THE POLITICS AND DISCOURSE OF RESERVATIONS AND CASTE

 A REVIEW ESSAY OF PAPER BY ORNITSHANI

Submitted by-Shikha

Student of Northcap University

BBA-LLB

INTRODUCTION

Beginning towards the end of the 1970s, Hindus in Gujarat and other parts of India began to clash over reservation plans for lower and backward castes.Inresponse to the Gujarat government's plan to enhance the quotas set aside for members of underprivileged castes in educational institutions and government employment, riots broke out in Ahmedabad in 1985.Hindu communal violence between Muslims and Hindus developed from this battle between forward-caste and backward-caste Hindus over social and economic changes for the benefit of backward castes. This happened despite the fact that the local Muslims were not involved in the struggle over reservations, there had never been religious conflict between the two populations,and religion was not a factor in determining who qualified for reservations in government and educational institutions.

The lower and backward castes have more opportunity to participate in legislative bodies,professional programmes, and government employment through reservations. Reservations were seen as having the ability to undermine the superior status of upper castes by allowing members of lower and backward castes access to a higher social echelon. Hence, reservation policies led to doubts about Hindu morality and increased conflicts between Hindus of forward and backward castes. These measures were influenced by caste and class discussions and intertwined caste and class issues. In their designation and rhetoric of reservations, policymakers, lawmakers, and the judiciary handled questions of equality based on caste and class concerns as though they were equivalent with the rights of religiousminorities.By doing this, they created a connection between caste, class, and communalism, allowing caste disputes to grow and intensify communal conflicts. Further this section also explains how reservations and communalism came to be closely interdependent.

Some of the prominent laws framed for reservation policies-

1. Article15(4)–1stAmendment,1951–Special provision for Advancement of Backward Classes.

2. Article15(5)–93rd Amendment,2006–Provision of Reservation for Backward, SC, and ST classes in private educational institutions.

3. Article16(3)–Reservation of posts in public employment on the basis of residence

4. Article16(4)–Reservation in public employment for backward classes.

CASTE/CLASS AS CRITERIA FORRESERVATIONS

Reservations were established in order to guarantee participation in and access to public resources for communities that had previously faced discrimination because of their low caste status. Reservation policies sought to advance equality, end caste, and secularise society. The SCs were mostly classified based on caste. State-specific lists identifying the castes and tribes that fit into these categories were established by the constitutional(scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) orders of 1950. The SC and ST lists of the Government of India Act, 1935,which were based on the 1931 census, were used by the government. In 1956, these lists were updated "to remove anomalies emerging from the linguistic reorganisation of the states, and in1976,to remove intra-state differences in the identification of specific groups as SCs and STs.

The State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan, 1951- judgment led to the addition of this subsection(4) by the First Constitutional Amendment Act, 1951.

Whether caste or class should be the defining factor for backwardness was the key question at the core of the designation of reserves for certain groups.

The first Backward Classes Commission,led by Kaka Kalelkar, was established in 1953 to identify the standards for classifying other than SCs and STs a socially and academically backward groups. Caste divisions should be used to identify the underprivileged classes,according to the Commission's 1955 report. The government did not accept the Commission’scriteriafor an all-India backward-caste list.

Balaji v. The State of Mysore, 1963- It was held that the ‘caste’ should not be the only basis for determining backwardness. ‘Backwardness’ must be social and educational, not social or educational.”(Economic Test).

Following through on its pre-election promise, the Janata government appointed the Second Backward Classes Commission,led by B. P. Mandal, on January 1. When the Congress Party,led by Indira Gandhi, was in power in 1980, the Commission turned in its report. Caste was accepted by the Mandal report as the fundamental unit in all discussions of distributive justice. It recommended a 27% OBC reservation at the federal level.

GUJARAT RIOTS

Only six months had passed since the lower and backward castes won seats in the state assembly. At that point, riots broke out. The students in Ahmedabad, who had initiated the campaign against reservations in post graduate medical courses,'enacted a public marriage ceremony between the "reservationist" bride and the "government" groom'. Also, they used a clay replica of a Dalit student's brain to demonstrate symbolically that it was made entirely of sawdust. Government employees and other members of the public sector joined the anti-reservation movement and called for the elimination of reservations for promotions. The violence primarily targeted Dalits. Most affected were groups like the Vankars, who benefited from reservations and had social mobility.

The Baxi Backward Classes Commission was established in Gujarat in 1972by a government led by the Congress Party to identify socially and educationally underprivileged populations that would be eligible for preferential treatment comparable to that given to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. When the Congress Party was in power in 1976, the Commission submitted its report classifying 82 castes and groups as backward. Two years later, the Janata government accepted the Baxi Commission’s recommendation and established reservations of 10 per cent for these communities.

A new Commission, Rane,was established in 1982 to investigate the cases of groups that the Baxi Commission had not deemed to be backward. After some castes that the Baxi Commission considered but did not recognise as being socially and educationally backward, as well as groups that were not represented before the Baxi Commission, demanded to be treated as socially and educationally backward, the government decided to appoint a second Commission. Instead of using caste as a criterion for backwardness, it recommended using occupation and income. For fourteen months, the Gujarat state government disregarded the Rane Commission Report. The RaneCommission'srecommendationswereoverturnedwhenthegovernmentofficiallyproclaimed its intention to adopt the report in January 1985, just before the upcoming assemblyelections were announced. The government insisted that backwardness should be determined bycaste rather than class. The Decision by the Gujarat government to increase the reserved quotasfor the SEBC in government jobs and educational institutions, that was the immediate cause oftheoutbreakofanti-reservationcasteriots in AhmedabadinFebruary1985.

In discussions on quota policy, the issue of whether caste or class should be used to measurebackwardness was occasionally raised as a choice between religion and secularism. Caste-basedclassification of backwardness as the basis for social policy was opposed on the grounds thatdoing so would erode secularism. This viewpoint saw class to be a secular social category whilecaste was seen as being fundamental to religion. Backwardness and eligibility for reservationsshouldthereforebebased onclassinordertosupportthesecularisationofsocietyand thestate.

MAKINGOFCASTE

States recognised certain groups as "backward castes" through reservation policies, which gavethem the right to preferential treatment in government employment and educational settings.These organisations frequently became the focus of state commission investigations,such asBaxi and Rane in Gujarat. The backward castes in Gujarat who gained reservations were evenreferred to as the Baxi groups in popular culture. This resulted in the social creation of thebackward caste communities as a result of the very process of creating reservation regulations.State reservation laws establish restrictions on a group's ability to move about and use publicresources. Caste was a fundamental category in the creation of citizenship during this period. Therecurrent practice of appointing commissions to identify new backward classes/castes was one ofthestatemechanisms thatcontributedtothemakingofcastes.

Whetherornotreservationsweredesired?

Reservation rules were criticised for allegedly degrading merit considerations and impairing theefficiency of public organisations. Caste bias was strengthened as a result of the discussionsurrounding this issue, which helped convert social disparities based on caste into natural ones.For instance, the Supreme Court declared in 1999 that candidates for reserved categories would notbeabletofullybenefitfrom specialisedtraininginmedicalstudies,whichwere'intended to producehigh-calibrewell-trainedprofessionalsforthebenefitofthepublic.Theirchoicespresumed that kids in the reserved category were intrinsically less capable. The state's 'evershiftingreservationpolicyproducedasenseofuneasiness'amongindividualswhowereexcluded from the benefit. The forward castes were perpetually unsure as a result of the stategovernments'practiseofcontinuallyformingcommissionsofinquirytoidentifybackwardclasses/castegroups,initiallyignoringand thenpartiallyexecuting theirfindings.

Beginning, in the middle of the 1970s, the main cause of the escalating tensions between Hindusof forward and backward castes was the growth of reservations for the backward castes ineducational institutions and government positions, as well as preferential policies for the SCs andSTs. Since then, there has generally been an increase in reported acts of violence against SCs inIndia. 6,197 "atrocity cases" using SCs were reported in 1976; 10,879 incidents werein 1977;and15,053caseswerereportedin1978.55The government'sdeterminationtofollowtheMungerilal Commission's recommendation for reservations of government jobs for the state'sbackwardcastesledtoanti-reservationcasteriots inBiharin1978and 1980.

DATAOFRESERVEDSEATS-

In 1966- 4,179 OUT OF 9,605 All India total for SCs & 1,299 of 4,688 for STsInGujaratonly-53outof134for SCs &41of164forSTs

Despite the fact that the quotas did not reach the rates specified in the constitution, there had onlybeen a slight increase in the number of filled reserved seats by 1971. 63 In Gujarat, there were875 reserved spots in medical colleges between the years of 1979 and 1984, but only 37 of thesehad been filled by the time the anti-reservation riots of 1985 broke out. The political changes ofthe 1970s and 1980s provide an explanation for this paradox,which asks why reservationsstarted to fuel violent confrontations even when the quotas were not filled. The caste reservationdilemma evolved in a political context, which heightened the mounting doubts within the Hindumoral code. In the 1980s, communalism grew as a result of the tensions that resulted fromHindus'experiences withcaste-relatedchangesinpolitics.

POLITICALGAME

Forward castes began to feel insecure starting in the 1970s due to the rising politicisation andsocial mobility of some groups within the lower and backward castes, as well as the growingfocus political parties placed on them. The mismatch between the promises given to them by theparties and the real political events and the direction of state policies, on the other hand, unsettledthose castes within the lower and backward who experienced political and social mobility. TheCongress Party divided into the Congress (I) and Congress (O) parties in 1969. Indira Gandhifocused the attention of the party on the underprivileged groups, which made up the majority ofsociety and had a substantial electoral potential,in an effort to build a new base of supportforher Congress(I) faction. Garibi Hatao served as the Congress (I) campaign's anthem before to thegeneralelectionsin1971.

Baxi’sBackwardclassescommission

ChimanbhaiPatel

CMResignedandhewaselectedinhisplace.

Shortage of food & risesin the prices of basic commodities (edible groundnutoil).

Patel was reported to have said to the oil dealers: ‘you know my interests and Iknowyourinterests.YouwillprotectmyinterestsandIwillprotectyourinterests.’

Resignedon-9feb.1974BecauseofNAVNIRMAN AGITATION(JAN.1974)

Congress (I) – Electoral slogan was ‘power to poor’ with KHAM strategy i.e., Kshatriyas,Harijans, Adivasis and Muslims who together formed about 55% of population. The KHAMsuccess was only political butnot social; it was for personal political benefits .One of thefounders of the KHAM strategy admitted that ‘we didn’t believe in caste, we just used it’. Theseprocesses of politicisation did not necessarily improve the economic conditions of the lowergroups, but it gradually positioned them beyond the simple category of a ‘vote bank’. That wasthe waytheyhadoftenbeenperceivedbyupper-caste partyleaders.

The Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) Party in Uttar Pradesh (UP), led by Charan Singh, a member ofabackward-castecommunity,immediatelycateredtothesharedeconomicconcernsofthe peasantry from the lower classes. The BKD was already the second-largest party in the stateduring the 1967 elections. Subsequently, Singh created the political alliance known as AJGAR,which stands for Ahir (Yadav), Jat Gujar, and Rajput. This alliance included a large number ofOBC and intermediate castes. Conflicting interests within different groups were occasionallybrought about by caste politics in the creation of electoral alliances and reservation policies,which made it difficult for these groups to organise for collective action. Lower- and backward-caste groups tried to improve their social caste status, while on the other hand, they desiredacknowledgementoftheirlow-casteidentityinordertoobtainreservationsingovernmentemployment and education. They had more political clout thanks to their former caste rank.CONCLUSION

This system was initially only intended to be in place for ten years, but because of politicalcoercion and the illusion of power, it continues to be in place today. Just SCs AND STs has beencoveredbythispolicysincethebeginning,butOBCwasaddedtoitafterthe"MandalCommission"Reportwas putinto effectin1980.

Reservations serve only to strengthen politicians' voter bases. They are obstructing the nation'sability to grow, develop, and excel in every way. While the preamble of our constitution declaresthat we are a free, democratic, and independent country, the reservation system is entangling allthese qualities in its grip. One thing is certain: this policy is based on caste in order to improvethe plight of the underprivileged. Nonetheless,it has recently become a trump card for thepoliticalparties.Theyutilizeit togainsupportfortheirvotingcampaign.

The caste-based reservation policy should be supported on an economic basis rather than bynecessity. To boost the growth of the nation, we must actually implement an economic-basedpolicy. The state has an obligation to grant its citizens status and opportunity equality. Anycontemporary welfare state's public policy must include affirmative action. Affirmative actionprogrammes shouldn't, however, be used as political tools. It undermines the nation's unity andintegrityinadditiontorenderingreservationsineffective.