Dr. Jyotsna Jha
1. Reservations for dalits, adivasis and other backward castes in educational institutions has been an important policy to implement the affirmative action that our Constitution guarantees. Despite limitations and problems, the policy has succeeded in enhancing the educational status of these social groups, and their representation in public sector jobs, which in turn has meant both social and economic mobility for them. Considering that these groups are still far from being close to other groups either in education or in employment status, it is important that the policy continues. Also, in view of the relatively lower status of Muslims as compared to other religious or social groups, it is desirable to extend this action to them.
2. One of the criticisms of the reservation policy has been that the benefits have been cornered by the so called 'creamy layer' or the economically and socially more powerful among these groups. This is undoubtedly true and to some extent also inevitable in the early phase. In the history of humankind, whenever State brings an affirmative action for a group which is only broadly homogeneous, the more powerful are bound to reap the benefits at early stage simply because they are more capable of accessing all information and using the opportunities. This is also not entirely undesirable as they are more powerful only within that group whereas remain disadvantaged in some manner or the other in the broader context. However, it is also equally important to curtail these instances, especially once the initial phase is over, in order to reach those who are the most needy and vulnerable. Therefore, the Indian government (Centre as well as states) need to have measures which ensure that the most needy are able to reap the benefits of this policy. In order to be effective, these measures have to take take the social realities as well as the ease of implementation into account.
3. It is not easy to have measures or indicators based on economic status (income or assets) in Indian or any other similar context where large number of people and households are dependent on agriculture and other informal sector jobs. Apart from the fact that poor and less educated people have uncertain and varying earnings making it difficult for them to produce an income certificate, the widespread corruption also makes it possible for the richer and more powerful among them to produce false proofs of their income. Therefore, we need to look for proxies; proxies that are difficult to fudge and good shadow indicators for economic status.
4. I suggest two filters to reservations for entry to higher educational institutions and employment: - Those who have had all their entire school education in private fee-paying schools should not be eligible for any benefit under this policy. In no part of the country, poor parents of any caste can afford to send their children to private fee-paying (unaided) schools for both primary and secondary levels. And those who can afford to send their children to private schools at both primary and secondary stages not only have better economic status but also access to other kinds of information/networking that make it possible to access private sector jobs. School certificates are important documents for age and education and it is not easy to fudge this information. It will make it specially difficult for those who go to elite schools as the very name of the school is a selling point and therefore no one would like to fudge that.
- Children of those parents who have availed the reservation to get into a high level job (in Indian context, gazetted or Class I and II posts) should also be made ineligible. This means removing second or third generation beneficiaries but not excluding those who have availed it for menial or lower level jobs only. It is important to have this caveat as reservations has been widely used by poor dalits and adivasis to access lower level jobs. It gave them livelihood security but not necessarily the desired social mobility and change in status. Access to secure jobs have made it possible for them to access education for their children in many cases making them now much more capable of using the reservation to access higher level jobs, which brings more tangible change in economic and social status. It would be unfair to deny reservation to all second generation beneficiaries.
Dr Jyotsna Jha is an Educatonal
Economist who has worked on Indian
School Eduction.
Dear Dr. Jyotsna,
I liked the way you have contextualized the problem of the "stronger of the weaker sections", paving the way for thinking about "internal reservations" (oLa meesalaathi). We have to think about reservations in terms of the enormous shift in social orders in a globalized/glocalized economy. Status change and mobility are severely constricted by the economic order of the day. Reservations are meant to be the lifeline of a liberal democracy where the weakest of the weak has the same scope for improving their livelihoods as anybody else. Now, our problem, along with identifying the parameters of weakness (is food shortage due to globalization, or due to social economics of the local geography?, is the urban dalit better or worse than the rural dalit? if the urban poor better, then is it better to move the already overcrowded urban centers into an overdrive?), is to reconcile our local knowledge and processes with the uncontrollable happenstances of a globalized world. In this light, is Reservation going to remain a potentially isolated tool devised to cure a historically acknowledged wrong?
regards
Ravishankar R
Thanks for your comments on my suggestions on the reservation issue.
I agree that reservations alone cannot be the solution either to correct a historically acknowledged wrong or even in general to push for a more just and equal society. But in my view they continue to be one of the important policy tools for moving towards that direction. Status change and mobility are indeed constricted by the economic order of the day but none of the issues that you have raised - significant as they are - have changed the social order in any fundamental sense so as to demand a basic shift in caste-based reservations policy. This is not to deny the unquestionable importance of understanding issues such as food scarcity or urban-centric development model. They need to be fully understood though not necessarily in an 'either-or' frame, e.g., food scarcity needs to be understood in the context of globalisation as well as internal social hierarchies and distribution systems. Same is true for other questions raised. And all existing such efforts point out that despite some breakdown of rigid partitions and consequent fluidity the caste based social orders have largely remained intact even in the new economic order. And that necessitates the need for continuing with the reservations but looking for ways to make it more effective for those who are most disadvantaged or at least relatively more disadvantaged. And there, I think, the suggestions such as excluding private school educated ones are relevant as they could be effective in weeding out those who have benefited from not only the new economic order but also from new political order. Nevertheless, there is no disagreement in accepting that reservation alone is a limited tool and unless supported by other effective measures, significant change would not take place.
Regards
Jyotsna Jha
Dear Dr. Jha,
Thank you for your response. I was interested in your comment -
"Status change and mobility are indeed constricted by the economic order of the day but none of the issues that you have raised - significant as they are - have changed the social order in any fundamental sense so as to demand a basic shift in caste-based reservations policy"
The urban landscape of India would hold more than 50% of the entire Indian population by 2025. Now, it is quite conceivable that the urban-centric development model would be mostly on an auto-pilot by then (not necessarily only due to national government's efforts, we might also consider global trends). It would call for a more significant examination of the urban social dynamics, as in this model of development, all rural areas and villages are seen not as isolated, autonomous socio-cultural entities, but as inferior forms of being in the path of evolution into an urban center. In an urban set-up, driven primarily by a service-sector economy, caste-based divides (social, economic, cultural - Brahmins and Dalits share a table without even thinking, Rich Dalit politician and a poor Brahmin teacher etc... all rosy pictures) diminish to the point of being a non-issue, as has been seen currently. In this sense, caste-based reservations could be seen as a tool to fuel the urban development model with all its consequences, rather than a tool to bridge the social divide. Since my belief is that the urban development model should not be the way forward, if caste based reservation feeds into the acceleration of this model, we need to reassess it.
An expiry-date bound, apolitical policy must be what an ideal caste based reservation must be. The expiry date however, should not only to the policy, but also to the beneficiaires. Quantitative evaluation procedures (again apolitical) might help identifying who have crossed the line of weakenss.
warm regards
Ravishankar R
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