Reservation in India

Reservation is a form of affirmative action, which is similar to that practised in many other countries. Whereas in the United States, the reserved quota is voluntarily fixed by individual establishments, in India, reservations are based on statutory quota.

However, unlike in the US, reservations in India have traditionally been applied only in case of government aided educational institutes, and for jobs in the government or public sector. Currently there is an ongoing debate to expand the scope of affirmative action in India to the private sector.

Purpose

The purpose of reservations in India is the same as that of affirmative action anywhere else. Reservations are intended to increase the social diversity in campuses and work places by lowering the entry criteria for certain identifiable groups who are grossly under-represented in proportion to their numbers in general population.

The underlying theory is that the under-represenation of the identifiable groups is a legacy of the caste system as was practiced in India for a few thousand years.

When India became an independent nation in 1947, the Constitution of India listed some erstwhile groups as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Constitution laid down that 15% and 7.5% of vacancies to government aided educational institutes and for jobs in the government/ public sector, as reserved quota for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes respectively. This was initially applicable for a period of 10 years, but after discussions and suggestons has been extended periodically.

History of the practice

India is still divided into many endogamous groups, or castes and sub-castes, as a result of centuries of practicing a form of social hierarchy called the caste system. The traditional caste system, as it is practised, leads to severe oppression and segregation of the lower castes and limited their access to various freedoms, including education. Caste, according to ancient scriptures such as "Manu Smriti", is "Varnasrama Dharma", which translates to "offices given according to colour". The practice of caste in India followed this rule.

During the British rule in India, efforts were started, with the aim of undoing centuries of oppression to the lower castes.

In 1942, B.R.Ambedkar established the All India Depressed Classes federation to support the advancement of the scheduled castes. He also demanded reservations for the Scheduled castes in government services and education. After India attained independence, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was appointed as the chairman of the drafting committee for the Indian constitution. The constitution included safeguards for depressed and other backward classes. The constitution came into effect from 26 January, 1950. The Indian constitution prohibits any discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex and place of birth Constitution of India. But, while providing equality of opportunity for all citizens, the constitution also contains special clauses to ensure reservation, "for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes". The Consitution initially required the reservation of seats in state legislatures to end after 10 years.

Although originally only supposed to last for 10 years, the Indian reservation system has continued till date, and applies to higher education and legislative office. Currently, 22.5% of the seats in higher education institutes under the central government are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

In 1979, the Mandal Commission was established to assess the situation of the socially and educationally backward. Bhattacharya, Amit. Times of India, April 8, 2006. The commission didn't have exact figures for a sub-caste, known as the Other Backward Class(OBC), and used the 1930 census data to estimate the OBC population at 52%, and further classified 1257 communities as backward. In 1980, the commission submitted a report, and recommended changes to the existing quotas, increasing them from 27% to 49.5%. The report was implemented in 1990 amid a great deal of controversy.

Before 2005, there was no provision for reservation for the OBCs in central government run educational institutes , but different state governments had implemented reservations for OBCs to different degrees. For instance the Southern state of Tamil Nadu has reserved 69% of the seats in educational institutes for Scheduled castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs. It should be noted that students from the reserved category are allowed to compete with students from the general category on merit as well and hence the actually percentage of SC/ST/OBCs in Tamil Nadu could be over 69%.

Since the implementation of Mandal report recommendations in 1990 for government jobs, the number of backward communities have grown due to continuous incorporation by various state governments. As of 2006, 2297 communities are listed as backward, an increase of more than 90% from 1991, and no community has ever been removed from the list despite the progress made.

A proposal to increase the reservation for backward groups in universities to 49.5% to include OBCs in all central government institutes of higher education in 2006 resulted in controversy, and protests by people from various section of urban society.

Arguments

Pro-reservation arguments

. . .The under-representation of some identifiable groups in campuses and work places is a result of the legacy of the erstwhile caste system.
. . .Social diversity is desirable in campuses and work places. This brings out the hidden potential of a society.
. . .One way to increase social diversity is to provide for relaxed entry criteria for otherwise eligible members of grossly under-represented groups, as have been identified for affirmative action.
. . .Reservations to some groups need not be at the expense of those in the general category without benefit of quota
. . .The present day hardship faced by those in the general category is due to acute shortage of seats in professional colleges, and not due to reservations
. . .Even if reservations are totally done away with, thousands of deserving students will still be denied admissions, as the demand for college seats far outstrips the supply

Anti-reservation arguments

The opponents of the issue argue:

. . . Reservation decisions in India are never taken with scientific basis.Independent surveys indicate Lingayats and Vokkaligas of Karnataka,Jats of Rajastan,Nadars of Tamilnadu are economically sound than forward caste clan. So always reservation decisions are taken keeping political interests in mind
. . .that allocating quotas on the basis of caste is a form of racial discrimination which is contrary to the right to equality.
. . .that most often, only the economically sound people (and rather rich) from the so-called lower castes will make use of most of the reserved the seats, thus making the aim a total failure. Political parties know reservations are no way to improve the lot of the poor and the backward. They support them because of self-interest of the “creamy layer”, who use the reservations to further their own family interests, and as a political flag of ‘achievement’ during election campaigns. In fact, several studies show that the OBC class is quite comparable with the general caste in terms of annual per capita consumption expenditure, and the top strata of OBC is ahead in a host of consumption areas.
. . .that the quality of these elite institutes may go down, because merit is severely being compromised by reserving seats for certain caste-based communities.
. . .that there are no efforts made to give proper primary education to really deprived classes, so there is no need to reserve seats for higher studies. The government schools in India have absolutely no comparison to the public schools in the developed countries, and only about 65% of the Indian polupation is literate, the functional literacy being estimated to be even as low as only 34% of the population. The critics argue that "reservation" only in higher institutions and jobs, without improving primary and secondary education, cannot solve this problem.
. . .that this can also lead to prolonged reservation system indefinitely.
. . .that, the caste system is kept alive through these measures. Instead of coming up with alternative innovative ideas which make sure equal representation at the same time making the caste system irrelevant, the decision is only fortifying the caste system.
...that this policy of the Congress will create a huge unrest in the Indian society. Providing quotas on the basis of caste and not on the basis of merit will deter the determination of many educated and deserving students of India.
...that this policy of the government will also increase the phenomenon of Brain Drain from India and the under graduates and graduates will start moving to foreign universities for higher education.This will be in such a case a great set back and will have the most devastating affects on Indian education and economy.
... there are already talks of reservations in the private sector. If even after providing so many facilities to reserved categories during education, if there is no adequate representation of those people in the work force, there must be some problems with the education system. Unfortunatley, in India government never seems to address real issues involved.

Other notable suggestions

The following policy changes have been suggested in order to find a solution to the problem:

In the current Indian society the inequalities have greatly come down. Especially in Indian cities its very difficult to separate individuals based on caste unless it is revealed. Younger generations come to know of their friends' social category only during the time of admissions to the higher education institutions or at the time of marriage (all marriages in India are on the basis of cast).

There should be proper monitoring of who takes benefits out of the facilities given.
Emphasis should be given to proper primary (and secondary) education so that people from so called lower strata of the society become natural competitors.
Increase the number of higher education institutes. For example, seven good engineering institutes for a country of one thousand million, planning to become an economic and political power in the world is not substantial at all.
Once a person gets a job from the quotas it should not be extended to his/her children as it would make the community complacent and also at the same time deny opportunities to other more deserving candidates from the lower community. Essentially a shrinking population base that needs upliftment will happen by adopting this policy.
Govt should not stop Private medical colleges from imparting post graduate courses.
Do away with all other kind of formal reservation in India like near 100% reservation in post of Hindu Temple priests, post of Sankaracharya.
Current reservation proposals only seem attractive to many people who suppot it but it is of no use to millions of people who are leading a very pathetic life in India, irrespective of caste. Right approach would be to provide them proper primary education, to prevent their drop out from schools and making them "natural competitors" and to give scholarships at the higher levels rather than forcing 50% reservation. A recent example of this approach is when backward class and village students from one of the most under developed states Bihar made it to IIT in the general category, thanks to proper guidance and economic help. However, the initiative was from private sector, not government effort.

Recent developments

In the year 2006, based on the recommendations of an independent panel, the UPA government at the centre proposed to implement quota system for Scheduled caste, Schedule tribe, Other Backward Classes (OBC) and minority communities in IITs and IIMs (for both students and faculty).

In order to pave way for such reservation scheme, the Constitution of India was amended (the 93rd Constitutional Amendment, originally drafted as 104th Amendment Bill). In 2006, the UPA government promised to implement 27% reservation for OBCs in institutes of higher education (twenty central universities, the IITs, IIMs and AIIMS) after 2006 Assembly elections. This, if implemented, would reduce the seats for the general section of the population to less than 50.5%.

This led to sharp reactions from the unreserved category students in the institutes concerned (especially students from medical institutesAnti-quota protests spread Nationwide anti-quota stir continues) and also substantial opposition from students of other colleges not getting affected by the proposed reservation scheme. Pro-reservation groups have claimed the anti-reservation protests have succeeded largely due to biased media reporting.

Population data

According to 2001 census, out of India's population of 1,028,737,436 the Scheduled castes comprises 166,635,700 and Scheduled Tribe 84,326,240, that is 16.2% and 8.2% respectively. There is no data on OBCs in the census. However, according to National Sample Survey's 1999-2000 round around 36 per cent of the country's population is defined as belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBC). The proportion falls to 32 per cent on excluding Muslim OBCs. A survey conducted in 1998 by National Family Health Statistics (NFHS) puts the proportion of non-Muslim OBCs as 29.8 per cent.

Current quotas, relaxations and preferences

The quota system sets aside a proportion of all possible positions for members of a specific social group. Those not belonging to the designated communities can compete only for the remaining positions, while members of the designated communities can compete for all positions (reserved and open). Even if no qualified SC/ST applicants are available, the reserved positions can not be released for general population but have to be kept vacant or carried over to the future.

Members of National Parliament: 22% of the seats are reserved for SC/ST.
PG seats in Medical Colleges : some seats reserved for graduates of the corresponding college.
PEC Chandigarh : currently 50% seats reserved for Chandigarh domiciles, earlier it was 80%.
Central government-funded higher education institutions: 22.5% for scheduled caste (dalit) and scheduled tribe (adivasi) students. HRD Minister Arjun Singh has proposed raising this to 49.5%, by including reservation for OBCs also. 49.5% seats reserve in IITs, IIMs for SCs, STs
- IITs:
  1. A quota of 22.5 % is reserved for the SC/ST students.But actually lot of seats in reserve category remain vacent & actual figure of students are nearlly 7% SC & 3.5% ST.The unfilled reserve seats are not filled by general category students.

The minimum marks criteria are relaxed for reserved seats.

Candidates not meeting this cutoff are offered admission to a one year preparatory course.They don't have to take IIT-JEE again after this course while they come at level playing field after 1 year of preparatory course.No such provisions are available for poor so-called upper caste students.

Tuition fees and room rent is waived.Similar provisions are also available for economically week general class student as MCM(merit cum means) scholarship which is often abused by prosperous people like in SC/ST among general students specially businessman.

Andhra educational institutes and government jobs: 25% for BCs, 15% for SCs, 6% for STs and 5% to Muslims, total: 51% (proposed)
Medical schools:
- AIIMS: 14% reserved for SC, 8% for ST. In addition, SC/ST students with only 50% scores are eligible.
Members of State assemblies:
Government jobs: In general; in the states the reservations are approximately proportional to percentage population of SC/ST groups.
- Kerala: Kerala Public Service Commission Muslim quota: 12%
Public Sector Corporations: Recruitment requirements are relaxed and residances are reserved.

References

External links

Indian law | Caste | Social justice | Politics of India

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