Comment

In a conversation that took place in 1958, Andre Malraux, the outstanding French thinker, asked Jawaharlal Nehru: “What has been your greatest difficulty since independence?” Nehru replied without a moment’s hesitation: “Creating a just state by just means. Perhaps, too, creating a secular state in a religious country.” How did he expect to achieve this? The nation’s first prime minister was as forthright as ever: “India must struggle against herself.”

No Indian leader, not even Congressmen who claim to be Nehruvian, would dare to say such things today. For, far from enabling India to exorcise her demons—notably communal hate and caste prejudice—parties cutting across the political spectrum have been engaged in propitiating them under various guises: secularism, cultural nationalism, social justice, identity politics etc. Other than on defence matters, the need to build a state worthy of this nation has figured low on their agenda.

As a democrat and a republican, Nehru had rooted for policies of positive discrimination in favour of the oppressed and marginalised sections of society— particularly dalits and tribals. But he, like the members of the Constituent Assembly, wanted reservations to be in force for no more than a decade or so.

During this period, Nehru reckoned, the power of the state would be deployed to reduce poverty, accelerate economic growth, initiate land reforms, substantially eliminate illiteracy and give access to the SC/STs to education, health and government jobs. His efforts admittedly fell short of expectations. But rather than build on those efforts, his successors indulged in reckless populism and pandered to ethnic, caste and religious solidarities to gain, preserve and expand their grip over state resources.

Few, if any, bothered to find out whether these stratagems made a real difference to the lives of the poor and the marginalised. The major change in the political arena following VP Singh’s decision to extend the reservation policies to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) was the emergence of caste-based parties in north India. In the south and the west, the dominant peasant castes, armed with a backward class status, had already acquired enormous political and economic clout. Over time they moved from the agrarian economy to trade, the professions and corporate industries. These castes are the nerve centres of India’s polity and society today.

Their counterparts in the north have sought to follow suit. Empirical research suggests that reservations have generated a heightened consciousness of social and economic rights among the OBCs, SCs and STs.

However, given the parlous state of primary schools, the high drop out rates and economic deprivation, their benefits have been meagre and, worse still, unevenly divided. Quotas in educational institutions and government jobs have not been adequately filled. And when they have been filled, the gains have accrued not to the deserving but to the ‘creamy layer.’

Other than elbowing the upper castes out of positions of power and authority, the policy of reservations has achieved precious little by way of adding a social and economic content to our democracy. Internecine conflicts have sharpened among the OBCs, the SCs and the STs and, on an even more intense scale, between the OBCs, on the one hand, and the dalits and the tribals on the other.

This has naturally led to the fragmentation of the polity with the result that caste-based parties enter into alliances or snap them at will. The mobilisation of voters, aided and abetted by the first-past-the-post principle of our electoral system, takes place more or less exclusively on the basis of caste affiliation, not on issues which transcend caste divides.

Much of the debate on Arjun Singh’s move to extend reservations for OBCs in the IITs, IIMs and medical colleges has been construed in terms of merit versus social justice. This is a sham. It is true that these centres of excellence will lose their shine if they have to cater to a larger, and less qualified, number of students. However, the HRD minister’s gambit suffers from a far more debilitating infirmity. It detracts attention from what needs to be done to further the cause of ‘social justice’: universal and better quality education at the primary level, an effective network to provide basic health services, land reform.

Unless these issues are addressed, moves to extend reservations must be seen for what they are: mere bluff and bluster aimed at nurturing vote banks at the expense of the public weal and indeed to the detriment of democracy itself. Adieu, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Email: dileep.p@apcaglobal.com