Special Report

Brewing tsunami over OBC reservations

There’s emerging evidence that the country’s massive younger generation — 540 million indians are less than 25 years of age — is brewing a tsunami-style storm which could blow away the ruling gerontocracy and reshape the republic. Dilip Thakore reports

Currently there is considerable satisfaction within the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in New Delhi that the national dust storm stirred by Union human resource development minister Arjun Singh’s April 5 pronouncement that the cabinet has agreed to provide additional reservation (i.e over and above the 22.5 percent quota of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) for OBCs (other backward castes) in Central government institutions of higher education has blown over. However there’s emerging evidence that the country’s massive younger generation (540 million Indians are less than 25 years of age) is brewing a tsunami-style storm which could blow away the ruling gerontocracy and reshape the republic.

There’s growing conviction within young India that on the reservation issue, the value premises and objectives of the political class — the Constitution (Ninety Third Amendment) Act 2005 (which overrules the Supreme Court’s judgements in the T.M.A Pai Foundation (2002) and the P.A Inamdar (2005) cases and permits the Central and state governments to decree reservations for backward castes and classes even in private, unaided institutions of education) received the unanimous support of all parties in Parliament — are at complete variance with those of India’s generation next.

Internal pulls and pressures within the ruling coalition government and particularly the unrequited political ambitions of the 74-year-old Arjun Singh who forced the government’s hand on the issue of provisioning an additional quota of 27 percent in Central government institutions of higher education, have compelled it to devise ways and means to provide additional reservation for OBCs without alienating the merit-driven and politically influential middle class. For instance, the additional reservation kicks in from next year, and currently a 13-member Oversight Committee chaired by former Karnataka chief minister Dr. Veerappa Moily is examining how to expand the overall capacity of Central government institutions, so that the quota of merit students is not reduced. But meanwhile the student community is becoming increasingly impatient with the divide et impera (divide and rule) strategies of all political parties, and the caste fixation of the nation’s aged leaders.

"We are not against affirmative action in favour of the genuinely needy; what we are against is caste-based reservations. Thus far India’s campuses have been free from the malaise of casteism and we intend to keep them that way. The introduction of an additional quota for OBCs is nothing but a political ploy to harvest their block vote. Therefore we will defeat this political proposal politically. Youth for Equality has launched a nationwide signature campaign in which students will pledge to vote out those dividing our campuses on caste lines. I am confident that we can mobilise the youth vote and make it matter. In forthcoming elections, political parties will feel the heat of the youth vote," vows Dr. Jitendra Singla president of the Resident Doctors Association of Delhi’s Maulana Azad Medical College and member of Youth for Equality, which engineered the nine-day hunger strike of junior doctors in Delhi in May.

This militant sentiment is echoed by middle class youth across the country who are unanimous that reservations for OBCs will open a Pandora’s Box of casteism which will splinter Indian society. "Although politicians accuse us of being opposed to affirmative action, the reality is that the youth of India favour reservations for the genuinely needy and deserving. Block reservations for OBCs will result in their being grabbed by the creamy layer, without any benefit flowing to those who really need benefits and concessions. Our contention is that if government wants to give reservation or concessions, it must ensure that it is given to individuals — not groups — who really need them," argues Mukund Kedia, a student of Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial hospital and college, who was in the crowd of medical students brutally beaten by the Mumbai police while on a sit-down protest on May 13.

It’s easy to be cynical about apprehensions of youth that more caste-based reservations in institutions of education will let loose the evil of caste-consciousness and discrimination on India’s campuses. And politicians and champions of the backward classes are cynical. They tend to gloss over the original sin of inadequate capacity creation in higher education, and contend that caste prejudice is deeply ingrained within the collective psyche of middle class India and that anti-reservationist students are essentially fighting to maintain the social status quo. Typically, they discount the idealism and patriotism of the nation’s youth.

"In the new era of economic liberalisation and high rates of economic growth, caste divisions are beginning to disappear from the Indian landscape. With employment oppor-tunities multiplying, young people are moving out of their hometowns and villages into cities where they mingle with youth of all castes and communities. The new economic freedom is erasing caste and community barriers. Therefore the proposal to legislate an additional 27 percent to OBCs solely on the basis of caste is a move in the opposite direction. Hence we condemn it," says Kumar Gaurav a computer science graduate of IIT-Kanpur and currently a senior associate with the Bangalore-based Trilogy Software, and a founder member of the Bangalore chapter of Youth for Equality.

Conventional establishment sociologists and intellectuals are unlikely to agree with emerging student opinion that reservation on the basis of caste is outdated. The dominant belief in academia is that socio-economic discrimination on the basis of caste is an omnipresent reality in Indian society, especially rural India. But this opinion tends to gloss over the reality that although they incorporated affirmative action or positive discrimination in government employment for the historically oppressed and denied scheduled castes and scheduled tribes for a limited period (15 years) into the Constitution of India, the founding fathers of the republic displayed little hesitation in dismissing the propagation of caste identities and awareness as regressive, if not anti-social. That’s why in every census survey of India after 1931, data relating to the caste identities of citizens was deliberately not solicited or gathered.

Consequently within the post-independence intelligentsia there is growing support for anti-reservationist students. "I don’t believe that students who are in opposition to quotas in higher education institutions for OBCs are opposed to intelligent affirmative action. They are opposed to casteism — legislating reservation solely on the basis of caste. After all the last caste census was done in 1931 and since then it has never been updated on the ground that the country must move away from the caste system. Moreover since 1931, there has been tremendous change in the socio-economic status of classes and castes in Indian society. Therefore instead of simply decreeing the reservation of an additional 27 percent quota for OBCs, if the government had commissioned proper research before mandating concessions for genuinely backward students, I don’t believe the student community would have objected," says Dr. Ashima Goyal, professor of economics at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai.

Quite obviously the last word on reservations has not been said. Several titanic legal battles loom on the horizon.

But the argument that society should disregard caste is contested by Dr. A.R. Vasavi an alumna of Delhi and Michigan State universities and currently professor of sociology at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. "Caste-based structures and casteism persist widely across the country and caste-based disadvantages mark the lives of most low-ranked stigmatised communities. Caste remains coterminous with class, and exceptions to the rule are rare. Given this and the fact that the new economic regimes have led to tremendous economic dislocation and distress for many service, agricultural and menial labour groups, the criterion of caste as an indicator of backwardness — measured in terms of literacy, access to adequate living and health facilities, sustainable livelihoods and income — is still valid," says Vasavi.

Nevertheless commenting upon the current controversy of OBC reservation, Dr. Vasavi concedes this category "needs to be unpacked and contextualised". And given that state governments identify and list OBCs, resulting in instances of dominant castes grabbing OBC status, she recommends that all states under the supervision of the Centre "revise their OBC lists to identify only the disadvantaged". "The whole reservation process must be revamped to be made part of a policy rather than a populist agenda," she says.

But even if harsh ground-level social conditions argue a case for caste-based reservations in institutions of education and public employment, there’s no denying that there’s little awareness within the nation’s aged establishment that half a century of tub-thumping nationalism and unity rhetoric has struck a responsive chord within India’s youth, who tend to be embarrassed about highlighting caste identities. This is most evident in the southern states of the country where educated youth tend to shed surnames indicative of caste identities and/or affiliations. Thus most young people transform their first names into surnames, relegating caste denoting names to the status of initials. Therefore in Tamil Nadu it is quite common for an individual with a name like Prakash Iyer to change it to I. Prakash. Likewise in Karnataka, incumbent chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy preferred not to follow family tradition and adopt the caste indicative surname of his father (former prime minister) H.D. Deve Gowda.

"Politicians pushing caste-based reservation in institutions of education have completely misread the mood of the nation’s young people who are uncomfortable about advertising caste identities. They prefer more modern icons of affiliation such as smartness, hipness and even the bond of a common language. The youth of the country yearn to be included into larger groups rather than be identified by caste particularisms which they are instinctively aware, create division in society. The proposal to legislate additional quotas in institutions of higher education solely on the basis of caste at this point of time is a perversion of history, and indicative of crude and reckless politicisation of affirmative action," fumes Dr. Shekhar Seshadri professor of child psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore.

Quite obviously HRD minister Arjun Singh and OBC champions who recklessly propose further reservation in Central government funded institutions are unaware of the psychological tensions that allocation of scarce seats on the basis of caste quotas already generate at ground-zero level on campus. Reports from several prestigious institutions indicate that students admitted under the reserved categories tend to be isolated and are often subject to snide remarks, scorn, derision and psychological bullying. If additional 27 percent of available capacity is reserved for OBC students, campus tensions are certain to be exacerbated, adversely affecting institutional morale.

"One of the secrets of elite institutions such as the IITs and IIMs is that there is already considerable discrimination on a day-to-day basis against students admitted under SC and ST quotas. Since most of us don’t speak fluent English and have difficulty in keeping up, we are easily identifiable as quota students. As such we have to suffer the scorn and contempt of merit students who seldom mix with us. If further caste-based quotas are legislated, caste consciousness and temperatures are certain to rise on campuses. Aged politicians are content to wear caste on their sleeves. They can’t be expected to understand that young people prefer to forget about their caste origins and merge into the mainstream," says a SC student of IIM-Bangalore who requested anonymity.

Quite clearly there is a widening generation gap between India’s elderly politicians — the average age of the Union cabinet is over 65 — and the student community. Given their socialist mindset, traditional rationing solutions — licences, permits, quotas — are second nature to politicians. Out of the box solutions such as easing the entry of the large number of foreign universities anxious to teach the world’s youngest population; scaling up IT-enabled distance education, and/ or giving free rein to private sector education entrepreneurs to create additional capacity in higher education, seem beyond their collective ken.

With the number of students in tertiary education aggregating a mere 10 million and only 7 percent of youth in the age group 18-23 enrolled in colleges and universities, it’s plain as a pikestaff that capacity constraint is the # 1 problem in higher education. But obsessed with phobias about "commercialisation of education" and retaining government control over higher education, the country’s out-of-date politicians have proved they are unable to address the supply side of higher education. Hence the knee-jerk reaction to legislate caste quotas, which also offer the possibility of electoral dividends. Never mind if this solution inflicts new fissures and fractures upon society.

Yet perhaps the most glaring example of the widening generation gap within Indian society is the painfully obvious reluctance of the ruling gerontocracy to include youth representatives in governance of the world’s youngest population. One of the most exciting outcomes of the general election of 2004 which resulted in the unexpected defeat of the ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party at the hustings and the installation of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in New Delhi, was the election of a large cohort of unprecedentedly young members of Parliament. Although at that time the media, including this publication, was euphoric about this development (see cover story EW November, 2004), little has been heard about the nation’s young MPs most of whom are highly qualified, boasting degrees from some of the world’s finest universities. The ruling party’s young MPs, such as Sachin Pilot (28), Jyotiraje Scindia (34), Navin Jindal (35) and Milind Deora (29) are ideally qualified to negotiate with students agitated about OBC reservations. But if at all they have been consulted on this burning issue, it’s a national secret.

At this moment, it seems that schools and colleges that had not previously sought minority status are now seeking it to ward off government intervention (under the provisions of the 93rd Amendment of the Constitution, minority institutions are exempt from reserving quotas for SCs, STs and OBCs — Editor)… If the proposed reservation for OBCs comes into effect, we can expect the number of minority educational institutions to steadily increase. As the number of seats in prestigious educational institutions decline with increased reservation, less brilliant Hindus will be driven towards community colleges that will come up to fill their need — Gurpreet Mahajan, professor of politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in the Times of India (June 12)

Even as a curiously nomenclatured 13-member Oversight Committee chaired by former Karnataka chief minister Dr. Veerappa Moily struggles with reconciling an additional 27 percent quota in Central government institu-tions with ensuring that the number of seats available to merit students don’t decline, the success of the southern states in maintaining academic standards while providing quotas in excess of 50 percent for SCs, STs and OBCs is likely to prove instructive.

"Tamil Nadu has a long history of reservation which has been enforced for the past 50 years. We already have 69 percent reservation in state government institutions for SCs, STs, OBCs and MBCs (most backward castes); hence it’s a non-issue here. The state has a Backward Classes Commission which governs the admission of backward class students into state government institutions. And on the whole the experience with reservation has been very positive. Backward class citizens hold very responsible positions in government, academia and the private sector. Moreover the competitiveness of the SCs, STs and OBCs is on the rise as indicated by consistently rising cut-off marks for admission into professional courses. But the time has come for the commission to take a fresh look at its list and eliminate some groups that no longer require reservation, while admitting other discriminated groups which actually need reservation," says Dr. Paul Appasamy, an alumnus of several American universities (Northwestern, Wake Forest and Michigan) and currently professor of environment and natural resource economics at the Madras School of Economics.

This point of view is supported by another eminent Chennai-based academic, Dr. A. Vaidyanathan an alumnus of Madras and Pittsburgh universities with a Ph D from Cornell, and hitherto professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies. According to Vaidyanathan, there is "convincing evidence" that reservations in institutions of higher education and government have played "a significantly positive role in Tamil Nadu". Nevertheless he believes that the benefits of reservation have been "unevenly distributed across different caste groups". Therefore if the establishment is serious about giving the backward classes a genuinely better deal in education and employment, it is important to evolve a "more nuanced and discriminating approach" to provide greater equality by excluding the creamy layer within the backward classes, says Vaidyanthan. Among his suggestions: children of income tax assessees should be excluded from the ambit of reservation; distinguish between those with means and caste handicaps; identify promising backward class students at the high school stage and offer publicly funded coaching to enable them to compete in professional exams (see box p.61).

Militant anti-reservationists in other parts of the country can also learn from the southern experience of positive discrimination, which tends to celebrate campus diversity and is inclusive rather than exclusivist. "The southern states, particularly Karnataka and Tamil Nadu decided in the early decades of the 20th century that reservations were a means of providing access to all sections of the population to both government jobs and education. A major objective of this exercise was to enable the state to tap the best from all sections of society. Ensuring all sections of society are represented in the government machinery does improve the quality of this service," explains Narender Pani writing in The Economic Times (June 16).

As the Oversight Committee chaired by Veerappa Moily knuckles down to controlling the damaging fallout of the peremptory announcement of an additional reserved quota of 27 percent in Central government institutions of higher education, it would be well advised to draw on the southern experience, and recommend an inclusive approach to the reservation issue which is fracturing Indian society.

But simultaneously it must give serious consideration to the modern-isation ideals of young Indians who want to put the markers of caste behind them, and practice rational affirmative action. The ruling gerontocracy has to move beyond benign paternalism and include the country’s youth in the nation-building process. Failure to do so will create a new generation gap — and one more schism in Indian society.

With Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore); Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai); Autar Nehru (Delhi) & Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)