The Supreme Court of India has upheld the constitutional validity of 123rd Constitutional Amendment which provides ten percent reservation to economically weaker sections (EWS) who are part of general categories and aren’t otherwise covered by any existing reservation scheme. This has once again raked up a nationwide debate on the system of reservation in India. Reservation is one of the most controversial issues of contemporary India and public opinion is sharply divided on the subject. Whereas the section of beneficiaries of caste-based reservation system supports the perpetuation of existing scheme of reservation based on caste, others have strongly argued in favour of “economic criterion” as the basis of representation in public employment.
To appreciate the rationale underlying the system of caste-based reservation, we must understand the historical structure of Indian society and the type of social stratification that has existed since ages. Indian has historically been a hierarchical society wherein social rewards, privileges, obligations or restrictions for every member have been a hereditary function of the caste (a social group) to which the individual belongs – by virtue of being born into it. The status and role was hereditarily ascribed, immutable, and social mobility was non-existent. This social structure of differential rights and obligations created a society fundamentally unequal. Since caste determined every dimension of an individual’s life, scope and extend of their achievement in religious, social, economic and political spheres, a structure that conferred privilege on some while imposing disabilities on others created a huge gap between the privileged and underprivileged castes.
The consequent lack of level playing field was acknowledged as a legacy of India’s caste system. Economic marginality in this case is a specific outcome of the discriminatory social conditions and disabilities imposed on lower castes and those outside the caste, which denied them access to education, resources and skills vital for economic well-being. In order words, the members of these historically discriminated caste groups have been at a double disadvantage, that is poverty on account of the membership of a disadvantaged social group, and denial of opportunity and access. Here the phenomenon of poverty is uniquely of “social nature and origin”. Hence, any remedy would involve a combination of representation through reservation in society’s power structure together with redistribution of economic resources to elevate the economic standing.
In other words, “I’m poor because I belonged to a caste that was denied access to education, resources and skills”. Here the root of the menace is caste and the remedy would involve inclusion of voice of the members of the caste in the power structure through representation and reservation. However, poverty in other non-caste cases is an outcome of various factors including economic inequality rooted in the concentration of wealth in a few hands due to distributive injustice. Here the genesis of the problem of poverty is exclusively the economic order of the society and hence warrants remedial measures that go back to the economic order landing a section of people in a pauperised condition. In other words, “I’m poor because wealth is concentrated in a few hands who because of the nature of economic distribution have been able to monopolise wealth and resources.” In this case, the root of poverty is distribution and remedy would involve economic redistribution and not reservation.
From the foregoing discussion it follows that reservation accrues to the “doubly disadvantaged” – those at the intersection of caste and poverty. Redistribution as a remedial measure for the poor across the social strata but reservation for economically weaker section only among the underprivileged castes would be the premise of a more enlightened policy decision on reservation.
Indiscriminate extension of the benefit of reservation solely on “economic criterion” is the most indolent form of public policy. Furthermore, repeated benefit of reservation to a small minority among the lower castes has created a new elite and it is in line with the larger interest of democracy and equality that such a trend is arrested forthwith. A system needs to be put in place whereby the economic condition of members of historically marginalised castes is assessed for the purpose of extension or denial of reservation.

The writer is a school teacher by profession. [email protected]

Shahid Qureshi