Caste and carry politics

However well you repackage an idea whose time has come and gone, it will find few takers. Opposition to LK Advani’s rath yatra and HRD minister Arjun Singh’s new proposal to implement 49.5 per cent reservations in higher education institutions are two examples. While the rath has been greeted with indifference, Singh’s plan has been met with a livid response from students across the country, with some even threatening to emigrate if the additional 27 per cent for Other Backward Castes over the existing 22.5 per cent kicks in.

The Election Commission has already asked Singh to explain his proposal, and why he felt it necessary to come out with it on the eve of elections in five states. Sensing that this is a political hot potato, Singh has attributed the whole plan to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The PM, a man who has risen to heights of academic excellence on his own steam, has always been a champion of meritocracy. But Arjun Singh is not without his supporters—politicians as diverse as VP Singh, the original champion of reservations for OBCs and Maharashtra’s own Chagan Bhujbal have welcomed it.

Arjun Singh says that the amendment to Article 15 by Parliament allows for enhanced quotas in government-aided institutions and has held out the veiled threat that this could be extended to private ones as well. But surely, this will further vitiate our already divisive identity politics.

It is no one’s contention that affirmative action be done away with. But this does not mean imposing quotas in perpetuity. Neither does it mean constantly coming out with new categories and groups to be so favoured. Experience has taught us that many seats go abegging because suitable candidates are not found or worse, admissions are given to those who don’t make the cut markswise. Naturally, the overall standard of the institution—and therefore the brand—suffers.

Singh’s focus ought to be on primary education. What the student needs is a level playing field in primary and secondary education, where often the more privileged prevail. More scholarships for economically weaker students—whatever their caste background—will be of help, not the kind of state patronage Singh is trying to dish out. They want access to the skills with which to compete. Singh should be focused on this rather than try to re-open a particularly destructive Pandora’s box.