Is Caste a Commensurate Criterion for Reservations?

Reservations has always been a hot topic of discussion in India. Till date, almost all reservations including those for the admissions in professional colleges and entry to government services are all based on caste. From time immemorial there existed in India a caste capitalism, which over the years blocked the socio-ecnomic development of the lower castes, making them minorities (a group that enjoys less than its proportionate share of scarce resources).The aim of implementing reservations at the very core is to bring soical justice to people who have been denied opportunities historically to climb up in the socio-ecnomic spiral.So it is unobjectionable that SCs and STs are eligible for these reservations.

But what about OBCs?. They do not qualify into the definition of 'being denied of opportunities for betterment historically'. Even then the butter cake of reservation was thrown up to them .The 27% OBC reservation was implemented on the basis of the Mandal Commission estimate that 52% of the total population belong to OBC. The justification of forced proportional representation of a caste/community in any profession is highly unscientific and abstruse.The criterion for the exclusion of creamy layer in OBCs is too flawed, that almost everybody who is a backward caste by the accident of birth could pass the Income/wealth test and be eligible for reservations.Thus the well-to -do among the backward castes becomes the key beneficiaries of these schemes.

Demographic Trends

In order to target the benefits to the needy and fine-tune the reservation policy,exact numerical info of all castes in necessary. To settle endless issues on the size and backwardness of various communities, the exact information on their socio-economic status is vital. The demand of enumeration of OBC in census is strongly backed by leaders and parties representing the politics of OBC assertion, with a hope for an increase in expected count of OBCs and hence demand for a higher percentage reservation. For this very reason Hindutwa groups are dead against this reform, calling it a colonial practice.

The demographic trends indicate that the percentage of OBCs are on a raise every year.Though this is not a conscious effort from the part of any community to turn the social demography to their favour, this is an issue worth watching. It is beyond question that the OBC political fraternity will come up with a demand of increase in proportional representation once their percentage share of population go beyond the Mandal commission estimate of 52%. But experts consider that this is unlikely to happen as National sample survey estimated the percentage of OBCs only as 36% in 99'-00' and 41% in 04'-05'.To implement a reform in the reservations system, the most essential pre-requisite is the enumeration of castes in census. Not just OBCs, but all castes. Upliftment of the oppressed being the basic idea behind all these schemes, the information on who is oppressed and who need to be empowered is vital.


Devising a new Criterion for Reservation based on MPI Data

Six decades since Independence, the issue of oppression of lower castes by higher castes is of little relevance in Urban India. But this issue is still relevent in the rural areas of the sub-continent.Now discussing the need of a new criterion for the implementation of reservations in India on the basis of wellness indicators other than caste, is very relevant. Especially in the context of the recent studies of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) on the basis of Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

According to OPHI "Multidimensional poverty encompasses a range of deprivations that a household may suffer.Most countries of the world define poverty by income. Yet poor people themselves define their poverty much more broadly, to include lack of education, health, housing, empowerment, humiliation, employment, personal security and more. No one indicator, such as income or caste, is uniquely able to capture the multiple aspects that contribute to backwardness or poverty.Alkire Foster Method identifies who is poor by considering the intensity of deprivations they suffer, and includes an aggregation method. The method is flexible and can be applied to measure poverty or well being, target services or conditional cash transfers and for monitoring and evaluation. Different dimensions (e.g. education) and indicators (e.g. how many years of education of person has) can be chosen depending on the society and situation."

MPI Table of States of India [Click to Enlarge]

Extreme diversity in all walks of life is a key feature of Indian social set up. The OPHI studies in fact shows that our country is made up of different nations stretching from middle income Asian nations to starving sub-Saharan nations. A comparison of state-level and country-level data from the newly released multi-dimensional poverty index shows that the conditions of the states Kerala and Goa are close to that of Paraguay and the Philippines.At the same time Somalia, where 300,000 people died in a famine in the early 1990s, performs slightly worse than Bihar while Sierra Leone, the world's third worst performer on the Human Development Index, is at roughly the same level. When such a diversity in MPI exist in our country,is it not nonsensical to have a common criterion for the implementation of upliftment programs ?. When these programs end up being insufficient in some states they may turnout being tools of reverse discrimination in other states.

Comparison of Bihar with Kerala [Click to Enlarge]

This chart very much brings out the problems in considering India as a whole while enforcing policies like reservations. The fruits of reservations have already reached many millions belonging to once backward communities and it is still out of the reach for many others. In many states the oppressed among the forward community, remain excluded from these upliftment programs for the only reason of the accident of birth as an upper caste. If empowerment of the real oppressed is the motive behind the implementation of upliftment programs, it is time to devise a new criterion, considering more wellness indicators beyond caste and target benefits of reservations to the needy.

References

1. Alkire, Sabina & Maria Emma Santos. 2010. India Country Briefing. Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) Multidimensional Poverty Index Country Briefing Series. Available at: www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index/mpi-country-briefings/

2. Global multidimensional poverty - OPHI’s interactive world map
http://www.ophi.org.uk/policy/multidimensional-poverty-index

3. National Commission for Backward classes (NCBC) - Persons/Sections Excluded from Reservation which constitute Creamy Layer of the Society. Available at : http://ncbc.nic.in/html/creamylayer.htm