Wider reach: Editorial on Union law minister flagging poor social diversity among higher judiciary

 

It is paradoxical that the institution that upholds the rights of the underprivileged and the historically oppressed should itself lack in social diversity in its higher echelons

The poor social diversity among the higher judiciary has become a matter of concern among social activists and others who work for the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes. Based on the numbers given in writing in the Rajya Sabha by the Union law minister, the chairman of the National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations pointed out that 3% of judges are SC, 2% are ST and 12 % are OBC, which makes the higher judiciary into an “exclusive club” of the upper castes. The law minister’s account also said that there are only 37 minority judges and two women judges in the Supreme Court. That defines the exclusive club even more clearly, particularly its patriarchal character. The system of selecting judges has no scope for reservations. The names are sent up by a collegium and approved by the government. The law minister said that the government has been asking the collegium to give special attention to suitable candidates from SC, ST and OBC segments, but so far the selections imply that this may not have been the case. The NACDAOR chairman and the secretary of the All India Other Backward Classes Employees Federation feel that a law or an executive order should be enacted to create the desired social diversity among the upper judiciary, since the judiciary is not taking corrective action.

It is certainly paradoxical that the institution that upholds the rights of the underprivileged and the historically oppressed should itself lack in social diversity in its higher echelons. Those wishing for change feel that without adequate representation, the points of view of the weaker-voiced segments will not be fully understood. Besides, it is only fair that the courts too should have the social diversity that has been introduced in other institutions by law. Also, courts that establish the rights of women should have more women among judges; they should exemplify the gender equality that they pronounce on. None of this is to question the wisdom or fairness of the honourable judges, but it does emphasise the importance of perception for any public institution. Public perceptions of equality, diversity and transparency are valuable in the case of the justice system. Social diversity and gender equality are issues at the forefront of public discussion; it would be reassuring if courts exhibited them.

Source: The Telegraph, 11/12/24

Is there a case for reservation for the forward classes?

Social justice is not possible if we exclude the economically backward sections of our society

Social justice is inclusive in nature. It means ensuring that no marker of backwardness is left untouched. Poverty is one such marker of backwardness, and a very strong one, which denies certain basic rights, and equality in society, to individuals affected by it.

The Preamble, which is the soul of the Constitution, promises to all citizens social, economic and political justice. The economic status of citizens constitutes one of the three tests of backwardness. Hence, the ends of social justice cannot be truly met if we exclude the economically backward sections of society from availing the fruits of development in an equal manner.

A move to help the poor

Poverty denies equality of opportunity to individuals in education and employment. It denies them the opportunity of a decent and sustainable livelihood. Reservation, by the prevalent logic, ensures participation of the disadvantaged sections in employment through positive discrimination. Hence, there was a strong case for making a provision for reservation for the economically backward in the general category in education and employment to ensure that they also get reasonable opportunities to advance in life.

The present provision of 10% reservation for the economically backward in the general category is being referred to as reservation for the ‘savarnas’, or upper castes. However, reservation under this category is not limited to upper caste Hindus; it is available to the poor in all general categories, who were not eligible for reservation under any other category hitherto. As for the upper caste Hindus, a significant proportion of the population live in the villages and in remote areas with limited economic opportunities. They face disadvantages in the matter of getting access to education and employment. Hence, it was necessary to lend a helping hand to them as well.

The test of constitutionality

To those who point to the Supreme Court’s capping of reservation at 50% in the famous Indira Sawhney case, I wish to mention that this ceiling is applicable only for reservation for the socially and educationally backward category, i.e. to the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs) and the Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories under Articles 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution. It does not apply to the present case of reservation, which has been provided as a special provision through a constitutional amendment.

Further, to those who mistake the provision of reservation under the Constitution to be applicable only to the SCs/STs and OBCs, I wish to remind them that the present quota, introduced through the 124th Constitution Amendment Bill, is provided through adequate amendments in Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution, which allow for making “special provision for the advancement of any economically weaker sections of the citizens”. Hence, it can stand the test of constitutionality in the Supreme Court.

Social justice is a dynamic concept which has evolved over time in accordance with the changing needs and circumstances of our society. The concept has not been defined in our Constitution. It has rightly been left to the wisdom of the lawmakers to increase its ambit from time to time, according to the needs of the time. A quota for poor citizens was a crying need of our times. The Modi government realised this and, under the true spirit of ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’, made the dream of 10% reservation a reality. For other political parties, this had been nothing more than an electoral gambit all along.

Meenakshi Lekhi is a BJP member and a lawyer

Nothing stopped the government from providing jobs or scholarships to the poor

The 124th Constitution Amendment Bill, proposed and promulgated in just a few days, is a gross and wilful subversion of the principle of social justice, which the Supreme Court has held to be the part of the basic structure of the Constitution. It is hard to understand how the government, which has all the legal resources and counsel at its disposal, chose to characterise reservations mandated by the Constitution as a job guarantee or a poverty alleviation programme. Reservations for students in public institutions of higher education and jobs in the public sector were envisioned to bring about adequate representation to those sections of society that are oppressed by caste discrimination. Reservations along with legal protections against discrimination form the juridical structure for social upliftment of the backward classes of Indian society.

Constitutionally invalid

The Constituent Assembly amended Article 15 by inserting Clause (4), which states: “Nothing in this article or in Clause (2) of Article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.” The use of income or economic criteria for providing reservation for those not included in the backward classes, or for those belonging to the general sections, is thus constitutionally invalid.

If indeed the Narendra Modi government wished to benefit the poorer sections of those not included in the backward classes, Scheduled Castes and Tribes, there was nothing that stopped it from creating jobs along the lines of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which also created rural infrastructure. Nothing stopped it from instituting new universities and colleges and providing need-based scholarships for poor students. Granting 10% reservation in government jobs and education institutions to households in the general category with an income of less than ₹8 lakh per annum will make little difference to their poverty levels as corporate-led jobless growth has increased income inequality exponentially.

A mere fig leaf

True to its ‘jumla’-gimmickry model of governance, the Modi government chose not to increase the size of the pie but to cut away another slice from the already shrinking pie of public sector institutions. The promise of existing reservations is nowhere near to being fully realised. Public spending for scholarships for students in the SC/ST/OBC categories (and minority students) has come to a near halt. Rohith Vemula’s suicide is a direct result of such tactical obstacles propped by this government in the path of social justice.

The move reverses the progress made in India over decades. It was perhaps put in place as the government was unable to provide any relief from the economic distress felt by small farmers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, traders and the working class. In fact, this distress was worsened by the impact of the rash decision called demonetisation and the poor implementation of the Goods and Services Tax.

The 10% reservation is nothing but a fig leaf to cover the monumental failure of this government on all fronts. It is a ploy that will cost India dearly and push away further its hope for social harmony.

Manoj Kumar Jha is an academic and a Rajya Sabha MP

IT’S COMPLICATED | BHARTRUHARI MAHTAB

When you allow reservation for the advanced classes, it changes the meaning of reservation

During the Lok Sabha debate on the 124th Constitution Amendment Bill, to provide reservation in jobs and education for the economically weaker sections in the general category, an opinion was expressed that 50% of the States have to approve it. But that is not the case. Under Article 368(2), Parliament can amend the Constitution by passing the Bill in each House by a majority of the total membership of that House present and voting. Thereafter, the President shall give his assent to the Bill and the Constitution will stand amended.

But amendments which seek to make a change in certain specific provisions, including Articles 54, 55, 73, Chapter IV of Part V, Chapter V of Part VI or Chapter I of Part XI, or any of the Lists in the Seventh Schedule, or the representation of States in Parliament, shall require to be ratified by the Legislatures of not less than one-half of the States.

Providing the context

Article 15 guarantees the fundamental right of prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. Article 15(1) and (2) broadly state that the “State” shall not discriminate against “any citizen” on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. Article 15(3) onwards, the Constitution lays down provisions relating to protective discrimination — the policy of granting special privileges to underprivileged sections. Article 15(3) and 15(4) are the foundations for reservations in education and employment in the country.

Article 15(5) was introduced by the Constitution (93rd Amendment) Act, 2005. It is an enabling clause that empowers the State to make such provision for the advancement of SCs, STs and socially and educationally backward classes of citizens in relation to a specific subject, namely, admission to educational institutions including private educational institutions, whether aided or unaided by the state, notwithstanding the provisions of Article 19(1)(g). This was challenged in the court. In 2008, a five-judge Bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan, upheld the law providing 27% quota for OBCs in IITs, IIMs and other central educational institutions, but said it would not apply to the creamy layer. The Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Constitution (93rd Amendment) Act, 2005. It also held that the amendment does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution.

It is in this context that the reservation for the economically weaker sections is to be considered. A nine-judge Bench of Supreme Court had ruled that reservation is a remedy for historical discrimination and its continuing ill-effects. The court had also said that reservation is not aimed at economic uplift or poverty alleviation. Economic weakness is on account of social backwardness. The economic criteria will lead, in effect, to the virtual deletion of Article 16(4) from the Constitution.

Is this the new poverty line?

Since the new amendment talks of economic criteria and addresses the grievances of Brahmins, Baniyas, Patels, Marathas, Gujjars, Thakurs and even Muslims and Christians for the first time, many think it will be broad-based. It is the responsibility of the state to uplift the poor. Traditionally marginalised sections need affirmative action. But the current policy says those households earning less than ₹8 lakh annually or owning less than 5 acres of land can avail of the quota. That is a salary of ₹66,000 a month. If so, is this the new poverty line of India? And if so, why are those earning more than ₹25,000 a month being taxed? The moment you make reservation for the advanced classes, it changes the meaning of reservation altogether. Reservation is not an anti-poverty programme.

Bhartruhari Mahtab is an MP from the Biju Janata Dal

Source: The Hindu, 1/02/2019

A solution in search of a problem

Instead of addressing inequality, the 10% quota for economically weaker sections creates huge anxieties

If the number of demands for implementing reforms is any guide, India’s reservation system is clearly in disarray. However, it is unlikely that the recently passed Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill, 2019, creating a 10% quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS), will serve as anything more than a band-aid.

Given the deep inequalities prevalent in access to education and jobs based on caste and socio-economic status, affirmative action (or positive discrimination) makes a lot of sense. However, the system that was put in place during the early years of the Republic deserves serious re-evaluation in an era when technology has paved the way for deploying a better equipped arsenal. Here I present an evaluation of the potential implications of the EWS quota Bill, followed by some alternatives.

Excluding no one

The Bill promises 10% reservation to individuals classified as economically backward. However, while a number of criteria were discussed in the parliamentary debate, the Bill is quite silent on this. Assuming that among the criteria discussed in Parliament, those that are currently applied to the definition of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) creamy layer are the ones to be used, it is not clear how useful they would be. While the OBC creamy layer has been created to exclude people who are clearly well off, the EWS quota, in contrast, is expected to focus on the poor. One of the criteria — the income threshold of Rs. 8 lakh per annum — has been mentioned. The National Sample Survey (NSS) of 2011-12 shows that the annual per capita expenditure for 99% of households falls under this threshold, even when we take inflation into account. Similarly, as per the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), the annual household incomes of 98% of households are less than Rs. 8 lakh. Even if we apply all the other criteria for exclusion (e.g. amount of land owned and size of home), the Bill would still cover over 95% of the households. So, who are we excluding? Almost no one.

While the benefits of the EWS quota are likely to be minimal, the cost may be higher than one anticipates. First, it is important to remember that general category jobs are open to everyone, including Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and OBC individuals. Thus, by removing 10% jobs from the “open” category, it reduces the opportunities for currently reserved groups. Hence, this is by no means a win-win situation. This may be particularly problematic for OBCs since OBC reservation is limited to 27% of the seats whereas the OBC population is at least 40% of the population, possibly more. Thus, this move is almost certain to result in calls for greater OBC reservation, particularly if a constitutional amendment to increase the proportion of reserved seats from 50% to 60% is already being adopted.

Getting caste certificates

Second, actual implementation of the EWS quota could be challenging. Few non-SC/ST/OBC individuals have a caste certificate. A large number of SC/ST/OBC households report difficulties in obtaining these certificates. How would an individual practically lay claim to this status?

Third, in an era when skill demands are rapidly outpacing supply of candidates in specialised fields, the EWS quota increases the constraints. If a university advertises for an associate professor for quantum physics under the EWS quota and the only suitable candidate happens to be from an OBC category, she could not be hired. These challenges occur for all positions under specifically reserved categories and we have chosen to live with these difficulties in the interest of the greater good of equity. However, there is little benefit to be derived from the EWS quota.

Redesigning reservations

Arguably, the greatest cost of this amendment lies in the foregone opportunity to develop an enhanced and more effective reservation policy so that we can genuinely see an end to the entrenched inequalities in Indian society in the medium term. We have gotten so used to business as usual that we make no effort to sharpen our focus and look for more effective solutions, solutions that would make reservations redundant in 50 years.

If we were to redesign from scratch, what would an effective affirmative action policy look like? If the goal is to help as many people as possible, we are facing a serious challenge. On the one hand, 50% reservation looks very large; in the grand scheme of India’s population it is a blunt and at times ineffective instrument.

The following statistics from the Union Public Service Commission provide a sobering view of ground realities. In 2014, only 0.14% applicants to the UPSC were selected. Moreover, the general category and OBCs have the highest success rate, about 0.17%, and SCs have the lowest, about 0.08%. This may be because of the perception that it is easier for SCs to be recruited via the reserved quota and this may have led to a large number of SCs taking the civil services examination. One might say that many of these candidates are not qualified for these jobs. However, if we look at the candidates who made it past the preliminary examination (providing preliminary quality assurance), the picture is equally grim. Only about 8% of the candidates who took the main examination succeeded. Here the success rate is 8.2-8.3% for SC and ST candidates, 9.9% for OBCs and 7.8% for the general category. This suggests that in spite of the grievances of upper castes, reserved category applicants are not hugely advantaged.

The above statistics tell us that in spite of reservations, a vast proportion of reserved category applicants do not find a place via the UPSC examination. I suspect statistics from other fields may tell a similar story. This implies that if we expect reservations to cure the ills of Indian society, we may have a long wait.

Spread the benefits

Hence, we must think about alternative strategies. One strategy may be to try and spread the benefits of reservations as widely as possible within the existing framework and ensure that individuals use their reserved category status only once in their lifetime. This would require that anyone using reservations to obtain a benefit such as college admission must register his/her Aadhaar number and she would be ineligible to use reservations for another benefit (e.g. a job) in the future. This would require no changes to the basic framework but spread the benefits more broadly within the reserved category allowing a larger number of families to seek upward mobility.

A second strategy might be to recognise that future economic growth in India is going to come from the private sector and entrepreneurship. In order to ensure that all Indians, regardless of caste, class and religion, are able to partake in economic growth, we must focus on basic skills. We have focused on admission to prestigious colleges and government jobs, but little attention is directed to social inequality in the quality of elementary schooling. The IHDS shows that among children aged 8-11, 68% of the forward caste children can read at Class 1 level while the proportion is far lower for OBCs (56%), SCs (45%) and STs (40%). This suggests that we need to focus on reducing inequalities where they first emerge, within primary schools.

The challenge we face is that our mindset is so driven by the reservation system that was developed in a different era that we have not had the time or the inclination to think about its success or to examine possible modifications. The tragedy of the EWC quota is that it detracts from this out-of-the-box thinking!

Sonalde Desai is Professor at the University of Maryland and Professor and Centre Director at the NCAER-National Data Innovation Centre. Views are personal

Source: The Hindu, 11/01/2019

Why a diverse workplace makes economic sense

Diversity is also critical for a better understanding of customers, better team performance, greater innovation and creativity and building their brand image.

Earlier this week, the Prime Minister’s Office held its first-ever meeting to discuss affirmative action in the private sector. According to a report in the Indian Express, questions were raised at the meeting over the sector’s commitment to providing jobs to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The timing of the meeting was crucial since it came on the heels of protests for job reservation and in opposition to what some saw as the dilution of the SC/ST Act.

This newspaper has long held the view that there should not be a quota raj in the private sector because the fuel that runs this engine is eligibility and merit. Having said that, there is another aspect to the argument that the private sector should also consider: It is in their enlightened self-interest to ensure diversity in workplaces, especially in a country that is so inherently unequal. Diversity is also critical for a better understanding of customers, better team performance, greater innovation and creativity, and better brand image.

And why only the diversity of workplaces? It also makes immense sense for companies to invest in communities around their office/project sites. According to a World Economic Forum report, for businesses to work efficiently and profitably, they must understand the complexities and dynamics surrounding them. Mitigating fragility and building resilience are not just a humanitarian imperative — instability and violence are bad for business as well. In India, we have seen several situations where local communities have protested against businesses because they have been not benefited in any way from them.

In fact, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement began as a response to advocacy for corporations to play a role in solving social problems due to their economic power and overarching presence in daily life. The Sustainable Development Goals, which replaced the Millennium Development Goals, puts a lot of onus on the private sector to play a more proactive role in improving the lives of people and benefit from such engagements.

Source: Hindustan Times, 27/09/2018

Reservation in India: Not a minor problem

Even a decade after former judge Rajinder Sachar submitted his report on the educational backwardness of the Muslims, and its resultant impact on their employment status, it is regrettable that nothing has changed much as regards their representation in the higher echelons of government service such as the IAS or the IPS. In fact, in the IPS the proportion of the Muslims has come down from 4% to about 3.2%. And though their representation in the IAS has gone up, the rise has been minuscule.

The committee had talked about things such as setting up an equal opportunity commission, giving the Arzal Muslims the status of scheduled castes or most backward castes; initiating steps to raise the employment share of the Muslims in the government sector; providing the community financial support, etc. Not much movement has been visible on any of these, and not much can be expected at this stage. The panel noted that just 3.5% of the Muslims were graduates, and the literacy level of the community, at 59%, was several notches below the national average. Overall, the panel had noted that the situation of the community was not much better than that of the Dalits and sometimes much worse than that of the Other Backward Classes.

Before the Sachar committee report, the government in the 1980s had created the Gopal Singh committee, which too had observed that a certain sense of alienation existed in the community. The reasons for the Muslims’ backwardness and alienation are mainly two: the upper class Muslims in British India, who could have been the harbingers of the community’s modernity, left India after Partition. And second, the Muslims who were left behind were not only impoverished but also victims of violence, ghettoisation, etc. At this stage all thinking about community’s welfare can only be long term. One could be the gradual implementation of the Sachar committee recommendations. And another – though it may run into political opposition – is restructuring reservations in government services on the basis of family income. As of now, reservations cannot be on the basis of religion.

Source: Hindustan Times, 21-08-2016

How reservations help disadvantaged-caste students get higher education

As many as 26% male and 35% female students from India’s most disadvantaged castes and tribes in 245 engineering colleges would not be there without reservation, according to a new study that says affirmative action policy in higher education works largely as intended.

However, reservations do place those who do not qualify for affirmative action at a disadvantage, said the study of 53,374 scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), other backward caste (OBC) and general students by researchers from the US’ Carnegie Mellon University, published in the American Economic Review.

In this, the first part of a three-part IndiaSpend series exploring disadvantaged Indian communities in higher education, a review of education data confirmed a growing tide of SC/ST students in higher education, but their numbers still lag their proportion in the general population.

The second part will explain why the government must consider restructuring OBC reservation to benefit OBC students from deprived backgrounds, as the Supreme Court has advised, with their proportion in higher-education institutes nearing their proportion in the general population. The third part will explain how Muslims lag every disadvantaged group in higher education, even SCs and STs.

Naveen Gurappu’s story: From diffidence to confidence

Naveen Gurappu, 25, an electrical engineer and doctoral student at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, is an embodiment of India’s 34-year-old system of reservation for the most disadvantaged groups.

“I would never have come so far if it had not been for the scheduled caste quota and my dad,” said Gurappu, a native of Hyderabad, son of a bank clerk who himself got his job through reservation.

“My dad enrolled me in St Martin’s High School in Hyderabad, a good school, because he wanted me to study well,” said Gurappu, from a scheduled caste called the Malas. “SBI (State Bank of India) pitched in with a yearly fellowship of Rs 500 for stationary, etc. We could not afford extra tuition or the internet at home, even though I badly needed help. Dad paid for my college, coaching and books, he treated me to my first movie—I was in class 11.” The family took a bank loan, which they are repaying, to finance Gurappu’s studies at IIT, which charges SC/ST students about Rs 60,000 per annum for the engineering programme and PhD.

Naveen Gurappu, 25, electrical engineer and doctoral student at IIT Bombay, would not have made it to the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, for a graduate engineering degree had it not been for affirmative action. As many as 26% male and 35% female scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other backward caste students in 245 engineering colleges benefited from reservation in higher education, according to a new study of 53,374 students. (Special arrangement)

In his first year at IIT, Gurappu struggled to grasp lessons, unlike his upper-caste peers. “Still, I was better off than other disadvantaged caste students because I came from a city,” he said.

Reservation helps and motivates the disadvantaged

Affirmative action spurred students from disadvantaged castes–who still lagged upper castes–to perform better in college than in school, said the Carnegie Mellon study which compared the first-year college scores of 42,914 students with their high-school scores.

Gurappu–who struggled to cope initially at IIT Gandhinagar, where he pursued a graduate degree–agreed with that assessment. “In time, I adjusted to the IIT system and standards, and even caught up with toppers in some subjects,” he said. “With the right mindset and opportunity, any socially disadvantaged student can excel in higher education.”

Disadvantaged-caste students were more likely to choose competitive majors, such as electronics, communication and computer science, than other students.

Reservation is an equaliser, but it does not get enough SC/ST/OBC students into higher education.

“Even with the attendance gains from affirmative action, the most disadvantaged castes still attend in smaller proportions than their population shares,” Dennis Epple, co-author of the American Economic Review study and Thomas Lord University Professor of Economics at the Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, told IndiaSpend.

“Our work also indicates why affirmative action policies generate debate,” said Epple. “We find that improved educational outcomes for disadvantaged students come at a cost to those who do not receive affirmative action.”

The bottom line: SCs/STs/OBCs benefit from reservation in higher education, but affirmative action should be carefully implemented, periodically reviewed and adjusted to deliver the best outcomes.

IndiaSpend dissected higher-education enrolment data to determine what reservation is still justified in India.

Reservation and higher education expansion boost SC, ST enrolments, but not enough

India introduced 15% and 7.5% reservations for SC and ST candidates respectively in government-aided educational institutions in 1982. Some states tweaked those percentages to factor in local demographics, which the Constitution allows. So in Tamil Nadu, 18% of higher-education is reserved for SCs, 1% for STs. In some central universities in the tribal-dominated northeast, 60% of seats are reserved for ST students.

Between 2000 and 2014, the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) of SCs–a measure of the percentage of actual enrolments in higher education, regardless of age, in a given academic year, to the 18- to 23-year-old population eligible for higher education in that year–more than doubled while that of STs doubled.

Reservation and higher education expansion boost SC, ST enrolments, but not enough

India introduced 15% and 7.5% reservations for SC and ST candidates respectively in government-aided educational institutions in 1982. Some states tweaked those percentages to factor in local demographics, which the Constitution allows. So in Tamil Nadu, 18% of higher-education is reserved for SCs, 1% for STs. In some central universities in the tribal-dominated northeast, 60% of seats are reserved for ST students.

Between 2000 and 2014, the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) of SCs–a measure of the percentage of actual enrolments in higher education, regardless of age, in a given academic year, to the 18- to 23-year-old population eligible for higher education in that year–more than doubled while that of STs doubled.

Reservations have had a domino effect, spurring new generations to educate themselves.

“Reservations in past decades have increased the numbers of SC/ST families with highly-educated members, who can encourage–and provide support for–younger family members to continue their education,” said professor emeritus of economics at the University of Michigan, Thomas E Weisskopf, who has argued in favour of reservations for marginalised Indian social groups in higher education.

If parity existed between the share of SCs and STs in the general population and participation in higher education, SCs would occupy a third more seats than they do now, while STs would occupy close to double the seats.

5 ways to increase SC, ST higher-education enrolments

1. Create more infrastructure: Investing in higher education by creating more colleges and universities would help drive SC and ST enrolments, said Sachidanand Sinha of the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

SC and ST higher-education enrolments were higher in districts with a higher College-Population Index (C-PI), a measure of the number of colleges in a district for every 100,000 people aged 18 to 23, according to Identification of Educationally Backward Districts, a 2007 study Sinha led for the University Grants Commission.

“Since disadvantaged youth tend to gravitate to government-run and missionary/CSR (corporate social responsibility)-driven institutes, India needs more of those,” he said.

Although the number of colleges and universities has expanded 248% since 2000, from11,146 to 38,813, most new institutes are privately run, which means they are not obliged to reserve seats for SC and ST candidates.

2. Extend affirmative action to private-sector institutions: To drive SC and ST enrolments in private sector institutes, they could be asked to reserve seats for applicants from economically disadvantaged families and offer scholarships, said Bhushan Patwardhan, former vice chancellor, Symbiosis International University, and professor at the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, Savitribai Phule University in Pune.

3. Support students at the intermediate level: “ST and SC candidates need more support at the intermediate level. Scholarships exist for study up to class X and for graduate study but financial assistance for the intermediary expensive preparatory time is missing,” said Gurrapu.

Post-matriculation scholarships start after higher-education admission, pointed out Yagati Chinna Rao, chairperson of the Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. “Between school-leaving and admission, students are on their own. Accommodation expenses, travel to a preparatory centre, etc. fall on the family, which most can ill afford. This is when most dalit children who manage to complete school drop out.”

4. Counsel students about opportunities: Most children from SC and ST families are unaware of many higher-education opportunities, especially where there is no one who has acquired a graduate degree or more, said Rao.

So, students need counselling to understand it benefits them to study instead of working as soon as possible and to learn about opportunities, said Gurrapu. “Students in cities hear about competitive exams very early, but those from rural backgrounds often get to know about competitive exams only when they are in +2 (10th and 11th standard, or pre-university), when it is too late to start preparing,” he said.

5. Encourage CSR initiatives in education for disadvantaged students: “Primary education for all is an objective of many NGOs, higher education for the disadvantaged is not, whereas the latter would help boost primary education too when its beneficiaries raise the next generation,” said Gurappu.

Certainly, education begets education, said Sheldon Danziger of the University of Michigan and Jane Waldfogel of the London School of Economics in Securing the Future: Investing in Children from Birth to College.

“Those who complete more education initially are more likely to seek additional education and additional training,” wrote Danziger and Waldfogel. “Education begins at home; the educational level of a child’s parents is a primary determinant of how much education that child will get and how well she and he will do in school.”

This is the first of a three-part series. Next: 1931 Data Muddies Issue Of Backward-Caste Higher-Education Quotas

(Bahri is a freelance writer and editor based in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.)

IndiaSpend welcomes feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. They reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.

Source: Hindustan Times, 20-07-2016

Everybody loves a good quota

Unless there is a procedure for notification of groups moving out of the reserved category, demands for reservation by groups like the Jats, Gujjars and Patidars will continue

I sometimes feel sorry for the governments of Gujarat, Haryana and Rajasthan, which are plagued by demands for reservation from powerful and aggressive communities. Patidars, Jats and Gujjars feel that communities that first managed to board the reservation train are uniting to keep them out. State governments would be perfectly happy to include them in the reserved category if they were not worried about the electoral backlash. Other Backward Classes (OBC) classification for Jats brings a similar demand from Rajputs; Scheduled Tribes (ST) classification for Gujjars brings about protests from the powerful Meena community unwilling to share the ST classification. Gujarat seems to have found a novel way to address these demands: be so inclusive that hardly anyone is left to protest. A 10 per cent quota for the economically backward among upper castes— that is, those with family incomes of less than Rs.6 lakh per annum (p.a.) — spreads the net so wide that the excluded group is minuscule.

Data on income

Since income data are hard to come by, let us look at three different sources of data to derive estimates of those with incomes above Rs.6 lakh p.a. First, data on income tax filers in 2012-13 show that only 13 per cent of individual returns have incomes higher than Rs.5.5 lakh p.a.; once we take into account people who do not file the returns at all, this forms about 3.5 per cent of total individuals in the country aged 18 and above. Since incomes may be hidden on tax returns, we must look to alternative data. The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) collects information on consumption expenditure, not incomes. If we apply household savings rate of about 25 per cent, a Rs.6 lakh income p.a. cut-off would result in a cut-off of about Rs.4.5 lakh consumption. NSSO data (2011-12) show that less than 1 per cent of the population falls in this category. A third source of data is the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) of 2011-12, organised by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and University of Maryland. It collects data for both income and expenditure. It shows that less than 2 per cent of the population had household consumption of Rs.4.5 lakh p.a. and about 2.5 per cent had incomes of Rs.6 lakh p.a. in 2011-12. This suggests that whatever statistics we use, a Rs.6 lakh p.a. cut-off will exclude less than 5 per cent of the population from being eligible for reservations if the Gujarat example is followed nationwide.

These statistics should calm the passions around this new wrinkle in the battle for reservation in Gujarat. Appeasement tactics used by the Gujarat government are mostly ineffective; they will neither reduce options for middle-income Indians nor will they really expand benefits for the poor among forward castes.

Can we devise a narrower band that might really benefit the poor among groups currently ineligible for reservations? Here, our spectacular failure in identifying the poor for issuing Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards gives us reason to be wary. The IHDS survey found that in 2011-12, only 50 per cent of the poor had a BPL card while nearly a third of the non-poor had BPL cards. Almost all observers agree that identifying the poor is a difficult task resulting in errors of both inclusion and exclusion. This is particularly the case when incomes are growing rapidly and a household that is poor in one year may well climb out of poverty the following year. So focussing on just the poor among the general category may be more difficult than we anticipate.

Moreover, the demands for expansion of reservation have little to do with the poor among the so-called “general” category. Most of these demands are emerging from angry young men — many of them with college education — among agriculturalist communities that have historically held considerable political clout (for instance, the Navnirman movement of the 1970s, which the Gujarat government is acutely aware of).

Future of reservation

In order to get out of this quagmire, we need to think of the immediate concerns of educated youth and the broader future of reservation in India. What fuels the anger of young men from agricultural communities? As they see it, investing in education has got them only minor monetary benefits. With massive growth in private and distance education programmes of questionable quality, most college graduates today lack the skills for high-paying private sector jobs. They may well be qualified for lower-level clerical or support positions, but for these jobs’ salaries are far lower in the private sector than the public sector. The ratio of government salary to private sector salary for a college graduate has consistently increased; the IHDS data show that in 2004-05, a college graduate earned 62 paisa in the private sector for each rupee in the public sector; by 2011-12 it had dropped to 57 paisa. With implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission, this difference will grow. Not surprisingly, competition for government jobs is fierce. As Prabhat Mittal, Secretary, Government of Uttar Pradesh, noted, in 2015 nearly 2.3 million applications were received for 368 low-ranking positions in the State government. Is it surprising that frustrated young men try to beat this insane competition by demanding inclusion in the reserved category? If government salaries were more on a par with the salaries of the private sector, it is possible that this strident demand may subside. If current initiatives for increasing employability and creating more manufacturing jobs succeed, this will also reduce the pressure.

A longer-term solution, however, requires re-evaluation of the fundamental nature of India’s reservation regime. Affirmative action to make space for communities that have historically been subject to discrimination fits well with the Indian ethos of creating a level playing field and is part of the Indian Constitution. But the patchwork implementation, particularly for the OBC classification that is currently in place, makes little sense and leaves room for powerful lobbies to unite around demands for inclusion.

One of the ways of dismantling the quota raj is to ensure that the reserved category certificate is not a currency that is hoarded by groups who no longer need it. This involves periodic recertification into the reserved category. Unfortunately, the current system has an established, if imperfect, procedure for notification of new groups into the reserved category but not for moving groups out of the reserved category. A first step towards establishing such a process may be to ensure that we collect data on caste/tribe affiliation along with data on basic demographic and housing characteristics in the 2021 population census. This would allow us to move past the exclusive reliance on the 1931 census and obtain information on the current socio-economic conditions of all castes and communities in India.

Frankly, I have never understood the resistance from the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India (ORGI) for collecting caste data in national population census. If the colonial census could do this in 1931, why can’t we do it today? Collecting data on thousands of castes is difficult, but it is by no means impossible. Perhaps, the collection of data on caste is a hot potato that the ORGI hopes someone else will handle. But surely national interest demands that this caution be put aside to develop a long-term solution to an issue that has gained such visibility. While we are destined for periodic eruptions of demand for reservations by groups like the Jats, without timely and accurate data we have no way of developing a rational system for responding to these demands.

Sonalde Desai is Senior Fellow, NCAER, and Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland. Views are personal.

Keywords: Jats, Gujjars, Patidars, Other Backward Classes classification, quota stir

Source: The Hindu, 03-05-2016

A better design for social justice

We are back to debating reservations. The argument in favour of affirmative action — for groups that suffer substantial, pervasive and abiding forms of disadvantage — is compelling. Such disadvantage is self-perpetuating. Given the mechanics of social power and its translatability into political, cultural and economic power, external intervention is essential to break the vicious cycle. Whether we should have affirmative action is an easy enough question to answer in our social context. It is the “how” that deserves more attention. Our chosen means — group-membership-based reservations — is one of the crudest, least imaginative and costliest (for the beneficiary group) forms of affirmative action. It is crude in two different respects: One, the criteria for allocation of benefits; and two, the nature of the allocated benefits. Greater sophistication on both counts is long overdue, although this column will address the criteria question alone. 

If we want to end the disadvantage faced by certain caste groups, it may seem obvious to distribute benefits directly along caste lines. However, doing so imposes significant costs on the intended beneficiaries themselves. Put simply, the argument is that caste-based affirmative action prevents us from transcending caste, its supposed objective. By increasing the social salience of group membership, it causes expressive harms to its ostensible beneficiaries. Resentment against the beneficiary group increases, and existing prejudices and stereotypes against the group are reinforced. These costs are, no doubt, entirely undeserved, but that unfortunately does not allow us to pretend they do not exist. It is a no-brainer that we should try to reduce the expressive costs of affirmative action to the disadvantaged groups while ensuring that they continue to derive meaningful benefits from it. This could be done by moving away from a group-membership-only criterion of allocation to a group-membership-plus or an indirect allocation method. The creamy layer’s exclusion from Other Backward Class (OBC) reservations, mandated by the Supreme Court, is a weak form of group-membership-plus allocation. Although caste remains the chief criterion for the distribution of benefits, certain other, mainly economic, factors are used to exclude certain categories of beneficiaries. In a significant article published in the Economic and Political Weekly in June 2006, Yogendra Yadav and Satish Deshpande had argued for a move to a stronger form of group-membership-plus model. Based on serious sociological evidence, they argued that group membership (caste, community, sex) should become but one factor in assessing a person’s eligibility for affirmative action, along with family background (managerial, professional, clerical, non-income-tax-paying) and the type of school a person went to (government or private, English or vernacular medium, residential, etc). Group-membership-plus models are attractive because they are likely to impose lower expressive costs on the beneficiaries. As a related bonus, they might also help target the benefits better by prioritising the weakest members of a weak group. Another allocation criterion, with arguably even lower expressive costs but more difficult to design, could be described as indirect affirmative action. The idea is simple — instead of allocating benefits directly on the basis of group membership, we should allocate these benefits based on neutral criteria that have a strong correlation with the membership of a disadvantaged group. For example, when race-based admissions at the University of Texas were introduced, it simply guaranteed admissions to the top 10 per cent of the graduating class of every Texan high school. Given the background of racially segregated schooling in Texas, the university’s intake of black students shot up dramatically. Sociological research could no doubt reveal similar correlations between group membership and (relatively) neutral criteria, such as the type of school attended, parents’ occupation and education, family size, sibling education, place of residence, use of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, and so on. This isn’t a simplistic income-based affirmative action proposal. Income-based proposals deny the fact that disadvantage is not simply material, but also social, cultural and political. By individualising disadvantage, they refuse to appreciate the weight of history that bears down on disadvantaged groups such as Dalits, Adivasis, women, the disabled and hijras. Indirect affirmative action measures, on the other hand, take history seriously and appreciate the multifaceted nature of disadvantage. But they also take the expressive costs of affirmative action seriously. The underlying empirical assumption is that measures that make direct classification based on, say, caste incur a higher expressive cost than a measure that makes classification based on an independently justifiable but less divisive criterion, albeit correlated with caste. We would do well to adopt evidence-based group-membership-plus and indirect affirmative action measures. Unlike the one-size-fits-all group-membership-only models, these alternatives will need to be designed flexibly from the bottom up, in the context of a particular institution and its location. If effectively monitored, that may be no bad thing. 
The writer, an associate professor in law at the University of Oxford and Hackney Fellow in law at Wadham College, is author of ‘A Theory of Discrimination Law’ -

Rethinking reservations and ‘development’

Across the country, unless adequate jobs are created for the large labour force, the frustration of the youth is not likely to be contained.

In Gujarat, the Patels or Patidars, who constitute about 15 per cent of the State’s population, are an economically and politically dominant upper caste. As successful farmers, as small and big industrialists, as traders as well as non-resident Gujaratis, spread practically all over the world, they should be the last to demand reservation. The Patel agitation at present, however, seems to be demanding precisely this. Or, if read carefully, the protesters are demanding the removal of caste-based reservation and its replacement with income-based reservation.

The Patel rallies for reservation have been widespread across the State and significantly large in many towns and cities. Though it appears to be an urban movement, rural areas are not totally excluded. The rallies have also spurred other caste rallies and resulted in inter-caste conflicts and tensions. Though there seem to be many weaknesses in the leadership of the agitation and lack of clarity in its objectives, the agitation needs to be taken seriously because it is a warning of the shape of things to come — not only in Gujarat but also other parts of the country.

The agitation has emerged out of the frustrations of the youth on two major counts. First, the existing reservation policy that has failed to assimilate lowest castes/tribes within the mainstream economy and society, has created a sense of dissatisfaction and injustice among those who are denied the benefits of reservation. And second, the much-discussed Gujarat model of development has failed miserably in creating adequate employment opportunities for the growing labour force in the State. This lacuna has particularly affected the educated youth who are unable to find suitable work in spite of the rapid growth of the economy.

The reservation policy which was initiated as a temporary provision (for 10 years) for Scheduled Castes(SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in our Constitution in 1950, has expanded its coverage and contents multifold over the past six to seven decades. It has now become an almost a permanent feature of the national policies. The reservation policy however, has been used in the State (as elsewhere) mainly in vote bank politics played around the castes and has failed in including the people at the bottom in the mainstream economy and society.

As the creamy layer of the lowest castes and tribes have cornered these benefits to a considerable extent, the policy has ended up as a tool that discriminates against the high caste youths in favour of the low caste youths, sometimes coming from the same economic background. Not only Hardik Patel, the leader of the movement, but large number of participants in the rallies complained of this unfair discrimination. Placards like “I could not get into an engineering college because of low marks though many OBC [other backward classes] students with lower marks got in” or “why should SC/ST/OBC get a job when with better marks and qualifications I cannot?” or “Do away with caste-based reservations” seen in the rallies reflect this frustration. This frustration of the youth, even if the statements in the placards are not accurate, is understandable because it is not the poorest but frequently the non-poor, middle income groups of SC/ST/OBC who are seen to be the beneficiaries of reservations. The tool of reservation has failed miserably in removing caste differences and has promoted the caste divide and caste conflicts.

Clearly, the time has come to rethink our reservation policies, that have ended up giving preference to more or less the same class of SC/ST/OBC in school/college admission, in jobs and in promotions as well as subsidies in innumerable programmes and schemes, leaving out the poorer sections among them at the bottom. Our recent study in Gujarat has shown that the SC, OBC and ST households at the bottom are still left out of the benefits of the rapid growth of the State.

Radical rethink

The radical rethinking on reservation should aim at (i) excluding the entire creamy layer from reservation; (ii) developing the capabilities of the deprived and excluded beyond offering them admission to higher education or jobs on a platter. The underlying principle should be that all the poorest at the bottom get support and all the poorest — excluded socially and economically — get a preference.

Secondly, the failure of development model in Gujarat (and for that matter India as a whole) to create massive, productive employment for the youth is another reason for frustration of the youth. The labour market in Gujarat has behaved in a peculiar manner in the recent decades. On the one hand, large-scale in-migration of unskilled and low-skilled workers is observed in a wide range of sectors such as agriculture, construction, brick kilns, power looms, small engineering, garments etc. At the other end, the posts of highly-skilled professionals in the fast-growing, technology sector have also been largely filled by professionals and high-skilled workers from outside the State. A significant number of the educated youth in the State does not find suitable employment in the State because i. the growth of the modern sector has been highly capital intensive, where jobs generated are relatively few and local youth frequently do not qualify and ii. other employment opportunities for the educated youth are fewer and not remunerative. As per the official data, the number of educated unemployed i.e. the number of educated job seekers above the Senior Secondary Certificate (SSC) level has increased from 6.7 lakhs in 1995 to about seven lakhs in 2014 while the number of graduate job seekers has increased from 12,184 to 40,781 in the same period— an increase of 3.6 times. Clearly the educated youth is left high and dry, and excluded from the benefits of the rapid growth of the State. The reservation policy in government jobs has added to this frustration.

The danger of the demographic dividend turning into a demographic disaster is looming over the State. And similarly across the country, unless adequate jobs are created for the large labour force , the frustration of the youth is not likely to be contained.

In short, the Gujarat protests should be treated as a warning against the reservation policy and the State’s growth model. It is also a warning to other States.

The best that the Gujarat government can do immediately is to hold meaningful discussions with the Patels to understand their concerns. For the medium and long term however, the State has no choice but to redesign its development model to create large scale productive employment for the youth with what the International Labour Organisation (ILO) calls “decent work conditions” and to radically revise the reservation policy.

(Indira Hirway is Director and Professor of Economics at the Centre For Development Alternatives, Ahmedabad.)