Wrong Route, Right Direction

A decision wrongly arrived at need not always be a wrong decision. We need toremember this as we begin to understand the long-term consequences of thegovernment's decision to implement 27 per cent reservations for the OBCs inhigher educational institutions.

The way in which this decision was taken exemplifies what is wrong with thepolicy making process in our country. A major decision affecting the careerprospects of lakhs of students every year was taken without careful deliberationand transparent procedures that could have inspired some confidence. Largerpolitical considerations were outweighed by short-term political games that areroutinely played in Delhi. Thus a major opportunity to fine-tune the policyinstruments of social justice was lost by default as a nervous government fellback on a tested, tried and tired formula of reservation based on a simplecaste-bloc approach. We may have to wait for another decade or so for anotheropportunity to present itself. This is clearly not how big decisions should betaken.

Yet it does not mean that the decision is a disaster for the country, as thecritics of the policy would have us believe. Viewed in a long-term historicalperspective, Mandal II is a logical corollary of Mandal I. It takes forward theprocess of transfer of social and political power to majority communities. Thegovernment's decision will help reduce the extreme inequalities in educationaland job opportunities for different caste-communities in our country. The dataof the 55 th round of the National Sample Survey shows that in urban India, outof 1000 upper caste Hindus, 253 were graduates. Among the Hindu OBCs, thisfigure was only 86 per 1000. We do not have reliable information on thecaste-wise distribution of well-paid jobs in the organized sector. But it isquite obvious that the upper caste Hindus, who constitute anything between aquarter to one-third of our population, have cornered around twice as many jobsas their share in population might justify.

Notwithstanding all its problems, the government's decision is likely toreduce this kind of skewed distribution. It is likely to improve the access ofthe OBCs to higher education and to middle class jobs. It should also helpexpand the pool from within the OBCs that can take advantage of the existingscheme of reservation in government jobs. In that sense this decision is a stepin the right direction. Even a crude caste-bloc based quota is better than noprovision at all.

An appreciation of the positives of this decision should not lead us to closeour eyes to some of the long-term costs. The government's decision to use aone-dimensional policy of caste-bloc based quota cannot but result in aninefficient targeting of this scheme. The relatively better off families, thattoo from 'upper' OBCs, will be able to corner most of the benefits. In regionalterms, students from south India and other states with long history ofaffirmative action and backward caste movement are much better placed to takeadvantage of this scheme. Needless to say, most of these opportunities will becornered by OBC men, for the gender gap in education is higher among the OBCcommunities as compared to the upper caste Hindus. The inability to target thescheme very efficiently is bound to give rise to deep resentment. Many non-OBCstudents and their families would feel, and rightly so, that they are moredisadvantaged than those OBC students who are getting admissions based on thenew reservations.

Can the government still do something to remedy the situation and reduce someof these costs? The government's policy declaration closes one of thesepossibilities, namely that of attending to the disadvantaged groups other thanthe OBCs. But it can still do something to ensure that the reservation for theOBCs is targeted more efficiently. One, it can declare that the 'creamy layer'within the OBCs will be excluded from the benefits of the new reservation. Theexclusion of 'creamy layer' is already in operation for job reservations and thegovernment has to simply apply it to education. Secondly, the 27 per cent quotashould be sub-divided among 'upper' and 'lower' OBCs. Such sub-divisions alreadyexist in many states and the government can request the National Commission forBackward Classes, a statutory body, to prepare the lists of upper and lower OBCfor each state. Third, the government can make some provision to ensure that OBCwomen have a special opportunity to access this quota. Finally, for taking afinal decision on all these and related matters to target the OBC quota moreeffectively, the government can constitute an independent expert committee towork out the modalities.

Besides these immediate and short term measures, the government must think oftwo long-term measures. First, it must get NSSO or some independent organizationto carry out a comprehensive nation-wide survey of the social profile of thestudents of higher educational institutions and job holders in the organisedsector, public as well as private. Lack of such data is the biggest hurdleblocking the transition to a more transparent, robust and fine-tuned policymaking process in future. Second, it is time the government constituted aDiversity and Disadvantage Commission, a statutory body to regularly monitor thediversity profile of all public institutions and to advise the government onimproving it.

Yogendra Yadav is Senior Fellow at CSDS, Satish Deshpande is Professor ofSociology at Delhi School of Economics. This article first appeared in the Timesof India, and is carried here with the authors' consent.