A good look at the idea of reservations

It was a bold intervention on the part of the Supreme Court on Tuesday to strike down reservations in educational admissions and jobs for the influential Jat community of north India, which is economically, politically and socially dominant in Haryana, western UP and Rajasthan but is spread across several other states as well. It is noteworthy that the apex court order does not strike at the basic premise that has led to allowing reservations for OBCs following the Indra Sawhney judgement (popularly known as the Mandal judgement) of the 1980s.

But it innovates on it in a refreshing way by pointing out that it was time the mode of determining backwardness — in economic, social, and educational terms — of a community cannot be guided by the historical caste factor alone since changes have occurred in society on account of economic developments in the past decade. In light of this the SC has said that determinants of backwardness other than caste needed to be taken into account, and of its own bat has spoken of the so-called third gender — the transvestites or trans-genders whose living conditions throughout the country are pitiable.

A pertinent question the apex court has asked clearly suggests that a community once declared eligible for reservations can be taken out of that category when it has advanced on various counts. Sharper statistical observation and analysis will be called for to ascertain this.

It was evident that the UPA regime was playing politics when it declared the Jats eligible for reservation on the eve of the last general election. No less surprising was the endorsement of this view by the succeeding NDA regime of Narendra Modi.

In Maharashtra, the Prithviraj Chavan government, on the eve of the last Assembly election, declared the influential and prosperous Maratha community as well as the state’s Muslims fit for reservation. The BJP-led governing order that succeeded it appeared to play further politics by renewing reservation for the Marathas but remaining silent on the Muslims, effectively taking out the latter from the status of being deserving of positive discrimination.

The idea of reservations was meant to pull up communities in need of special attention from the development perspective. But the concept was utterly degraded to create vote banks, and those who gained the privilege assumed that they could carry on deriving benefits forever. This is conceptually surprising as even reservation for the SC/ST categories is meant to be “temporary” or transitional under our Constitution until such time as desirable outcomes are at hand. The Supreme Court has issued a salutary reminder to the political class.

The idea of quotas was meant to help communities in need of special attention from the

development perspective. But the concept was utterly degraded

to create vote banks