As a tool for bringing social equality for scheduled castes and tribes, reservations have failed. … One section of Indians who has benefited from reservations, it is our politicians. They have perfected the art of creating vote banks based on caste, creed and tribe, and perfected the art of promising them the moon when elections come around. – Tavleen Singh
No matter how gently I say this it will cause controversy, so it’s best that I say it plainly. It is time for all reservations to go. In government jobs, universities, schools, in the army and in our paramilitary forces, all reservations must be scrapped. Enough has been enough for a while now, but because our political leaders find it hard to say this, it does not get said. And when columnists and political commentators say reservations should be scrapped, they end up tarred and feathered, so we do not speak up either.
If I dare to raise the subject this week, it is because the shining stars of the INDIA coalition have been raucous in calling for a caste census during the campaign for recent state elections. It may only have been insincere campaign rhetoric but there was something so retrograde about the way this subject was raised that I feel the need to speak up. Before going any further, let me express the fervent hope that whoever becomes prime minister next year shows the courage to admit that the whole reservations story has become a farce and it is time to call an end to it all. When powerful ruling castes like the Marathas produce a leader who is willing to fast unto death in the cause of reservations in Maharashtra, it should be clear that it is time to start asking questions.
When reservations were introduced for scheduled castes and tribes in our Constitution, it was a vital gesture of atonement for the evil done to lower caste Indians for centuries. It was not just necessary affirmative action but something that had to be done for people deprived of the right to education and social equality, often in horrendous ways. But at the time that this affirmative action was introduced, Dr Ambedkar suggested that it should last only for ten years. There should have been re-examination and reform after a decade but by then our political leaders had discovered the power of using caste groups as vote banks, so no change came.
As a tool for bringing social equality for scheduled castes and tribes, reservations have failed. But there is no question that they helped provide a measure of space in politics and education. A voucher system in educational institutions can be created to continue giving a boost to those who have been horribly repressed and shunned because of their supposedly untouchable caste. This should not be available to those who belong to the OBC (other backward caste) category. They do not need it. Anyone who knows rural India slightly knows that these ‘backward’ castes are not backward at all. In the Hindi heartland, they sit at the top. The Prime Minister himself admits proudly to being OBC.
It was something Modi said during the election campaign that inspired me to write this piece. Rahul Gandhi had promised at more than one election meeting that when ‘our government’ comes to power the first thing we will order is a caste census. Then, in usual reckless fashion, he took to social media to declare that those whose population was larger should have more rights. Modi correctly pointed out in response that this would mean that Muslims and south Indians would have less rights than those Hindus living in our densely populated northern states.
In saying this, he drew attention to the absurdity of continuing with reservations and reminded me of a conversation I had with students in the Sanskrit department of BHU in 2014. They were very angry, as upper caste students are in most Indian universities, that they had to compete for a tiny number of general category seats because more than half the seats in BHU were reserved for some caste or category. They said they were planning to vote for Modi in the coming general election because they believed he was the only political leader who would have the courage to end the whole reservations business. It is sad that he has not done this yet and sad that other political leaders have not noticed that it is shameful that the great Indian dream remains landing a government job. It is just as shameful that instead of creating more state universities, we force students to fight for the limited seats available on merit.
If there is one section of Indians who has benefited most from reservations, it is our politicians. They have perfected the art of creating vote banks based on caste, creed and tribe, and perfected the art of promising them the moon and the stars when elections come around. They have also learned the skill of using reservations in government schools and colleges to their own benefit by controlling who gets a reserved seat and who does not. Education is such a useful tool for political power that there is almost not a major political leader who is not running a school or college personally.
Among the benefits that accrue is that you can claim vast tracts of valuable public land for this supposedly charitable activity. The whole system is corrupt, outdated and evil, and the people who barely benefit because of it are those deprived and discriminated castes for whom reservations were created in the first place. Before upper caste Hindu men start demanding reserved rights of their own, it is time to scrap all reservations in government jobs, schools, and colleges. – Financial Express, 10 December 2023
› Tavleen Singh is a journalist and columnist in New Delhi.
Filed under: india | Tagged: caste-based reservations, OBC, reservations/quotas, SC/ST, vote banks |
