In the midst of a singularly lacklustre election campaign, the Rajasthan chief minister showed undue panic by floating the balloon of reservations for economically needy (sic) sections of the forward castes. Brahmins dismissed the move as gimmickry since additional reservations require Central legislation, and demanded that the State include them among the Other Backward Castes so that they can immediately avail of the benefits of government employment.
This flattening of caste hierarchy to a point where the OBC category has emerged as the prize varna to which twice-born suvarna castes desperately seek admittance, provides much food for thought. It overturns all conventional dogmas about caste from the time it came to public notice as a mobilizing institution.
Caste has generally been understood in terms of status and ritual ranking in society. While recruitments to the Brahmin varna are recorded in the Rig Veda and even in the Mahabharata, it is historically undeniable that the Kshatriya varna has been the favoured destination of energetic groups. As late as the eighteenth century, the Holkars graduated from cattle-herders to founders of the respected royal family of Indore. Political power was a potent short cut to elevation in the caste hierarchy, with the ready cooperation of Brahmin priests. In the early nineteenth century, the tribal Raj-Gonds of Khairagarh were adjusted in the Nagbansi lineage, which was recognized as Kshatriya in central India.
Another favoured ladder, as noted by M.N. Srinivas, was ‘sanskritization’, whereby lower castes and tribes adopted the purer lifestyles of the upper castes and claimed a higher social ranking. In the opening decades of the twentieth century the Santhals of Bihar began to wear the sacred thread and claimed Kshatriya rank. The Mahtos of Chotanagpur were so determined to achieve higher status that they got themselves de-scheduled as a tribe. The list is endless. In the British period, some ambitious tribes even approached the Rajput Mahasabha for recognition.
Of course, the desire for upper caste status waned after 1950 when the constitution granted 22.5% reservations in government jobs to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Forward castes disapproved of reservations as they were denied a chunk of sinecures that would have been theirs in an open competition; but they nonetheless tolerated reservations as necessary to balance the historical resourcelessness and disabilities of these groups. However, public disaffection grew when reservations were extended to prized seats in prestigious engineering and medical colleges and merit compromised by sharply reducing the qualifying marks for SC/ST candidates. This made a mockery of the degrees and failed to empower the SC/ST candidates as they often failed in the examinations and had to drop out of the courses midway.
Public anger at the chicanery of politicians came to a boil with the acceptance of the Mandal Commission Report by the then Prime Minister V.P. Singh, which overnight doubled the quantum of reserved posts. In the dozen years since, several leaders have feebly mooted extension of reservations to the economically needy among the forward castes. Mr. Gehlot has now suggested a new Central initiative to examine the issue, and the Bharatiya Janata Party has endorsed his proposal to enhance job reservations.
Even as other political parties struggle to articulate their stands, social scientists would do well to examine the issue before we are pushed through another round of votebank appeasement. It would be pertinent to remember that when the Mandal Commission Report finally became public after a decade-long hibernation, all leading sociologists and experts associated with the Commission dissociated themselves from the Reports’ conclusions and questioned its methodology. The scientific classification of social groups is too sensitive a matter to be left to politicians.
As reservations are intimately linked to caste, a deeper understanding of the working of caste in its contemporary setting is necessary before we aggravate social discontent by willy-nilly expanding the reservation pie. I can see several potential sources of disaffection on the horizon. For instance, given the fact that government jobs are shrinking and the privatization of the public sector has gone too far to be reversed, politicians may be tempted to spring a nasty surprise in the form of reservations in the private sector.
In the intensely competitive global environment, such a short-sighted move could do untold damage to commerce and industry. The large multinationals would instantly quit the country unless exempted from this Indian disease. The already unimpressive FDI inflows would dip further as managers fumble with caste certificates in place of the good old marks or grades. Literally every shopkeeper would be opened to harassment from “caste inspectors” and the confusion in the economy would rival the legendary Tower of Babel. Obviously, the situation is too terrible to countenance.
In principle, reservations for the economically needy seem unexceptionable, but they would be impossible to implement in practice. Prima facie, every young man or woman eligible and desirous of a job is economically needy, for the simple reason that even affluent middle class families do not have the resources to indefinitely support adult children who do not work.
In the case of the upper castes, how is economic need to be defined? Would we simply identify certain gotras among Brahmins and Rajputs as needy, or would we include all families that fall outside the criteria identified by the Finance Ministry for filing income tax returns (such as ownership of a telephone)? And who will certify the candidate as genuine? A new mountain of corruption will open up in the form of a “certificate industry,” which will be utterly disproportionate to the number of upper caste youth securing government employment through reservations. It is a completely unworthy exercise.
I feel that the time has also come to reexamine the whole issue of social and educational backwardness as a criterion for reservations. The very term “educational backwardness” is an anachronism in a nation committed to the goal of universal education. Since jobs are ultimately given to individuals and not to groups, and no one can hold a job for which he/she is not qualified, the claim of educational backwardness is odd, to say the least. Yet it is a claim bandied without embarrassment by families and groups that willfully refrain from taking the benefits of available educational opportunities. It is high time we put paid to such perfidy.
The claim of ‘social backwardness’ by the OBCs is equally phony, and several studies have ably documented the political and economic power of leading castes in this category. In the modern world, caste is no longer the organizing principle of society – it does not determine occupation; it does not restrict the choice of marriage partner. At best, it bequeaths a surname, a sense of identity/community, and an assured votebank during elections.
In the past few years, new States have been carved with tribals constituting the majority population and thus wielding political clout. Their historical problems of neglect and exploitation can thus be expected to be taken care of over a period of time. ‘Social backwardness’ then may be said to be confined to SC individuals who are still denied entry to village temples, but they are seldom the beneficiaries of reservations. As we deconstruct the commanding heights of the Nehruvian economy, we would do well to dismantle this parasitic legacy of the socialist raj.
The Pioneer, 3 June 2003