50% cap on quotas ideal

The Supreme Court has drawn a line in the sand in the matter of quotas. While striking down the reservation created for the Maratha community in Maharashtra, the court emphasised that the 50 per cent limit on total reservations cannot be crossed. This significant part of the ruling should help immensely in curbing the adventurism of political parties in creating openings for the wooing of community-based votes or pandering to dominant communities that have already achieved social salience. Also, in stretching quotas without end by quoting extraordinary circumstances, the states have been inclined to breach the 50 per cent, limit as Tamil Nadu (69 per cent) and Telangana (67 per cent) have done in extreme examples of reservation limits stretched unduly.

It is in perpetuating the principle of reservation, first thought of as a decade of social upliftment for disadvantaged people, that it has become an entitlement impelling movement beyond 50 per cent for those who, like dalits and SCs/STs, were historically denied by India’s rigid and reprehensible caste system. True emancipation lies in the creation of opportunities in education and jobs so that no community feels left out. In the midst of the pandemic, this might seem a huge challenge, but progress can be achieved only if reservation is supported for those who really need it. Welfare measures for all economically backward people will be of greater help.

The court’s stand on the inviolability of the 50 per cent limit set down in the Indra Sawhney verdict in 1992 might curb the rights of the states. The ruling that a single list of socially and educationally backward classes notified by the President of India alone will prevail, with states having only a recommendatory, role may prove contentious as it could lead to a further empowering of the federal at the cost of the regional. History does, however, suggest that neither the law nor the states have been able to do much about the creamy layer and their succeeding generations cornering opportunities stemming from reservations. In any event, breaching the 50 per cent ceiling will undermine the noble intentions of quotas for the most disadvantaged.

True emancipation lies in the creation of opportunities in education and jobs so that no community feels left out. In the midst of the pandemic, this might seem a huge challenge...