1
Reservations and more
Posted by the lazy knight
on
9:42 AM
For the better part of the last few years i was opinion that the reservation genie was firmly locked tight inside its bottle and would not escape with a bang like it did in sixteen years ago when the name Mandal first became synonymous with reservations all over India. I felt i had firm grounds on which my confidence on the non-appearance of reservations was based.
First and the most important reason was the very consequence of the Mandal implementation in 1990. Instead of achieving a lower caste consolidation as the then Prime Minister VP Singh has expected, Mandal ended up dividing North Indian politics on sharp caste lines. VP Singh’s initiative was hijacked by caste based leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan and Mulayam Singh Yadav who suddenly saw a political goldmine waiting to be tapped. As the Congress declined and governance weakened, Mandal served to highlight the caste identities of the people and regional politicians were only too eager to exploit the same. The polarization was complete when a Laloo Yadav or a Mayawati sought political power on the platform of empowering their caste and not development oriented politics. Suddenly, in the North Indian cowbelt states of UP and Bihar which send the largest number of migrants to Delhi ( both to its Parliament and its university) the only way for achieving economic and political prosperity was to vote your caste since only a Yadav could look after a Yadav, only a Kurmi could look after the interests of the Kurmis and so on.
This worked smoothly for a decade and the likes of Laloo and Mulayam reaped the rewards, secure in the belief that an assured caste arithmetic made the politics of development and progress redundant. Caste assertion is not in itself something bad. In fact i would go the extent of saying that the caste politics of North India was a bitter tonic which had to be gulped as the political evolution of India reached into its second chapter with the decline of single party rule and the broadening of political representation. In states like UP and Bihar where investments are absent, jobs are scarce and lands saturated, political power was the safest route to economic stability and success. If your caste was in power, you would have a say in the governance; more importantly lucrative government contracts which are the only sources of investments in these two states would also come your way. It was my belief that as caste politics grew, it would bring along with itself its attendant problems. While the lower castes, having tasted political power would not let it go, they would also look at the rest of India and see how it was speeding ahead while a caste ridden north still trudging along at a bullock cart’s pace. This would then lead to a demand from such populace to seek to join the caravan of progress; that with political empowerment India’s lower castes would also see the importance of economic empowerment and demand the same from their visionless leaders. The electorate would want roads for connectivity, telephones and computers for communication and certainty of power and water for their homes and fields. Reservation would not have figured then in such an equation.
My second belief was based on the change India had gone through ever since the turbulence of the late eighties and early nineties. The economy was stronger, wealthier and more rewarding for those who were ready to chart the course for their success. Post liberalization, the government was no longer the principal job creator. The skilled Indian labour suddenly had a world of opportunities before him. And unlike the old days, the new India of entrepreneurship, of Infosys and Wipro, would create enough space for all, irrespective of which surname they carried. The lower castes would not have sat on the side and waited. They would have wanted to be a part of the success story, they would have voted governments out for not putting the schools for their children in rural India in order and making them run with the seriousness they deserved. It would have been a slow process but one which would have reinforced the concepts of economic health, recognition of abilities, education and democratic participation.
But of course i was wrong and I was naïve. I grossly underestimated the politician’s ability to pursue their political goals with single-minded disregard for the consequences or public opinion. I overestimated the impact of a growing economy and of course, most importantly I did not factor in a certain and a slightly disgruntled Arjun Singh. I underestimated the zealousness of a government keen to over turn every decision of the courts that went against the interests of the political community and the wide spread support spineless politicians would offer to help the genie out of the bottle.
But another round of reservations are now a reality. And none of the two episodes of Mandal have been put into execution stage by a lower caste politician who would have sought to gain the support of his constituency. Both VP and Arjun Singh are upper caste Thakurs, a caste which has no love lost for those below it in the social hierarchy. And therein lies the strangest tale of affirmative action in this country. Both Mandal I and II had been initiated by upper castes leaders to off balance their political rivals. And in both cases they succeeded in initiating a fragmentation rather than consolidation of the society.
The entire reservation process in the country suffers from serious structural shortcomings. It is handed out like a concession, a condescension, a waiver from the high entrance marks required, a drop in the eligibility, a lowering of the bar. The so called social justice is ad hoc, arbitrary and typically reminiscent of a feudal lord throwing a jewel or money at his bedraggled and starving serfs.
Reservations in India are top down; the world over affirmative action begins from the primary education level and nations which introduce such measures at a later stage of learning have a system that guarantees schooling for all. Here quotas were first introduced in jobs. Reality - many reserved seats remain vacant because there just aren’t any candidates from the lower castes with requisite job skills and education required. Then quotas were introduced in higher educational institutions. Reality - many students fail to find themselves incapable of handling the stress higher education brings with itself in this country. Moreover, as a measure of social justice, reservations are ironically elitist. Out of a mass of 50 million backward castes in this country, the government wants the upliftment of only 5000 odd (being 50% of 10000 - a reasonable estimate of the annual intake in central universities, IITs, IIMs and IAS) Is this our brand of social justice? The poor landless farm labourer in the interiors of Bihar cannot even send his kid to school while our politicians would assure him of a seat in the IIMs for his son.
It is this irony and the sheer ridiculousness of the quotas that often gets lost in the cacophony of bitter slanging matches. Primary education reform, even quotas only in private schools would throw open a lot more opportunities for a lot more people. Twelve years of good schooling equips a student to face the pressures of higher education, and two students of different castes coming from the same primary education system would not need differentiation as they pursued a seat in India’s elite colleges. But of course, such reform comes with a long gestation period. By the time its results would be visible, half of our politicians would be under their graves. It is not a convenient electoral rallying cry and it certainly does not have a scope for vote bank mobilization.
A pro quota student recently said in a television program that the backward castes were not willing to come to the birthday party and merely stand and clap; they wanted a share of the cake too. I would request him to stand up and demand from this government… our government, to increase the size of the cake. We should not become modern day political Robinhoods, robbing one person and giving his share to another. The cake of India’s economy should be large enough to feed both its affluent and deprived classes. The weaker sections must be the given their shares by right and not as a part of the leftovers handed over to the family servant after the party is over.
Unless we reverse this process of distribution, until one man’s social justice continues to be another man’s denial of opportunity this friction will continue. There will be more protests, more cynical exploitation of caste identities and more frustrations and fragmentation. It is something we as a nation can ill afford.
First and the most important reason was the very consequence of the Mandal implementation in 1990. Instead of achieving a lower caste consolidation as the then Prime Minister VP Singh has expected, Mandal ended up dividing North Indian politics on sharp caste lines. VP Singh’s initiative was hijacked by caste based leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan and Mulayam Singh Yadav who suddenly saw a political goldmine waiting to be tapped. As the Congress declined and governance weakened, Mandal served to highlight the caste identities of the people and regional politicians were only too eager to exploit the same. The polarization was complete when a Laloo Yadav or a Mayawati sought political power on the platform of empowering their caste and not development oriented politics. Suddenly, in the North Indian cowbelt states of UP and Bihar which send the largest number of migrants to Delhi ( both to its Parliament and its university) the only way for achieving economic and political prosperity was to vote your caste since only a Yadav could look after a Yadav, only a Kurmi could look after the interests of the Kurmis and so on.
This worked smoothly for a decade and the likes of Laloo and Mulayam reaped the rewards, secure in the belief that an assured caste arithmetic made the politics of development and progress redundant. Caste assertion is not in itself something bad. In fact i would go the extent of saying that the caste politics of North India was a bitter tonic which had to be gulped as the political evolution of India reached into its second chapter with the decline of single party rule and the broadening of political representation. In states like UP and Bihar where investments are absent, jobs are scarce and lands saturated, political power was the safest route to economic stability and success. If your caste was in power, you would have a say in the governance; more importantly lucrative government contracts which are the only sources of investments in these two states would also come your way. It was my belief that as caste politics grew, it would bring along with itself its attendant problems. While the lower castes, having tasted political power would not let it go, they would also look at the rest of India and see how it was speeding ahead while a caste ridden north still trudging along at a bullock cart’s pace. This would then lead to a demand from such populace to seek to join the caravan of progress; that with political empowerment India’s lower castes would also see the importance of economic empowerment and demand the same from their visionless leaders. The electorate would want roads for connectivity, telephones and computers for communication and certainty of power and water for their homes and fields. Reservation would not have figured then in such an equation.
My second belief was based on the change India had gone through ever since the turbulence of the late eighties and early nineties. The economy was stronger, wealthier and more rewarding for those who were ready to chart the course for their success. Post liberalization, the government was no longer the principal job creator. The skilled Indian labour suddenly had a world of opportunities before him. And unlike the old days, the new India of entrepreneurship, of Infosys and Wipro, would create enough space for all, irrespective of which surname they carried. The lower castes would not have sat on the side and waited. They would have wanted to be a part of the success story, they would have voted governments out for not putting the schools for their children in rural India in order and making them run with the seriousness they deserved. It would have been a slow process but one which would have reinforced the concepts of economic health, recognition of abilities, education and democratic participation.
But of course i was wrong and I was naïve. I grossly underestimated the politician’s ability to pursue their political goals with single-minded disregard for the consequences or public opinion. I overestimated the impact of a growing economy and of course, most importantly I did not factor in a certain and a slightly disgruntled Arjun Singh. I underestimated the zealousness of a government keen to over turn every decision of the courts that went against the interests of the political community and the wide spread support spineless politicians would offer to help the genie out of the bottle.
But another round of reservations are now a reality. And none of the two episodes of Mandal have been put into execution stage by a lower caste politician who would have sought to gain the support of his constituency. Both VP and Arjun Singh are upper caste Thakurs, a caste which has no love lost for those below it in the social hierarchy. And therein lies the strangest tale of affirmative action in this country. Both Mandal I and II had been initiated by upper castes leaders to off balance their political rivals. And in both cases they succeeded in initiating a fragmentation rather than consolidation of the society.
The entire reservation process in the country suffers from serious structural shortcomings. It is handed out like a concession, a condescension, a waiver from the high entrance marks required, a drop in the eligibility, a lowering of the bar. The so called social justice is ad hoc, arbitrary and typically reminiscent of a feudal lord throwing a jewel or money at his bedraggled and starving serfs.
Reservations in India are top down; the world over affirmative action begins from the primary education level and nations which introduce such measures at a later stage of learning have a system that guarantees schooling for all. Here quotas were first introduced in jobs. Reality - many reserved seats remain vacant because there just aren’t any candidates from the lower castes with requisite job skills and education required. Then quotas were introduced in higher educational institutions. Reality - many students fail to find themselves incapable of handling the stress higher education brings with itself in this country. Moreover, as a measure of social justice, reservations are ironically elitist. Out of a mass of 50 million backward castes in this country, the government wants the upliftment of only 5000 odd (being 50% of 10000 - a reasonable estimate of the annual intake in central universities, IITs, IIMs and IAS) Is this our brand of social justice? The poor landless farm labourer in the interiors of Bihar cannot even send his kid to school while our politicians would assure him of a seat in the IIMs for his son.
It is this irony and the sheer ridiculousness of the quotas that often gets lost in the cacophony of bitter slanging matches. Primary education reform, even quotas only in private schools would throw open a lot more opportunities for a lot more people. Twelve years of good schooling equips a student to face the pressures of higher education, and two students of different castes coming from the same primary education system would not need differentiation as they pursued a seat in India’s elite colleges. But of course, such reform comes with a long gestation period. By the time its results would be visible, half of our politicians would be under their graves. It is not a convenient electoral rallying cry and it certainly does not have a scope for vote bank mobilization.
A pro quota student recently said in a television program that the backward castes were not willing to come to the birthday party and merely stand and clap; they wanted a share of the cake too. I would request him to stand up and demand from this government… our government, to increase the size of the cake. We should not become modern day political Robinhoods, robbing one person and giving his share to another. The cake of India’s economy should be large enough to feed both its affluent and deprived classes. The weaker sections must be the given their shares by right and not as a part of the leftovers handed over to the family servant after the party is over.
Unless we reverse this process of distribution, until one man’s social justice continues to be another man’s denial of opportunity this friction will continue. There will be more protests, more cynical exploitation of caste identities and more frustrations and fragmentation. It is something we as a nation can ill afford.
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