompatible, as is suggested in some quotas. Another issue is whether the OBCs are affluent and therefore do not deserve reservation.
 Almost everybody who is opposed to quotas claims to favour affirmative action, starting from referent vantage points, quotas and affirmative action converge strikingly in many ways, both are mechanics of preferential treatment to facilitate inclusion of disadvantaged groups. The Principle difference is that quotas are constitutionally mandated, while affirmative action may not be given the persistence of social discrimination, that the question that must be posed should not be confined to the limited point as to whether preferential treatment must be in the form of quotas or affirmative action of a broader scope. Rather, the question should be: would alternative means produce the same outcomes that mandatory quotas produce?
While reservation might not be the best or the only method of correcting longstanding discrimination however, it is one of the more workable & feasible mechanisms for increasing access of disadvantaged groups to higher education. In the hysteria generated by the protests. We must not forget that the Indian reservation policy has been quite effective and has produced positive outcomes. For example, the proportion of SC students in seven IIT’s is about 9% which is below their allocated quota 15% but even this would have been hard to achieve in the absence of quotas. The proportion of OBC graduates is a more 8.6% so far, with the exception of a few institutions such as JNU, have introduced voluntary measures of affirmative action for the disadvantaged sections.
Another argument is that quotas militate against academic excellence and will lead to further deterioration of academic standards. This flawed theory is contradicted by the experience of American Universities. Likewise, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, have been extremely positive with no dilution of academic standards.
Another point that troubles the anti-reservations is the issue of economic status and determining who is eligible for reservation. Given the political momentum behind the policy of reservation for the OBCs, a shift to an economic criterion is unlikely; yet, the current controversy over OBC reservation placed the economic criteria on the political centre once again. Two factors should be remembered, one is the social composition of OBCs and the second, the definition of creating a layer. As distinct from SCs and STs, there is internal differentiation and intra-group inequality among the OBCs. The Supreme Court in the Indira Shahani Vs the Union of India has held how economic factors should figure in the definition of backwardness, which means that the government must find ways to disqualify the more advantaged individuals in these classes and to help the truly backward.
Higher education has grown enormously since Independence from 25 to 348 universities. 1970 onwards there has been an escalating demand for higher education, professional technical education in particular especially for engineering & medical colleges, management schools. But ironically in sharp contrast to the spiralling growth and demand, six decades after independence the opportunities for admission to these institutions are still largely monopolized by a small privileged section of society. This is suggestive of social inequality.
The effectiveness of Reservation as an instrument to rectify this imbalance might be a matter of debate, but there is no denying that the government is well within its rights to provide reservation. Our Constitution provides for additional reservation for the socially, educationally backward groups. Reservation for OBCs, much like the reservation policy of SCs & STs is based on the understanding that in a regime of formal equality and open competition, members of previously disadvantages and disabilities will be able to compete, and it, in fact, will not be able to compete, the will fall further behind.
The government on its part is reading what is being called a ‘Package formula’ implying a policy that contains conciliatory gestures towards all sections. The Government issued a statement about a formula that would be acceptable to everyone. Some of the measures are—a gradual implementation of quota in institutes of higher learning as opposed to sudden imposition; increasing the number of seats by 53-54%; simultaneously/setting up state schools which impart high-quality education; aiming at 6% of GDP on education from the present 4.02%.
As for, easing the increased pressure on seats, the government set the ball rolling when it asked the IITs & IIMs to raise its number of seats early this year. But the same formula is not applicable to medical colleges. Guidelines drawn up by the Medical Council of India says that the ratio of students to the teacher should be 4%. Also, infrastructure like labs & hospital facilities has to be first put in place. i.e. huge financial inputs. It will have a reverse impact on infrastructure, especially when most institutes do not have a full teaching staff.
It should be remembered that the government has increased the seats without any fundamental change, whatever was recommended by the Mandal Commission’s first recommendation. Again the problem is unresolved. The second point of the Report that problems of inequality will remain because this reservation will not benefit MBC. This is suggestive of the fact that there is something more to be done. The reservation which was accepted as a temporary measure, only mitigate the inequality.
