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Reservation quota for 'economically backward'

By Gulshan Bassan. Dated: 1/21/2019 1:01:36 PM

Section 103 (Amendment) Act is illogical

The recent political move of the central government to give 10% quota in educational institutions and jobs to economically backward upper castes has become an Act or in more common language a law now. A serious analysis of the whole process of the act makes one thing clear that the act was intentionally introduced in the parliament on the second last day of the winter session of the parliament so that there remains no chance of debating over it. If the bill would have been introduced in the initial days of the session, there would have been a possibility of discussing the crucial aspects of the act which needs to be discussed.
The first such aspect which needed to be discussed is the criteria of establishing economic backwardness. It is also important to know which agency has determined the inadequacy of representation of the so-called 10% economically backward upper castes? Mandal Commission and Supreme Court through its judgement in the Indira Sawhney case has provided a yardstick of backwardness on social and political basis. But in the present case neither such commission nor any kind of agency was appointed to determine the economic backwardness and under representation of the upper castes. Rather an unthoughtful definition of the economic backwardness has been constructed on the basis of annual income not exceeding 8 lakh and land holdings not exceeding 5 acres.
The Agricultural Census says that around 85% of the rural households own less than 5 acres of land and 95% of the rural households earn below Rs 8 lakh per annum. It is also bizarre to say that any one earning 60 thousand per month can be declared as economically backward. It means the Act has kept middle class earning in so called five figures every month and lower class on the same platform. Thus, making everyone poor but not those belonging to the Below poverty line because it remained a contentious issue that where a poverty line should be fixed. So, the middle class earning 60000 per month in general sense is neither BPL nor poor in strict sense but poor enough to qualify for quota. This shows that criteria defining economic backwardness is full of confusion and this confusion would have been sorted out if properly discussed.
The other issue which needs to be debated is the need for reservation and qualification for reservation. The analysis of the criteria of reservation as defined by the Constitution for the SCs and STs manifest that it was based on the caste-based discrimination and exclusion of the lower castes by the so-called upper caste people. The reservation was used as a tool to give the SC and ST community an opportunity to fight that discrimination and exclusion. But in the present case the poor Brahmins, poor Thakurs, and poor Banias did not face any caste-based discrimination and exclusion. But in order to bring the upper caste poor in the category of reservation a successful amendment is made in the constitution by challenging the judgements of the Supreme Court regarding the basic structure of the Constitution. There is no such quantifiable and empirical data available to show the under representation and economic backwardness of the upper caste people but of over representation.
The question of crossing of the quota limit is also a debatable issue as how can the 49% limit of total reservation as put by the Supreme Court be violated. Also, if the view of Ambedkar as a Chief architect of Constitution is to be taken into consideration, the reservation should be restricted to the minority not the majority and should be given to the marginalised and discriminated. In the present case there is no agency to establish the upper caste marginalisation.
Similarly, is reservation the only solution for eliminating the economic backwardness of the people or there are other measures available to the government. P.S. Krishnan, the former secretary to Government of India, in an interview said that the reservation provided to SC and ST communities by the Constitution can't be in any sense taken as a poverty alleviation programme. Reservation has different meaning and importance. He says that the economically backward upper castes do not need reservation but they need scholarships, education loans, skill development assistance and other welfare schemes. It is bizarre to see how reservation can be reduced to the level of poverty alleviation programme.
With the reservation of 10% seats in the jobs and educational institutions one immediate question arise in every thoughtful mind is, where are the jobs and where are the seats in the higher education institutions specifically in research. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has projected unemployment in India at 18.6 million in 2018, higher than 18.3 million in 2017 in its report and which is expected to rise upto 18.9 by 2019. It reported that unemployment in India was rising to 3.5% in 2018. The data in itself says everything. If there are no jobs facilitated by the economic growth and no increment in the formal and public sector then the reservation will fall short of providing jobs to anyone.
The whole process from introduction to the passage of the bill into Constitution (103 amendment) Act shows that the BJP government as usual bypasses constitutional exercise be it the introduction of the bill on the second last day of the winter parliamentary session and deliberately leaving no time for discussion and debates over the clauses or the one day extension of Rajya Sabha without following the proper procedure. Not only this, the way criteria for economic backwardness is established and the Supreme Court Judgements are bypassed it is not inappropriate to said that the act is unthoughtful.
(Author is a Research Scholar at Central University of Jammu)