If there were any doubts that the proposed Constitutional amendment
to remove legal obstacles to the provision of quotas in promotions for
the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will drag the debate down to
the lowest common denominator of caste-based identity politics, what we
witnessed in Parliament on Wednesday should remove them.
The pushing and shoving between Samjawadi Party MP Naresh Aggarwal
and Bahujan Samaj Party MP Avtar Singh Karampuri is merely a trailer, as
they say. The real picture will unfold only now. The physical jostling
is only a metaphor for the larger scramble in the political domain as
each of these parties – and others too – seek to advance the interests
of their core constituencies.
Although the Samjawadi Party’s objection to the constitutional
amendment proposal is voiced on the ground that the provision is
unconstitutional, the real objection lies elsewhere, and is unconnected
with any high-minded principle. The Samajwadi Party will be persuaded to
give up its inhibitions about the unconstitutionality of the provision
if, for instance, the provision for quotas in promotion were not
restricted to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes alone, but
extended to the Other Backward Classes as well.
DMK president M Karunanidhi, who has elevated casteist politics to a
high art, too backs the Samajwadi Party’s stand, and wants the quotas in
promotions to be extended to Other Backward Classes as identified by
the Mandal Commission.
And suddenly, the Congress, which initiated this constitutional
amendment provision in the hope of harvesting political benefits in the
guise of advancing “social justice” is caught in the crossfire of the
identity politics that characterises Uttar Pradesh, between the
Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, both of which notionally
support the UPA government from the outside.
That disquiet over being at the risk of falling between two stools
was manifest in Parliament on Wednesday, when the Congress treasury
benches – barring the Dalit MPs in the Congress – did not rise to
challenge the Samajwadi Party’s objections to the constitutional
amendment bill that its own Minister, V Narayanaswamy, introduced in the
Rajya Sabha.
In effect, the caste-based tensions are coming to the surface because
the proposed measure is seen as pitting the Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes against Other Backward Classes in the most cynical
fashion. The clamour for reservations within government is increasingly
being seen as a zero-sum game, where a concession to one is seen as a
loss to another.
Of course, if history is any precedent, parties across the spectrum
will find a way ahead by extending the quote in promotions benefit to
Other Backward Classes too – either now or at a later date. But that
will only trigger off another round of competitive casteism, because
once all ‘lower castes’ and Scheduled Castes become entitled to the same
benefits, they now have to seen to be advancing the case of their
constituencies relative to other sub-castes as well.
This is entirely in keeping with the way the discourse over
reservations has evolved over the decades. Introduced as an exception to
one segment of the population that had legitimate claims to having been
socially discriminated against, it has become the rule, where even
groups that don’t quite deserve the benefit (since they never faced
social discrimination) – such as Jats in Rajasthan – have begun to
qualify for it. At every successive stage, the provisions for
reservations have been so debased as to take them farther and farther
away from the original intent of providing an exceptional, time-bound
benefit to a small constituency of socially backward people.
And a provision that was intended as merely an enabling instrument
has perversely gone on to become a right, to be claimed by ever widening
circles of caste groups.
When the Mandal Commission recommendations, under which reservations
were extended to Other Backward Classes, were introduced in 1989-90, the
opposition came principally from upper caste groups. At least some of
the opposition came from genuine concerns that the Mandal Commission’s
methodology for arriving at its classification of “other backward
classes” was flawed. For instance, the then Left Front government in
West Bengal found it could not trace some of the castes that the Mandal
Commission had listed: the same was the case in Odisha. Odisha Chief
Minister Biju Patnaik at that time pointed out that some 20-plus castes
that had been listed by the Mandal Commission as belonging to the OBCs
were already recognised as Scheduled Castes, and that some of the
surnames that the Commission had listed as identifying ‘lower castes’
were used by ‘upper castes’ as well.
Yet, the attempt then and now has been to project all opposition to
the flawed recommendations of the Mandal Commission as arising from
‘upper caste’ elitisim. The hollowness of that claim is increasingly
becoming manifest, with the tussle now principally between the SCs/STs
and Other Backward Classes.
The Mandal Commission’s recommendations decisively churned Indian
politics, not always for the better. The politicking over Mandal also
distracted the country from a looming economic crisis, which erupted in
full force in 1991.
The political atmospherics, and the economic backdrop, of Mandal
present a striking parallel to the events of today. At a time when the
economy is on a downward spiral, a new ‘caste war’ politics is being
unleashed, which will, its patrons hope, shift focus momentarily away
from the succession of scandals that have beset this government – and
from its colossal underperformance on the economic front.
As it did in the post-Mandal era, this new political churn, based
entirely on caste-based identity, has serious negative consequences for
Indian polity, economy and society.