Quota juggernaut

By questioning expanding reservations, Bhagwat and Prasada draw fire but point out the obvious

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s call for a non-political committee to examine and determine which categories require reservation benefits and for how long has stirred a political hornets’ nest. Coming ahead of Bihar assembly elections BJP’s opponents – particularly RJD supremo Lalu Prasad – had a field day slamming Bhagwat. Given the atmosphere in poll-bound Bihar where every party is trying to get its caste calculations right, BJP quickly issued a clarification.

But political calculations aside, Bhagwat’s take on the reservations system isn’t without merit. Few can argue against his assertion that reservations have been politicised and aren’t being implemented in the spirit of their original intention. In fact, only last week Congress’s Jitin Prasada asked his own party to rethink the reservations policy and urged it to champion a new mechanism for social justice that focusses on the most backward castes and the poor among upper castes. This is an implicit admission that quotas have come to be cornered by a few powerful OBC castes that dominate the administrative machinery.
With parties across the political spectrum rushing to legitimise the reservation demands of different caste groups in the hope of cultivating vote banks, they have kicked off a race to the bottom. As a result, even influential communities are demanding a share of the reservations pie. This is precisely what the recent Hardik Patel-led Patidar agitation in Gujarat represents. Besides touching off caste conflicts, the fallout of this great reservations game has been the slow strangulation of meritocracy. This in turn has disastrous consequences for administration. The Yadavisation of the UP police force, wherein one particular OBC caste has come to dominate that state’s law and order machinery even as crime rates soar and communal riots break out, exemplifies this point.
The need of the hour is not just to reimagine the reservations policy but also create a new paradigm for social justice. One of the reasons for the reservations rush is the lack of adequate job opportunities elsewhere which makes government postings extremely lucrative and highly prized. This clearly isn’t sustainable. Boosting job creation in the formal sector, and not just economic growth, will enlarge the pie for all communities. Economic reforms along with sufficient investments in quality school education will create a level playing field and mitigate the need for quotas. It’s time to enact policies that lift all boats.