Comments on: Reservation Row, What to Do?

By: Rishabh

Rishabh — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:30:46 +0000

There has been a final adjudication of the dispute with regard to OBC reservation. From The perspective of Youth For Equality we would like to bring out the following Points.

1. Economically and Socially backward classes of people must be included in the list of beneficiaries which a path breaking achievements for us.

2. We have succeeded in our endeavor of getting the creamy layer excluded

3. Educational Backwardness cannot be claimed beyond graduation

4. Periodic review of beneficiaries every five years which would imply that the Govt must collect periodic data.

5. Till today there is no list of beneficiaries. If the Govt tries to bring in undeserving groups in the list of beneficiaries who are not socially and economically backward the list shall be open to challenge.

6. The list that the Govt may bring has to be that of socially and Educationally backward classes plus socially and Economically backward classes. If the Govt brings in a list of OBCs under the scheme of article 15, our understanding is that it shall fail the test of judicial review. As such the judgment clearly points out that such a notification of list shall be open to judicial review.

The fight to get the Economically and Socially backward classes included in the list of beneficiaries and also to Oppose caste based reservation shall continue as their shall be a periodic revision of the beneficiaries every 5 years and create an equal opportunity society for all

Jai Hind

By: Rishabh

Rishabh — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:32:30 +0000

Indian democratic politics has, however, used the Mandal labels in a very different way. It has encouraged more and more groups to get into a race of being More OBC than Thou. No political party has any incentive in arguing that jati status is not a foolproof indicator of social and economic backwardness. There are, as Mayawati has discovered, poor Brahmins and rich OBCs. This is because economic development over the last hundred years has allowed opportunities for some individuals in ritually backward jatis and indeed for some jatis themselves to move up the social and economic ladder.
Mandal and democratic compulsions invite us to abandon this path. No matter how prosperous a backward jati will become, it will keep the label and it will be in the interest of every jati to hang on to the backward label since it is a passport to public favours. The recent agitation by Gujjars has shown that the stakes for being labelled as backward are very high, and in a democratic culture there will be competitive populism to accord such status to whoever promises the vote bank to a party.

But the die is now cast. Parliament legislated reservations and now the Supreme Court has validated the legislation. There are caveats about the creamy layer but I predict that Lok Sabha will not be in a hurry to implement the Supreme Court’s injunctions about extending the definition of creamy layer to themselves and ex-MPs. I wish that were a precondition before reservations could be implemented.
My hope is that the decision will achieve the good it wishes to. My expectation is that it will not. This is because the real problem of social deprivation for the SCs, STs, OBCs is in primary schools and secondary schools where the foundations of failure are laid and no political party, whatever its rhetoric, is grasping that nettle. Every one is for reserving seats at the top of the pyramid and joining the creamy layer of IITs and IIMs. But between the top layer of rich upper castes and the creamy layers of the beneficiaries of reservations, there is a large slice of India. They cannot escape Indian higher education by going abroad as the rich can, nor can they get into the top institutions by merit. As of now no political party wishes to champion them but they constitute a fertile ground of the disaffected whose bitterness will be harvested by some party sooner or later.

From Indian Express: http://www.indianexpress.com/printerFriendly/297276.html

By: Rishabh

Rishabh — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:59:50 +0000

Tamil Nadu is often used as a legitimising model by OBC activists. What we need to keep in mind is that as far back as the 1930s Travancore state had a literacy rate that Bihar struggles to attain even today. The Tamil Nadu model becomes more farcical when we notice that the line that separates OBC students from non-OBC ones is neither firm nor deep.

For instance, as Shiv Chaudhary has shown, in Tamil Nadu’s 2005 MBBS entrance tests, the difference in the cut-off marks between the general and the reserved categories was as low as 0.08 per cent. Naturally, with such a negligible percentage variation, the OBCs crowd the general category over and above occupying those seats that are reserved for them. Consequently, the rest of the non-OBC population is seriously unrepresented in these colleges.

This graphically demonstrates that Tamil Nadu OBCs have always had an entrenched elite stratum. OBC leaders among Gounders, Vanniyars, Thevars and Marawas were, and continue to be, powerful on every social axis. Therefore, when their educational profile is as good as, if not better than, the general category, it obviously means that they never did, and do not now, deserve reservations. True, these so-called backwards are not Brahmins, but if they can kick the priests in the teeth what good is it to have a mouthful of Sanskrit?

The Tamil Nadu backwards played on the textbook image of the rapacious Brahmin though in every province, with the slight exception of Thanjavur, the once-priestly class enjoys no dominance. Power was always in the hands of OBC elite who did well in the past and continue to do well even today. If one is to believe human development figures then the status of Tamil Nadu Dalits has remained unchanged over all these years of OBC rule.
TOI: Dated: 15/04/08