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Content

• Introduction
• Reasons for such demands/agitations
• Should these groups be given reservation?

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Introduction

The last decade has seen various traditionally powerful and influential communities such as Jats in Haryana, Patidar in Gujarat, Kapu in Andhra Pradesh and Marathas in Maharashtra agitating and demanding for OBC Status. The recent protest in Maharashtra is a continuation of this trend.

Reasons for such demands/agitations

• Farming and Employment Crisis:
  • Agriculture sector over the years have suffered due to land fragmentation, increased input cost, climate change, land degradation etc. It has impacted the income of landed groups and a lot of farmers have turned into small and marginal farmers or even agricultural laborers. These people don’t have access to good quality education and skilling opportunities which impacts the jobs available for them.
• Exploitation of vulnerable groups in private sector jobs because of lack of job security, weakening of labor laws and excesses by the employer. This makes everyone look for limited number of government jobs and here reservation plays a crucial role.

• Perception of Economic Marginalization:

  • These groups perceive that in the era of globalization and industrialization, they have been left behind and see reservation as a mechanism to access higher education and stable government jobs.
• Sub castes or Parallel castes which got reservation (like Yadavas in Haryana, Jats in Rajasthan, Kunbis in Maharashtra) have shown an improvement in socio-economic conditions.
  • For e.g., Maratha families witnessed the dramatic rise of poorer-than-them families from society’s lower strata. They attributed the rise of Dalits and OBCs to reservation.
• Political Aspirations of the caste leaders: Mobilizing the community for reservation gives an opportunity for the caste leaders to bring a name for themselves and thus achieve political goals.

Should these groups be given reservation?

• The national and state backward class commissions have found that these communities are not socially and educationally backward and are adequately represented in the services. Therefore, their past requests for inclusion in OBC has been rejected.
  • For e.g
    • Marathas from 33% of Maharashtra’s population, are among the strongest of all communities in the state.
    • 12/20 chief ministers of Maharashtra have been from Maratha community. Current CM and Deputy CM are from this community.
    • In education sector, most major private deemed to be universities in the state, like Bharti Vidyapeeth, DY Patil University are found and run by Marathas.
    • In fact, even when governments granted reservation to these groups, it was declared unconstitutional in Supreme Court verdicts (E.g. in May 2021, the SC struck down the quota for Marathas under the state’s Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC) Act, 2018)
  • Since they are not meeting the objective criteria, they are resorting to an exercise of coercive power on governance. If government agrees to these demands, it will set a wrong precedent.
  • The Constitution already provides for 10% reservation for the EWS category for people belonging to non-reserved class.
  • Giving reservation to these “upper caste” group would go against the spirit of affirmative action that has guided the eligibility quotas in central and state lists.
  • Therefore, no, these groups should not be given reservation, but rather steps should be taken to relieve the above mentioned grievances.

Way forward:

• Reforming Agriculture Sector:
  • Since a large section of these dominant groups are dependent on agriculture, its very important to bring reforms in agriculture to increase agri-income. Various recent initiatives like PMKSY, PMFBY, e-NAM, Increased MSP are steps in this direction.
  • Government should also focus mechanisms to promote rural industries including in the Food Processing Sector to ensure economic opportunities for everyone.
• Improving Quality of Higher Education in Private Institutions:
  • The demand for reservation is strengthened by the fact that among HEIs, government colleges where the provision for reservations are implemented provide affordable good quality educations. Private colleges are not only expensive but lack good quality.
• Focus on Skilling of the workforce so that they can easily get jobs in the private sector.
• Special focus on labor intensive manufacturing sectors to ensure employment opportunities for the youth in the country.
• Effective regulation of private sectors to ensure good working conditions, dignity and stability for workers to ensure that the most vulnerable are spared the excess of market.
• Review Reservation Policies:
  • To make it more inclusive and exclude well to do section from it.
    • Strict implementation of Creamy layer provision among OBCs and introduction of creamy layer provisions for SCs/STs will go a long way in improving the inclusivity of the reservation provisions.
• Stop politicizing the issue: The political class should desist from pandering into these demands and take an unequivocal stand that Socially Advanced Castes cannot be included in the list of Socially Backward Classes.

Conclusion:

• The demand for reservation will keep emerging among different sections of societies if economic distress increases and therefore government should focus on skill development, encourage entrepreneurship and enhance the overall economic opportunities in the country.

Example Questions:

• Examine the reasons for recent increase in demand for reservation among the dominant caste groups in India. What could be its impact on the social and political landscape of the country [15 marks, 250 words]
• Evaluate the role of reservation policies in achieving social justice and equality in a diverse country like India. [10 marks, 150 words]