The Hindu Business Line : Needed, affirmative action not reservation

The Government should emphasise affirmative action and not reservations in education and private sector employment. Government educational institutions must be upgraded to attract good students and teachers. The private sector must create facilities to train SCs/STs to gain competencies, and jobs by their own merit, says BHANOJI RAO.

The issue of equality is fundamentally political. Harold Laswell's definition of politics as "who gets what, when, and why" captures the core reality.

The Common Minimum Programme of the UPA Government has the following among the six basic principles of governance:

To provide for full equality of opportunity, particularly in education and employment for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and religious minorities.

In regard to reservation of jobs in the private sector, the CMP says: The UPA Government is very sensitive to the issue of affirmative action, including reservations in the private sector. It will immediately initiate a national dialogue with all political parties, industry and other organisations to see how best the private sector can fulfil the aspirations of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes youth.

Quota in premier institutions

The CMP has come fully alive in recent weeks, thanks to the pronouncements of the Human Resource Development Minister and the Prime Minister respectively on reservation, of seats, in the premier higher education institutions and jobs in the private sector.

Specifically, the Government would like to extend the 22.5 per cent quota in jobs for SC/ST candidates, hitherto limited to the public sector, to the private sector, and wants the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and all federally funded universities to reserve 27 per cent of their seats for Other Backward Castes (OBC), over and above the 22.5 per cent quota for SC/ST students.

Much heat has been generated by the proposal to reserve 49.5 per cent of seats in `elite' institutions of higher learning. Apart from the UPA manifesto that has put it on the agenda in general terms, in December 2005, Parliament approved the 104th Constitution Amendment Bill seeking reservation for SC, ST and OBC candidates in non-minority unaided private educational institutions.

Scope of Article 15 enlarged

The Amendment enlarges the scope of Article 15 of the Constitution, which provided reservation of seats to SC, ST, and OBC students in government-aided educational institutions only.

The Amendment would enable Parliament as well as the State Legislature to make appropriate laws for this purpose.

Following the HRD Minister's initiative, the Maharashtra Government approved, in April, a draft ordinance aimed at 49.5 per cent reservation in private professional institutions. Students across the country in private institutions and some experts in IITs and IIMs are not especially enthused by the new reservations policy.

The country has lived with the caste-based reservations for over five decades. The primary focus of reservations has been on the SCs/STs, up until a veteran politician brought the OBC issue to the fore.

According to the data from the 2001 Census, the Scheduled Caste population accounted for 16.2 per cent of the total and the Scheduled Tribes 8.2 per cent.

If the SC/STs, forming a quarter of the billion-plus Indians, continue to be left behind in terms of economic and social advancement, it is a disgrace for all of us who have allowed it to happen.

In 2001, that is, five decades after the Constitution had come into force, the educational profiles of the SC and ST populations and the rest of India are not fully compatible and comparable (see table).

High level of illiteracy

It is a sad commentary that the country as a whole has a high level of illiteracy, and SC/ST have even higher rates. Similarly, there is a tiny percentage of population with technical degrees and diplomas, which should be seen as a major problem in addition to the differences: 0.1 to 0.2 per cent of the SC/ST population versus 0.6 per cent for the rest.

Fortunately, there are encouraging signs. Of the 353 million in the 5-19 age group, those attending school was 59 per cent for the total, 55 per cent for SCs and 49 per cent for STs. The percentage attending school while doing work (main or marginal) was 1.7 per cent, for all, 1.6 per cent for SCs and 2.7 per cent for STs.

The challenge is not limited to addressing the differences, however sharp; it is to also address across the board and for the whole country the problem of inadequate higher educational opportunities.

Expanding Higher Education

The Centre must come out with a comprehensive Higher Education Expansion Plan (HEEP), with the caste-based reservations being one element. The Plan should incorporate the sane advice of the President and increase places all round, including, as suggested by the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, setting up some 15 more new IIT-like institutions. The HEEP should also go into the mechanics of setting up and regulation of private institutions, including private universities, so as to safeguard student interests and not imposing such restrictions as would lead to corruption.

An important element of the HEEP should also be an irrevocable commitment on the part of all political parties to end the use of caste in public life by a certain date. Just as the reservation of seats in the Lok Sabha is to end in January 2010, we should aim for all educational and job quotas to cease by August 15, 2020. From then on, the caste of a person should be his or her private concern only.

Upgradation of Govt schools

It is also worth mentioning that a strong tree can never come up on weak roots. Rural and urban government schools repel students and teachers alike, instead of attracting them. Government primary and secondary schools need upgradation (preferably on a standard architectural design) to such a level that the best teachers would not hesitate switching from a posh private school to a newly-built government school. A hike in government teacher salaries too would help in attracting students and teachers.

As for private sector employment reservations for SC/ST, one should not forget the main challenge the sector is to face. On January 22, 2005, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, while delivering the inaugural address at the summit on "Indian CEOs: Competencies for Success," warned Corporate India "against complacency and asked industry leaders to emulate the Chinese economic model and promised to remove all barriers to growth and create an environment to make Indian companies globally competitive" (The Hindu, January 23, 2005). Caste-based reservations in private sector employment may not be compatible with building global competencies.

Government should clear the ground by emphasising affirmative action and not reservations in private sector employment. The nature of affirmative action should be for the private sector to create facilities to train SC/STs to gain competencies and of course jobs by their own merit. If a private sector group were to set up exclusive facilities for upgrading skills of SC/ST candidates, the Government should provide matching grants in a manner of private public partnership.

(The author, formerly with the National University of Singapore and the World Bank, is Professor Emeritus, GITAM Institute of Foreign Trade, Visakhapatnam. He can be reached at bhanoji@gmail.com.)

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