The debate surrounding reservations has perhaps been the most polarising of our times, with a whole range of opinion-makers weighing in, either in support of or against the Constitutional scheme wherein the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes, identified as such, derive much-needed access to educational and job opportunities in the public sector, that had been denied to them owing to their weak social circumstances.
Reservations were, in a sense the tool to right historical wrongs perpetrated on a large section of our people — the oppressed Bahujans — by a handful, of oppressor Manuvadis, who seemed to believe in a misplaced superiority, flowing primarily on the basis of a casteist, archaic doctrine called the Manusmriti. Today, the complexion and ambit of Manuvadi discrimination has widened and transmutated from mere casteism to sophisticated racism (against minorities) and classism.
The reservation system has emphasised on social and educational backwardness as being the primary diagnostic test or indicator for eligibility. The Mandal Commission, for instance, developed 11 indicators, of which four were for social backwardness, four for economic and three for educational backwardness. However, the economic indicators were given a weightage of just one point each while three points were given to social indicators and two points each for education. This left out a large number of genuine claimants of affirmative action to fend for themselves against the Manuvadi onslaught — Muslims, for instance.
Does anybody believe that the handful of Manuvadis who, on the one hand advocate the four-fold Varna system, of which Shudras and Dalits form the lowest rung, and on the other promote a xenophobic Aryan-Hindutva narrative that sees minorities and Dravidians as being below par, are only using this discriminatory system to socially immobilise and not just economically and politically sabotage power, resources and cultural spaces?
The reservation system has not gone far enough to redress the economic destruction inflicted by the Manuvadis on the oppressed Bahujan Samaj nor has it been equipped with the tools to judge economic deprivation.
Had this been the operating premise of our reservation system, today the Bahujan Samaj would have truly broken free from the shackles of discrimination and could have boasted of a far better representation in economic, political and socio-cultural spaces. After decades of reservation, however, the Dalits, the Muslims, the OBC lag behind others on every count. We are yet to see a Dalit or Muslim Prime Minister.
Today, the cannibalistic nature of the exploitative Manuvadi ideology has reached such levels that even the so-called “socially forward castes” like Patels, Jats and Gujjars are complaining and demanding reservation in jobs after having suffered economic and political exploitation under the Manuvadi system.
Their grievances are to an extent, genuine. Our reservation system can make suitable provisions to give opportunity to the poor among these “forward sections”. But, then, let us apply the economic criteria in its entirety and not piecemeal as anti-reservationist agents like the RSS, backed by Manuvadis, prescribe it.
When a Mohan Bhagwat from the RSS, which has traditionally supported the Manusmriti over the current Indian Constitution, talks about a re-look at the reservation system, it can only be dismissed as a ploy to do away with reservations in its totality. Their idea is to restore the economic bondage upon the Bahujan Samaj by depriving every genuine claimant of the benefit of reservation.
First, let there be an assessment and payment of reparations for the economic destruction of the Bahujan Samaj by the Manuvadis. Recently, we were all happy to see Shashi Tharoor advocating reparation payments by the British to India. So, why not this? Manuvadi exploitation dates back to thousands of years.
Secondly, let there be an expansion of the reservation system to the private sector. Patels, Jats, Gujjars are not complaining about low representation in just the public sector. Their main grouse is the denial of access and opportunity to white collar jobs in the private sector. Bahujan Samaj or reservation given to them has nothing to do with their plight whatsoever.
Also, let the arbitrary cap imposed by the Supreme Court on reservations in the public sector be lifted to accommodate economically weaker sections among the “so-called forward castes”, proportionate to what is justified by verifiable data.
Any genuine attempt to re-orient the reservation system to include the economic criterion must be done as part of a whole range of new-age affirmative action reforms, that safeguard the interests of the victims of the racial, classist and casteist onslaught by the Manuvadis.
(The writer is founder member of PolicySamvad -a Delhi based think tank. He is an activist and a former official with the Union ministry of Parliamentary Affairs)
