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Ranabir Ray Choudhury

ON TUESDAY, the Cabinet approved — "with rare alacrity", according to one report — the setting up of a committee on reservation for the poor among the upper castes.

The committee will be headed by Mr L. K. Advani and will have as members Mesrs Jaswant Singh, Arun Jaitley, Nitish Kumar and Satyanarain Jatiya.

For the record, the Congress Government in Rajasthan has officially backed the idea of reservation for the economically worse off among the upper castes, and the BJP has urged that there should be a 10 per cent reservation under this criterion.

There is little doubt that the move is progressive in the sense that the "poor" are being helped. But the more important point is whether the "tool" of reservation is effective enough to attain the end.

What does the Constitution have to say on the issue? Article 16(1) says: "There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the State".

However, Article 16(4) states: "Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the state.

In 1995, the 77th Constitution Amendment Act extended the operation of the article (through 16-4A) to "promotions" but mentioned specifically "Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes" as opposed to "any backward class of citizens" in Article 16(4).

The point at issue here is whether the economically deprived among the upper castes can be clubbed with the categories mentioned in Articles 16(4) and 16(4a).

Of course, the point can be made that Article 39 (a Directive Principle) lists that the State "shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing . . . that the citizen, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood", which can be cited as Constitutional justification for the "economic reservation" measure since it would be a means to strengthening the "means of livelihood".

Another clause of the same Article can be cited which argues for official assistance to the poor irrespective of the caste or class they belong to (the State must ensure "that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment").

But what of the policy of reservation itself? If one goes by the Constitution, as it was originally framed by the Founding Fathers, the policy was important as a crutch for the downtrodden in society based on caste and class considerations, but a crutch which would have to be discarded after a definite period of time.

Thus, Article 334, which deals with "reservation of seats and special representation" in the Houses of Legislature, says categorically that the concession "shall cease to have effect on the expiration of a period of forty years from the commencement of the Constitution", a time period which was extended later.

There are no signs of the crutch of reservations being discarded in the near future.

On the contrary, if current indications are anything to go by, the country should be prepared to see more variations on the theme being pushed on to centre-stage, especially with elections around the corner.

So much for the continuation and promotion of social subsidy schemes in an era when there is so much talk of reducing economic subsidies.

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