NEW DELHI: An epic battle is in progress in India over the issue of affirmative action in favour of socially disadvantaged groups, in particular those who belong to the lower castes in India’s notoriously hierarchical social order.
Its outcome will determine the careers and life-chances of millions of people who aspire to a better position in this society. It will also impact the way India, regarded by many as an ‘emerging superpower’, designs its education system to meet future challenges.
On one side in this confrontation stand a majority of India’s caste groups, including the Dalits (former untouchables) and low and lower-middle castes (officially called Other Backward Classes or OBCs). Backing them are all the major political parties, and the government, which recently announced that 27 per cent of all places in federally-run universities will be reserved for OBCs, who constitute a little over 50 per cent of India’s billion plus population.
Arrayed on the opposite side is a small, but resolute and influential minority, which opposes OBC reservations. It is led by students from some of India’s elite medical and engineering colleges, who have been holding vocal protests against the government’s decision.
The students are backed by professional guilds like the Indian Medical Association, some of India’s big industrial tycoons, chambers of commerce, and information technology executives. A significant section of the media supports them.
Under the pressure of the second group, the government recently diluted its original OBC-quota proposal and decided to increase the number of seats (student intake) in all central higher education institutions so that the positions filled by ‘open competition’ do not shrink.
It also delayed implementation of quotas by a year.
Education, the key to employment, is a scarce commodity in India despite GDP growth. In fact, India’s education expenditure as a percentage of GDP has never risen above 4.3 per cent of GDP, despite a target of six per cent set in 1968 and in recent years the gap between GDP growth and education expenditure has been widening rather than otherwise.
But the concessions announced by the government, to protect the existing number of unreserved seats, failed to satisfy the agitating students who have moved from resisting reservations to opposing affirmative action itself.
Meanwhile, India’s Supreme Court has stepped into the arena by admitting petitions moved by affirmative action’s opponents. It has asked the government to explain the rationale behind OBC reservations. “This is likely to encourage the agitating students just when their protests seemed to be losing momentum,” says Zoya Hasan, professor of political science at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. “More important, it will strengthen those who radically oppose AA (affirmative action).”
The ongoing contestation has brought to the surface issues long considered settled. The most important is that of reservations for India’s Dalits and Adivasis (aboriginals), mandated by the constitution. These groups are arguably India’s most underprivileged and bear the burden of centuries-long social discrimination.
Reservations to the extent of 22.5 per cent were introduced for them half-a-century ago in school and college admissions and in government jobs. India’s upper-caste elite, which comprises under 15 per cent of the population, but occupies a large share of plum jobs and dominates the professions, seemed to have reconciled itself to the 22.5 per cent quotas. But now, even that consensus is being questioned by the agitating students.
The present battle is also opening other fault-lines: between India’s political class and opinion-shaping elite, between scholars for or against quotas, and between those who take a ‘reservations-only’ position and those who want the other forms of affirmative action too.
No political party dares question the OBC quota proposal up-front. Even the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, whose core-base lies amongst upper-caste Hindus, does not challenge the decision; but it wants quotas for the poorer layers of the upper castes too.
The two opposing sides cite different facts and arguments to back their respective positions. Those who advocate reservations for OBCs emphasise the historical disadvantage that low-caste groups face vis-à-vis the ‘twice-born’ upper castes in respect of literacy and education, discrimination on grounds of ritual purity, and social status.
They hold that such disadvantage necessitates affirmative action, in particular, quotas; in a deeply unequal society like India, equity and justice must come before any abstract considerations of ‘excellence’.
Opponents of affirmative action emphasise ‘merit’, by which they mean performance in examinations, reflecting inherent intelligence, which society should reward through admissions to schools and colleges.
“The obsession with ‘merit’ is unique in India,” says Zoya Hasan. “Elsewhere in the world, you hear terms like ‘academic proficiency’, ‘competence’, ‘excellence’ in research, etc. In India merit has taken on an almost mystical significance as a quality inherent in some chosen people, not something that can be acquired through training and effort.”
The ‘merit’ argument makes very little sense in a society based on the inheritance of private property and birth-related privilege. Property inheritance means that the affluent are at a vastly different, higher starting-point from the disadvantaged. Most upper-caste people enjoy great advantage over OBCs primarily because of their disparate starting-points.
Sociologists have argued that a privileged person born in a highly educated upper-caste family will have a totally different universe of knowledge, social contacts and elite acceptability, and wholly different access to information about the availability of study courses, colleges and private tuition, career options, professional advice, etc.
The critical issue is how to level the playing field and give equal opportunity to the disadvantaged. Experience from different countries, including the United States, South Africa and Malaysia, suggests that affirmative action is probably the best solution.
“Affirmative action,” holds political theorist Rajeev Bhargava, “can take many forms, including voluntary targets for recruitment of disadvantaged groups, special counselling and training, etc. Reservations, admittedly, are a rather blunt instrument to promote the goal. India has used reservations as the sole form of AA.”
However, confronted with a choice between having a relatively crude affirmative action, and no affirmative action at all, many Indians favour the first, as surveys have shown. The government formula of increasing the intake of students by as much as 54 per cent can be implemented only if the higher education infrastructure is considerably expanded along with staff recruitment.
It will not be easy to achieve such an expansion in the course of barely one year. The government has set up an oversight committee along with three sub-committees to determine how this is to be done.
Any delay in these committees’ functioning is likely to be used by the anti- affirmative action lobby to subvert the whole effort.—Dawn/IPS News Service
