India: Bringing the
caste-aways on board By Praful
Bidwai
NEW DELHI - An epic battle is in
progress in India over the issue of affirmative
action in favor of socially disadvantaged groups,
in particular those who belong to the lower castes
in the country's notoriously hierarchical social
order.
Its outcome will determine the
careers and life-chances of millions of people who
aspire to a better position in society. It will
also impact the way India, regarded by many as an
"emerging superpower", designs its education
system to meet future challenges.
On one
side stand a majority of India's caste groups,
including the Dalits (formerly untouchables) and
low and lower-middle castes (officially called
Other Backward Classes or OBCs). Backing them are
all the major political parties and the
government, which
recently announced that 27%
of all places in federally run universities will
be reserved for OBCs, who constitute a little more
than 50% of India's billion-plus population.
Arrayed on the opposite side is a small
but resolute and influential minority that opposes
reservations. It is led by students from some of
India's elite medical and engineering colleges,
who have been holding vocal protests against the
government's decision.
The students are
backed by professional guilds such as the Indian
Medical Association, some of India's big
industrial tycoons, chambers of commerce, and
information-technology executives. A significant
section of the media supports them too.
Under the pressure of the second group,
the government recently diluted its original quota
proposal and decided to increase the number of
seats (student intake) in all central
higher-education institutions so that the
positions filled by "open competition" do not
shrink. It also delayed implementation of quotas
by a year.
Despite impressive economic
growth in India, education expenditure as a
percentage of gross domestic product has never
risen above 4.3% of GDP, despite a target of 6%
set in 1968. In recent years the gap between GDP
growth and education expenditure has been widening
rather than contracting.
But the
concessions announced by the government, to
protect the existing number of unreserved seats,
failed to mollify the agitating students, who have
moved from resisting reservations to opposing
affirmative action itself.
Meanwhile, the
Supreme Court has stepped into the arena by
admitting petitions moved by opponents of
affirmative action. It has asked the government to
explain the rationale behind lower-caste
reservations.
"This is likely to encourage
the agitating students just when their protests
seemed to be losing momentum," said Zoya Hasan,
professor of political science at Delhi's
Jawaharlal Nehru University. "More important, it
will strengthen those who radically oppose
affirmative action."
The ongoing contest
has brought to the surface issues long considered
settled. The most important is that of
reservations for Dalits and Adivasis
(aboriginals), mandated by the constitution. These
groups are arguably India's most underprivileged
and bear the burden of centuries-long social
discrimination.
Reservations were
introduced for them half a century ago in school
and college admissions and in government jobs.
India's upper-caste elite, which comprises less
than 15% of the population but occupies a large
share of plum jobs and dominates the professions,
seemed to have reconciled itself to the 22.5%
quota. But now even that consensus is being
questioned by the agitating students.
The
present battle is also opening other fault lines -
between India's political class and the
opinion-shaping elite, between scholars for or
against quotas, and between those who take a
"reservations-only" position and those who want
the other forms of affirmative action too.
No political party dares question the
quota proposal up front. Even the right-wing
Bharatiya Janata Party, whose political base lies
among upper-caste Hindus, does not challenge the
decision; but it wants quotas for the poorer
layers of the upper castes too.
The two
opposing sides cite different facts and arguments
to back their respective positions. Those who
advocate reservations emphasize the historical
disadvantage that low-caste groups face vis-a-vis
the "twice-born" upper castes in respect of
literacy and education, discrimination on grounds
of ritual purity, and social status.
They
hold that such disadvantages necessitate quotas;
in a deeply unequal society such as India, equity
and justice must come before any considerations of
pure "excellence".
Affirmative action's
opponents emphasize "merit", by which they mean
performance on examinations, reflecting inherent
intelligence, which society should reward through
admissions to the better schools and colleges.
''The obsession with 'merit' is unique in
India,'' said Zoya Hasan. ''Elsewhere in the
world, you hear terms like 'academic proficiency',
'competence', 'excellence' in research. In India
merit has taken on an almost mystical significance
as a quality inherent in some chosen people, not
something that can be acquired through training
and effort.''
The "merit" argument makes
very little sense in a society based on the
inheritance of private property and birth-related
privileges. Property inheritance means that the
affluent are at a vastly different, higher
starting point from the disadvantaged. Most
upper-caste people enjoy great advantages
primarily as a birthright.
Sociologists
have argued that a person born in a highly
educated upper-caste family will have a totally
different universe of knowledge, social contacts
and elite acceptability, and wholly different
access to information about the availability of
courses, colleges and private tuition, career
options and professional advice.
The
critical issue is how to level the playing field
and give equal opportunity to the disadvantaged.
Experience from different countries, including the
United States, South Africa and Malaysia, suggests
that affirmative action is probably the best
solution.
Said political theorist Rajeev
Bhargava: "Affirmative action can take many forms,
including voluntary targets for recruitment of
disadvantaged groups, special counseling and
training. Reservations, admittedly, are a rather
blunt instrument to promote the goal. India has
used reservations as the sole form of affirmative
action."
However, confronted with a choice
between having a relatively crude affirmative
action and no affirmative action at all, many
Indians favor the former, surveys have shown. The
government formula of increasing the intake of
students by as much as 54% can be implemented only
if the higher-education infrastructure is
considerably expanded along with staff
recruitment.
It will not be easy to
achieve such an expansion in the course of barely
one year. The government has set up an oversight
committee along with three subcommittees to
determine how this is to be done. Any delay in
these committees' functioning is likely to be used
by the anti-quota lobby to subvert the whole
effort.
Whether the lobby succeeds or not,
and whatever the Supreme Court does, it is clear
that the issue of affirmative action for lower
castes cannot be removed from India's agenda. With
the political rise of the lower castes for the
past quarter-century, especially after 1990, it
has come to occupy too important a place.
In 1990, the government decided to
implement a long-pending report of an official
commission (the Mandal Commission) by announcing
that 27% of all central-government jobs would be
reserved for lower castes. Although the number of
jobs involved was only 15,000 a year, the decision
produced a furious and violent upper-caste
backlash.
Since then, however, acceptance
of the Mandal logic seems to have spread. Now,
that has been called into question again.
Will what has been called the Forward
March of the Backwards come to a halt? Or will it
prove as unstoppable as it has in recent years?
The answer cannot be long in coming.
