Economic equality first, Mr Prime Minister

Speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the prime minister said that his government’s effort was to create social equality along with equal economic opportunities. In other words, social equality will be ensured directly while economic inequality will prevail. Equal economic opportunity will necessarily lead to economic inequality. Equal opportunity provided to Cyrus Mistry and the poor farmer from Uttar Pradesh will always see Mistry winning.

The country is today divided between politicians and government servants, who are the exploiters on the one side, and businessmen and workers, who are the exploited, on the other side. The ordinary Dalit is being daily deprived of his land, forest and water, for the luxurious lifestyles of politicians and government servants.

In this dismal situation, Dalit intellectuals are demanding reservations for promotions in government jobs and other such benefits. They are telling the ordinary Dalit that he will be better off if exploited by a Dalit officer, rather than by an upper caste officer.

No great harm will arise from this directly. The ordinary Dalit will continue to be exploited as previously. Harm will be at a larger level. The focus of Dalit society will shift from solving the basic problem of economic empowerment. Instead of striving to get good quality English education and enabling Dalits to set up businesses and improving their lot, the Dalits will spend their energies trying to increase the flow of corruption money to Dalit IAS officers.

There is an additional problem with the present policy. My Dalit friends tell me that Dalit officials are crueller to their Dalit brothers. They are more inclined to take an anti-Dalit stand so as to endear themselves to their upper caste peers. Dalit officials are known to be more corrupt than the rest. Thus, the policy of promotion in reservation is actually against the welfare of the ordinary Dalit.

The correct approach is to enable Dalits to get good quality education so that they can stand on their own feet. However, this should not be through quotas, I feel. The University of Michigan Law College was providing preferential admissions to African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and other minorities, to maintain diversity in the classroom. Twenty additional marks were given to every minority applicant for admission to the university’s undergraduate courses.

The system of 20 marks was struck down by the court. The Lordships held that a blanket and faceless system which gave preference to every applicant from a particular group was discriminatory. It directed the university to scrutinise every application from African Americans and other underprivileged groups and use preference that could be justified in each case. But this ought not to be done using a mathematical formula which did not take into account the entire picture of the candidate, the court ruled.

Three principles emerge from this judgment. One, it is better to give preference in education than in jobs. Two, this preference should be given in a way that does not make the recipient dependent on the preference. Three, preference should be given only to deserving candidates among the underprivileged. The policy of reservation fails on each of these criteria.

Reservation is to be given in jobs, rather than in education. The capacity of the Dalits is not to be enhanced; only the returns to them are to be increased. This will make the Dalit officials even more dependent on reservations. They would be content to take it easy instead of trying to improve their efficiency. Lastly, the benefits will be given to the creamy layer among the Dalits.

Yet I support reservations in promotions. My Dalit brothers continue to feel that mainstream society is arrayed against them. It is necessary to remove this feeling if we want to keep the society together. We must accept their demand, to show that this policy will not improve the lot of the Dalits.

The mother gives in to the impatient child and lets it drink hot milk. It is only when his lips are burnt that he understands the mother’s advice. Similarly, ordinary Dalit citizens will understand the hollowness of this policy only after they have gone through with it. Maybe 10 or 20 years later, the Dalit community will understand that they have been taken for a ride by their own folks. This will create a sense of friendliness among the Dalits towards the rest of society.

India was conquered by the Mughals and British because the lower classes joined hands with the foreign marauders against their own leaders, whom they found to be cruel. This mistake should not be repeated. The deterioration in quality of governance due to these promotions must be accepted for creating this sense of belonging and equality.

The argument of vote-banks also does not hold. Democracy is nothing but votebank politics. We must realise that Dalits are acting as vote-banks only because they have lost faith in the upper castes. We should remove that apprehension.

The final objective is to improve the economic status of the ordinary Dalit. Their self-esteem should be increased. This writer would suggest that TV serials on the success of Dalit leaders like Jhalkari Devi may be broadcast at prime time, at the government’s expense.

Second, the fees for Dalit students in private schools should be paid by the government. The fees in good schools today are about Rs 5,000 per month. Dalits cannot afford it. Let the government pay the fees so that they develop their capacities to compete with the rest.

Third, all welfare programmes being run by the union and state government, including education and health, should be closed down and the money given to all citizens as their basic right of citizenship. This will provide basic money to the Dalit families, without stamping them with the ‘Dalit’ label.

I welcome the resolve of Manmohan Singh to establish social equality in the country. The problem is that social equality through reservations will actually lead to increased economic inequality. It will, moreover, provide nothing to the ordinary Dalit.

The task is to set up a system to encourage the Dalits to send their children to good schools and provide them economic assistance for the same. The resulting economic equality will spontaneously beget social equality.