10% quota for upper caste poor in India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced plans on Monday to set aside a quota of government jobs for poorer members of India’s upper caste, months before what looks set to be a challenging re-election bid.

India already “reserves” jobs for impoverished and disadvantaged lower castes for civil service jobs and educational places, but this has caused resentment among other communities, who say it is unfair and freezes them out.

Modi’s plans would help households with an annual income of less than $11,000, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. The change would require a change to the constitution, which caps the number of reserved jobs and college places at 50 per cent.

The bill was approved by the cabinet on Monday. It requires approval from both houses of parliament. —

new delhi — With an eye on the upper caste vote in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the Union Cabinet on Monday approved 10 per cent reservation for economically backward people in general category in jobs and educational institutions.

India already “reserves” jobs for impoverished and disadvantaged lower castes for civil service jobs and college places, but this has caused resentment among other communities, who say it is unfair and freezes them out.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took the decision to provide for 10 per cent quota for people belonging to “unreserved categories”, including Christians and Muslims, in jobs and education with an annual income limit of Rs800,000 and land holding ceiling of about five acres, highly-placed sources said.

A Constitution amendment bill for the purpose is likely to be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

The sources said the proposed move will not disturb the existing 50 per cent reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.

“The quota will include sections not falling under any provision of reservation such as Brahmins, Banias, Thakurs, Jats, Gujjars, Muslims and Christians,” a source privy to the decision said. He said that rules will be framed in due course to implement the Cabinet decision.

The decision comes four months before the Lok Sabha polls and after

the reverses suffered by BJP in the Assembly polls in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The BJP was said to have faced the wrath of the upper castes, especially in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, over the amendment brought by the Central government to nullify the Supreme Court judgement in the SC-ST Act last year.

Abhishek Singhvi, a Congress spokesman, said on Twitter that the latest move was an “election gimmick” and “proof positive” of Modi’s “fear” of losing power in the vote, which is due to take place by May. “Did you (government) not think of this for 4 years and 8 months? So, obviously thought of as an election gimmick 3 months before the model code. You know you cannot exceed 50 per cent cap, so it is done only to posture that you tried an unconstitutional thing,” Singhvi said.

Caste-based quotas are meant to provide equal opportunities for India’s poorest and most marginalised groups. Nearly one in four Indians still lives on less than $1.25 a day.

Demands for quotas for highly sought-after government jobs and university places have escalated in recent years as unemployment has risen and conditions in rural areas have worsened. In 2016 at least 10 people were killed when thousands of Patidars, a relatively well-off caste of farmers and traders, took to the streets in the western state of Gujarat to demand they be included in those quotas. —