Reservations can’t be an entitlement in perpetuity

The Maratha stir was fuelled by feelings of alienation in a skill-oriented economy

VP Singh, former prime minister and architect of the Mandal commission, once described reservation as a “transitory demand till we achieve the objective of education and employment for all”. But the violent agitations for reservation based on caste, which began with Mandal, have moved from being affirmative action to entitlement for many castes, including the Marathas whose protests rocked Maharashtra before being called off. The community had earlier been promised 16% reservation in government jobs. This is pending in the high court.

What was once meant to give castes at the bottom of the heap a leg up has now become something sought by affluent and dominant castes in many states, many of them seeking a slide down to carve out state benefits. The Marathas are by no means a poor or oppressed caste but the agitation was because they have not been able to come to grips with the fact that so-called lower castes have bypassed them in term of jobs and education at a time when landholdings are dwindling and an agrarian crisis is upon them. They are also resentful that the government had given in to their demands and agreed to reserve jobs for them before this was put on hold by the Bombay High Court. The genesis for most of these agitations is promises by political parties with no thought to how they can be implemented. Such promises are made at election time and left open ended. When the party in question is not able to deliver or the courts reverse the decision, the agitations turn violent as they have in this case.

The State must address the reasons for the inability of many castes to transition from agriculture to the formal sector and also work to make agriculture more remunerative. Unless the root cause of feelings of alienation in a growing skill-oriented economy are tackled, such agitations which turn violent at considerable cost to the economy will continue.