POLITICS OF CASTE-BASED RESERVATION
India, a secular and democratic country is
regarded as a model of p1uralistic society II is reflected in its cultural
pluralism of various religions, castes, languages and regions. About 82 percent
of the Indian population follows Hinduism and 15 percent Islam and its plurality
is visible in the four—fold Varna
system (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra) and about 5000 castes and
sub-castes.
Now the segmental aspects of traditional
four-fold varna system is reflected in terms of four major caste groups created
by the modern participatory democratic political system such as the scheduled
castes (SC5: 16.73%), the Scheduled Tribes (STs: 7.95%), other backward classes
(OBCs: estimated to be 52%) and the rest regarded as upper castes or forward
castes (estimated 23%). These four modern caste categories also include social
segments of the minorities.
Reservations have become a big
reality in the present-day India.
Our governments are busy in giving more and more reservation to different
castes or groups in the society. Reservations have old history in India, dating
back to 1921, when caste- based reservation was provided to the people of
Madras Presidency. From then, reservations are provided in our nation from time
to time to different sections or groups of societies. In 1990, this whole
process got intensitied with implementation of recommendations made by Mandal
Commission.
Caste is one of the key issues in
this reservation debate whether caste is an indicator of disadvantage at all,
in the present. There is now a growing volume of literature that establishes
empirically the reality that all indicators of advantage /disadvantage monthly
per capita expenditure, land holding, occupational attainment, educational
attainment, ownership of consumer assets, type of housing, poverty ratios and
so forth) are very clearly stratified by caste. Thus, while reasonably accurate
income data are hard to come by, all these indicators suggest the distribution
of both income and wealth are skewed along caste lines.
This is not a trivial finding as it
challenges the notion that disadvantage or advantage is randomly distributed
between castes and establishes a case for focusing on groups, rather than
individuals, as targets for policy making. Of course, this does not deny
ultra-group inequality, hut any group based programme can he fine tuned to take
that into account, if necessary.
Caste-based reservations have
existed in India
for more than a century. Initially introduced by the British to bring equality
of opportunity in education, reservation was later extended to other sectors of
the development process to overcome the problem of economic inequalities
attributed to caste. Even today concepts like affirmative action and quotas are
being debated to justify reservation.
Caste based reservation were
implemented during the first quarter of the 20th century. Scholars
have argued that the low caste movements first arose in the south because of the
greater ritual repression there by the Brahmins, compared to the north.
In 2005, through 93rd constitutional
amendment Government of India also introduced 27% reservation for the OBCs
(Other Backward Classes) which is presently under the preview of Supreme Court
of India. Most recent protests in this series are protest from the Gujjar
community of Rasthan for their inclusion in ST list. This agitation of the
Gujjar community nearly paralyzed day-today life in Rajasthan and even
intensified to inter caste rivalry. This was the first major incidence in the
reservation politics which made many intellectuals and political parties to see
the reservation issue in different light. Due to this reason, India’s Supreme Court is forced to
ask the state governments and authorities about the measures taken by them to
stop these violent activities or for booking the people who destroyed the
property of the nation.
The major apathy with this whole
episode is that the state and central governments were not able to take any
concrete steps to avoid these activities. This is really a great apathy for the
country like India
where still violence like this is a common story and where struggling people
still destroy the property of others or the nation for realizing their own
dreams. Many people in India
still need to learn to live in a way which is acceptable to all the people.
This new problem has clearly made
situation more difficult for the politicians who indulge in reservation
politics. This problem has also started showing the unrest caused by the un-thoughtful
decisions of implementing caste-based reservation in India. The chances of early
solution of this problem are much less because of the large scale protests by
those who are already in ST list - Meena community - because they believe that
jobs and education opportunities for their community will decrease with T
status being accorded to gujjars.
This
is one of the major social unrest problems seen in India after the implementation of
caste-based reservation and in future also we can hope to see many more such
incidents when other communities may resort to violent means to secure reservation
for their community
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