Reservation issue may throw up another caste conflict,Indian Politics, News Analysis, India News Online

Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh’s proposal last week for providing 27 per cent reservation for students from other backward classes (OBCs) in educational institutions has triggered another raging controversy in Indian politics. Critics of the move say that it will discourage merit and erode confidence in the standards of Indian educational institutions.

Politically it is clear that no major party will be able to oppose the proposal effectively, given that the reservation benefits 52 per cent of the country’s population, who belong to the other backward classes. Even the opposition BJP is speaking in different voices about the proposal. While BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi slammed the move and said that it will damage India’s reputation as a “talent hub” and discourage merit, party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad refrained from giving the party’s official reaction to the proposal. He said, “The party will come out with its structured view after going through it in detail.”

It may be recalled that reservation for OBCs in educational institutions will mark the second phase of implementation of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission set up in 1978. There was a large scale agitation by students and other people belonging to the socalled forward castes like Brahmins and business communities in 1990 when then Prime Minister V.P. Singh had announced that the Government would be reserving Government posts for people belonging to other backward classes. The protests turned violent at several places with some students immolating themselves. V.P. Singh’s move to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations as well as the move of the BJP, which till then was supporting the V.P. Singh Government, to rake up aggressively the Ram Temple issue, led to the fall of the Government.

The Mandal Commission recommendation for reservation in government jobs for OBCs could be implemented only during the P.V. Narasimha Rao Government rule in the mid-nineties.

EC notice to Cabinet Secretary

Another dimension to the issue has been added by the Election Commission which has issued notice to the Cabinet Secretary asking for an explanation from Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh for announcing a 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in central educational institutions when the election process for four State Assemblies and a Union Territory Assembly is underway.

The notice said the announcement, as widely reported in the media, amounted to new concessions to certain sections of the electorate in the poll-bound Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala and Pondicherry. The Commission said, “It prima facie violates the Model Code of Conduct.” The Commission said the announcement had been made despite its March 1 clarification that the Code will be applicable to the Union Government and to the States going to the polls. The letter said Arjun Singh’s explanation should reach the Commission by 5 P.M. on April 10.

The Government, on its part, is reported to be puzzled over the Election Commission reaction as the Cabinet has not yet decided the issue of reservation in educational institutions. Authoritative sources said the proposal is still in the “circulation” stage and yet to reach the Cabinet for consideration. When the Human Resource Development Ministry sent the proposal, the Cabinet Secretary returned it saying that the proposal be either cleared by the Law Ministry or brought before the Cabinet after the election process in the states is over. Reports say the Government is likely to send a reply to the Election Commission on these lines.

Congress targeting OBC vote bank

Observers say that the Congress, the moving force of the UPA Government at the Centre has put forth the controversial proposal to raise the reservation in central universities and institutions including Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management to 49.5 per cent after calculating that no established political party could afford to incur the resentment of the intended beneficiaries of the move.

By playing the OBC card and invoking Mandal-II phase in the education sector, the Congress leadership’s game plan could be to woo the OBCs who have generally deserted the party in the Hindi heartland, particularly in key states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The proposal to provide 27 per cent quota for OBCs, besides the existing 22.5 per cent reservation for SCs and STs, in centrally-funded higher educational institutions might have been mooted by HRD Minister Arjun Singh, but it clearly has the blessings of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, as well as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Congress leaders say the proposal is a “natural follow-up” of the enactment of the Constitution amendment for providing reservation for “socially and educationally backward” communities in educational institutions, whether aided or unaided by the state, that was passed with the support of all major political parties in Parliament in December last year.

The storm of opposition that the proposal has set off across the country among the general category students and the middle class besides academics and industry could, however, be a major cause of concern for the Congress leadership as the issue has re-ignited the dormant debate over merit vs. social justice and quota regime. In the event of a sustained middle class backlash against the move, the BJP might emerge as the major beneficiary. The Left parties have welcomed the Government’s reservation proposal. While the CPI(M) which has been supporting the move, chose to await a formal government announcement on the issue, other Left parties like the CPI and the RSP openly backed it.

BJP dilemma

The BJP is facing a dilemma over the quota issue. It has to balance its upper caste base with OBC aspirations that the party has been trying to tap. Observers note that the party has many OBC supporters in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. Having supported legislation to introduce quotas for OBCs, SCs and STs in private educational institutions, including premier institutes like IITs and IIMs, the BJP appears to be suddenly treading cautiously. Its desire to be seen as a benefactor of dalits and OBCs is at odds with the party’s instinctive support of meritocracy.

Saying that his party will hold back its “comprehensive reaction” until later, BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Saturday that the party will come out with a structured view after going through it in detail. But only a day earlier, BJP had come out in favour of the proposal, except that it was in favour of extending reservations in minority institutions also.

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OBCs and Reservations

The term “backward classes” first raised its head in erstwhile Mysore state where preferential recruitment of backward communities was introduced in 1921. They were defined as “all communities other than Brahmins, who are not adequately represented in public service.”

The term subsequently found its way into the Indian Constitution. While the Constitution recognises the existence of a category of people termed as “socially and educationally backward classes”, and “backward classes other than SCs and STs”, it never attempted to define what is meant by these categories.

The Constitution envisages reservation only for the SC/ST communities, that too for 10 years. However, successive governments kept extending the deadline for reservations. Art. 340 allows the President to appoint a commission to “investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes within the territory of India and the difficulties under which they labour and to make recommendations as to the steps that should be taken by the Union or any State to remove such difficulties and to improve their condition....”

In order to identify OBCs, the Government first set up the Backward Classes Commission under the chairmanship of Kaka Kalelkar in January 1953. In its report, submitted in March 1955, the Commission prepared a list of 2,399 backward castes or communities for the entire country, of which 837 were classified as “Most Backward.” Interestingly, the Commission treated all women in the country as “backward.”

In January 1978, it was decided to set up a second backward classes commission with B.P. Mandal as chairperson. The Mandal Commission submitted its report in December 1980. Using eleven criteria, the Commission identified 3,743 caste groups as OBCs. The population of Hindu and non-Hindu OBCs worked out to about 52 per cent of the total population. The Commission could not, however, recommend 52 per cent reservation because of the legal constraint that the total quantum of reservations should not exceed 50 per cent. Since the already existing reservation for SC/ST was in tune with their proportion to total population - i.e. 15 per cent for SCs and 7.5 per cent for STs (22.5 per cent taken together), OBCs were given a reservation of 27 per cent.

In a decisive judgment in Indira Sawhney and Others Vs. Union of India, the Supreme Court upheld the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs , but subjected it to the exclusion of socially advanced persons/sections - termed as the “creamy” layer - from among the OBCs.

After the verdict, the Government appointed a committee to evolve the criteria to arrive at this exclusion. The Committee recommended that the rule of exclusion apply to the sons and daughters of persons holding constitutional positions; those whose parents (either of them) are Class I officers, those whose parents (either or both) are in the rank of Colonel and above in the Army, and equivalent posts in the Navy, Air Force and para-military forces.

The committee also debarred children from families owning irrigated land as per state land ceiling laws, and persons having a gross annual income of Rs. 1 lakh or above, or possessing wealth above the exemption limits prescribed by the Wealth Tax Act for a period of three consecutive years from taking the benefit of these reservations.

The Supreme Court in the P.A. Inamdar and Others Vs. State of Maharashtra and Others verdict delivered in August 2005, abolished state quotas in private unaided professional colleges. This led to the political class striking back by passing the 104 Amendment Bill in Parliament which mandated that all educational institutions - both government-run and private - will now have to reserve seats for SCs/STs and OBCs. Arjun Singh’s move to reserve 49.5 per cent seats in IITs and IIMs and central universities gets its raisin d’etre from this legislation.

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Reservations, a constitutional mandate : Arjun Singh

Amidst the furore among some sections over the Government proposal, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said that the Government had no escape, but to make such a provision as it is a constitutional mandate. In a brief interaction with the media in New Delhi on April 7, he said the 93rd Constitution Amendment enacted by Parliament introduced a clause under which the state can make any special provision by law for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward class of citizens or for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in so far as such provision relates to their admission to educational institutions including private educational institutions, other than minority educational institutions. He also referred to the consensus across the political spectrum for such a move.

The Minister made it clear that the proposal will be cleared after the April-May Assembly elections. Asked about the resentment among students over the fresh quota proposal, dubbed as the Mandal Effect, Arjun Singh tersely said, “May Be.” The general category students apprehend that the move will drastically reduce the seats available for them in educational institutions.

Voices of protests are also being heard in some quarters close to the Government. Member-convener of the high profile National Knowledge Commission, Pratap Bhanu Mehta has termed the Government proposal as a very distressing development. In an e-mail to other members of the Commission, he asked them to intervene and to write to the Prime Minister against the quota regime.

However, another member of the Commission Jayati Ghosh wrote to other members to record her dissent with Mehta’s view.

Judges’ postings stalled over caste issue

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has denied reports that his Government has been blocking appointment of High Court judges on caste basis. Reports in a newspaper had said that the strength of the Himachal High Court was set to go down from nine to three judges as the state government was allegedly sitting on the judges appointments claiming that the names recommended by the High Court did not reflect the caste composition of the state.

In December 2005, Chief Justice V.K. Gupta sent two names unanimously agreed to by the High Court collegium for appointment to the court : Aruna Kapoor, Registrar General of the High Court and Advocate D.D. Sood. The state Government objected to Sood, a member of the Bar, saying his posting does not reflect the “caste composition” of the state and would tilt the bench in favour of a particular community (Sood is from the bania caste).

When asked about this objection, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said, “It is true that members of the Bar conveyed their reservations to the Government about the inclusion of only one community in the list, ignoring the overall caste composition of the state.”

When contacted, Chief Justice Gupta said : “I have done my job, the rest I shrug off my shoulders.”

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