The Hindu Business Line : Job reservation

THE Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, seems to have finally yielded to the insistent demands for reservation of jobs in the private sector for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SCs/STs) as also for the so-called backward classes.

It may only be a matter of time before the Government caves in to the persistent clamour for a similar quota for them in the appointment of judges of the High Courts and Supreme Court.

The Government already has before it the recommendation of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution on both the counts providing the justification. Election being round the corner, it should not be surprising if the temptation to reap electoral dividends by rushing the concomitant legislation, or even a Constitutional amendment, if need be, through Parliament proves overpowering. All who have the good of the nation at heart can only shudder at the prospect. Any surrender to pressure on this score will be totally against national interest. At the time the facility of reservation was incorporated in the Constitution, the social and economic conditions of the SCs/STs and backward classes were incontrovertibly pathetic, and there was no doubt that the only way for society to atone for centuries of neglect, exploitation and oppression was to make available enough concessions and safeguards to help them overcome their handicaps.

The Constitutional provisions to that effect were meant to be of very short duration within which the beneficiaries were expected to throw off the crutches and bring themselves on a par with the rest of the population.

Reservation was never meant to be turned into a vested interest to be continued in perpetuity, or to give rise to a ridiculous situation in which castes and communities will, without exception, shamelessly fight for being declared backward. As regards job reservations, the Constitution itself makes it clear that the claims of SCs/STs, "shall be taken into consideration, consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration" in regard to services and posts connected with "the affairs of the Union or of a State". The intention right from the inception has never been to make a fetish of reservation at the cost of efficiency and good governance, nor to extend it to private sector employment.

It is tragic that precisely at a time when every effort needs to be made to enforce world class standards in every field of activity, the Prime Minister should have signalled a move calculated to take down the abyss the one entity — India Inc — that has so far managed to escape being poisoned by the ills and evils of inefficiency, indiscipline and incompetence to which government and public sector personnel are prone.

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