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EPW Reservation Controversy February 26, 2005 Reservations and Casteism The growth of caste consciousness has hurt the development of progressive social consciousness among the oppressed and exploited millions of the labouring classes because caste ideology has made workers casteists and not fighters for secular anti-poverty programmes. C P Bhambhri It is a truism that public life in India is conditioned and controlled by caste identities. It can be stated unambiguously that �casteisation� of politics has become a reality because the political class has nurtured and manipulated caste versus caste identities to win an election on the basis of assured caste-based social constituencies. While the emergence of casteism as an ideology has been attributed to the technologies of electoral politics followed by the political class, it has not been an issue of public discourse that the policy of reservations might have also contributed to the solidification of casteism in India. Hence it deserves to be stated that the linkage between reservation policies and the growth of casteist consciousness should be examined in a dialectical manner. While affirmative action or preferential policies have been implemented to deal with the inherited caste-based injustices and discrimination, its negative consequences have not been properly analysed because reservation which has created vested interests in caste identities has been kept out of the public discourse. �Politically Correct� Discourse Public discourse on the issue of reservations for dalits in public institutions has become politically correct because any critique or concrete suggestion for an alternative approach to the issue of affirmative action evokes a very hostile response from the champions of reservations for dalits. It deserves to be clearly stated that the doctrine of affirmative action, popularly known as the policy of reservations in India, had elicited multiple intellectual and political opinions in the US beginning from the 1860s to the middle of the 1960s when the then president John F Kennedy had to order �federal forces� to put some sense into the racist southern states. Americans not only hotly debated and discussed the multiple dimensions of affirmative action for about a century, they arrived at a kind of intellectual, political and judicial consensus only at the beginning of the 1960s when the US economy had arrived at a �golden phase of capitalism� as described by historian Eric Hobbawam. Not only this. Every step forward towards affirmative action brought US, presidents from across the political spectrum face to face with the supreme court because conservative judges had to be dealt with by the president �nominating� judges who were in tune with the changing public opinion in the country. Unlike US judges, the Indian judiciary has played a constructive and moderating role to arrive at a proper balance between the social need for reservations and the adventurism of vote-seeking politicians. The demand for extending reservations to the private sector has once again created a mood of political confrontation between a section of the political class and the captains of industry represented by FICCI and CII. Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Jan Shakti, Meira Kumar of the Congress along with many dalit MPs have launched a political campaign for a policy of reservation in the Indian private sector which so far has been outside the purview of such a quota system in recruitment. A few arguments advanced by the supporters of such a new policy on reservations deserve to be stated to understand the real intentions of the dalit political leaders. First, dalit political leaders have maintained that the economic policy of �liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation (LPG)� has led to the �shrinkage� of the state and public sector jobs are therefore becoming limited. Second, not only are employment opportunities in government services decreasing, India has been witnessing growing unemployment. Third, while job opportunities are expanding in high technology sectors, the manufacturing sector is not able to absorb the new entrants to the job market and the decrease in capital investment in agriculture in the 1990s has hit employment generation in rural India. In such a pessimistic scenario, the private industrial sector should take on new social responsibilities of hiring dalits on a preferential basis by fixing a quota as in the case of public sector undertakings. On December 10, 2004, on a private member resolution on reservations for SCs/STs in the private sector, the minister of social justice and empowerment, Meira Kumar told the Rajya Sabha, �There is no need for the government to impose reservations�. A letter was also sent to 218 industry and trade organisations by the secretary in the ministry of social justice to elicit their response to the idea of affirmative action by the private sector. Voluntariness is a mask worn by politicians who have to cater to their specific social constituency and its elite for winning an election. The cat was outside the bag when Ram Vilas Paswan, a great champion of reservations, announced on November 27, 2004 that the winning formula for his Lok Jan Shakti Party to counter Lalu Prasad�s Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar was to lead a �Muslim-dalit� coalition to confront the �Muslim-yadav� combination of Lalu Prasad. The argument of social justice for dalits advanced by the Paswans and Meira Kumars fell to the pieces when Paswan declared on November 27, 2004 that �this time the state will see how successfully the Muslims and dalits can bring about a change by putting LJP at the top.� Along with dalits, Paswan played the Muslim card by proclaiming, �If the LJP comes to power, this government will provide 10 per cent reservation to Muslims in jobs. Besides it will also set up a Central Muslim university in the state to provide adequate academic platform to the Muslims.� India is witnessing a raw, vulgar and naked election politics by the use of vote banks by the proponents of reservations for dalits. Not to be left behind, the other backward caste MPs have also demanded a quota of reservations in the private sector. Profitable Political Platform It deserves to be clearly stated that neither can the claimants for reservations take refuge behind the spurious argument of �social justice for the dalit� nor can the opponents maintain that �meritocracy� is the sole criteria of employment in the private sector. Public discourse on reservations for the socially disadvantaged has to be rescued from both the social justice wallahs and champions of �meritocracy� because both of them are hiding more than they are revealing to the public. Politicians are only worried about their vote banks and it is only the elite among the dalits who are the real concern of the dalit political leadership. It is only the makers of the Constitution who were genuinely interested in providing reservations for the SCs and STs as a �transitory� phenomenon because during the freedom struggle the issue of acute social discrimination against the dalits had assumed great importance for the nationalist leadership. Further, the British colonial rulers in their policy of divide and rule, were determined to fragment India by showing special preferences for dalits, Muslims and the princely states. The post-independence political class has found reservations to be a profitable political platform as witnessed clearly in August 1990 when V P Singh announced the acceptance of Mandal commission report on reservations to divert the attention of his opponents in his ragtag government of 1989-90. V P Singh sang the song of empowerment of the backward castes by accepting the Mandal commission recommendations on reservations and he was not worried about the caste war in north India. The politics of social division and fragmentation has been the staple diet of sectarian casteist and communalist leaders who play the card of reservations and Hindutva to win an election. The public discourse on extending reservations to the private sector has to be rescued from the social justice versus meritocracy campaign and it deserves to be clearly stated that caste as an identity marker by the political class has completely casteised Indian society and polity and the goal of establishing a casteless society has been derailed by the Indian state by making caste a point of entry to claim public resources. If the Indian state was really interested in the �empowerment� of the historically discriminated strata of caste society it should have pursued secular public policies of guaranteed employment to all the poor and the state should have supported compulsory education for children of the deprived. A survey conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research in the mid-1990s and National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO 1999) makes pathetic reading while informing us about the state of education of the dalits. If the uplift of dalits was the real concern of the Indian political leadership, secular development programmes like food for work and free food for school-going children should have been honestly implemented and its positive results would have been seen in 2005. Human resource development policies concerning socially deprived dalits have been a showpiece of the Indian governing classes and every concerned MP, MLA and bureaucrat knows that developmental programmes for the dalits have been a mere eyewash and budgetary allocations have been projected as evidence of so-called concerns. Further, rising unemployment in India should be the concern of public policy-makers who are searching for short cuts to ensure a few jobs in the private sector by a policy of reservation for the dalits. If employment is showing signs of slowing growth, the distribution of a limited number of jobs on the basis of reservations is political tokenism and politicians know that their real concern is not welfare of the dalits but winning elite support in dalit constituencies. The central question is: Have we strengthened casteism during the 56 years in post-independence India and have we really achieved the goal of eradicating caste discrimination? The answer to this question is an emphatic no because caste politics and caste-based social policies as followed during the past 56 years cannot lead to the erosion of the pernicious caste system. A very important lesson from the US experience is that affirmative action has not at all helped in eradicating racism or changing the attitudes of the white US citizen towards the �poor� Afro-American. The black elite is the only beneficiary of US policies and he has seceded from his poor and under-privileged fraternity. Paul Sweezy was once asked: �Why is it that the most important capitalist country does not have a socialist or labour party in the 20th century?� Sweezy responded that racism in America has obstructed the unity among the working classes which gets divided between �blacks� and �whites�. This is precisely what has happened in India, otherwise the Supreme Court would not have to say that the �creamy layer� among the reserved category should opt out of the caste-based privilege of reservations. It deserves to be stated that neither the Ambedkarites nor the neo-Buddhist dalit leadership is committed to the eradication of casteism as perceived by Ambedkar or Buddha because caste has received governmental stamp of approval. Incidentally, Ambedkarites have been unfair to him because he wanted fundamental rights under the system of �state socialism�. Because without an appropriate economic structure, political rights including reservations will remain hollow for everyone including the dalits. The upshot of the above is that concern for dalits should be articulated by following secular public policies and not by token policies of reservations. The state should guarantee education, health facilities and employment to every deprived citizen and this would take care of the genuine interests of the dalits. The poor should be the real target of secular public policies and this is the only way to build a new modern casteless secular India. Token Support The plea is that the poor of India should be the concern of public policy-makers irrespective of their caste, religion, gender or language labels. Unfortunately, India does not have a powerful constituency to support secular anti-poverty public policies as it has once again been witness to a lukewarm and token political support by the political class to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill 2004. It is extremely surprising that the Bill seeks to provide 100 days of employment in a year to one member of every poor household in only the poorest 150 of India�s 593 districts. Even the communist parties which are natural supporters of anti-poverty secular programmes, are not taking a public stand against caste-based preferential public policies of reservations. Lenin had maintained that trade unions were schools for the growth of class consciousness of the proletariat. In India on January 31, 2005, caste-based trade unions came out in support of reservations in the private sector for the dalits. A joint action committee of the federation of scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, other backward caste and most backward caste employees unions of state and central governments met at Salem in Tamil Nadu on January 31, 2005 to demand reservations in the private sector as a �fundamental right�. Every socially progressive strata of society should be disturbed that caste-based reservations have led to the emergence of fragmented caste-based trade unions. Is it not empirically correct to maintain that caste-based reservations have directly hit the socially progressive parties and the trade unions of the working classes? The growth of caste consciousness has hurt the development of progressive social consciousness among the oppressed and exploited millions of the labouring classes because caste ideology has made workers casteists and not fighters for secular anti-poverty programmes. ------------------------ Yahoo! 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