Use economic criteria for reservations

Mayawati demands reservation for poor from upper castes

TIMES VIEW Use economic criteria for reservations
Mayawati’s latest strategy that helped clinch her victory in the recent UP elections, apart from highlighting her new political and social experiment, has a clear message to the country’s political leadership — caste politics is undergoing a makeover and promises of greater mandalisation can no longer assure election success. In a reversal of tactics, Mayawati has expressed the desire for reservations for the upper castes and religious minorities in government jobs, which she says is essential for uplift of the poor.
While her desire may stem from the need to appease her new-found vote banks, on another level the emerging broader trend is worth taking note of. Mayawati’s desire, in a way, reinstates what liberals in India have always clamoured for — quotas on the basis of economic status and not caste or religion. That the upper castes in UP have in large numbers voted for Mayawati, a traditional champion of backward castes, drives home a point. Caste consciousness is slowly becoming irrelevant. The UP elections must serve as an eye-opener to politicians who are advocating reservations for backward castes eyeing strategic vote banks among them. If they want to ensure success, they must now ensure universal equality of opportunity.
Although members of upper castes might be socially better off than lower caste communities, it is not always true that their economic conditions are any better. The jobless and economically deprived are spread across the country and do not necessarily belong to any particular community or caste. Thirty per cent of people in rural areas belong to the upper castes. However, nearly 25 per cent of them are illiterate. A substantial percentage of upper castes also lives on mere subsistence level of income. The same would apply to other religious groups as well. If India has to grow, and if the growth has to seep down to the lowest levels, caste-based reservations must be done away with. Affirmative action must benefit all deprived communities.
COUNTER VIEW Stick to caste-based quotas Amit Saxena
Mayawati would do Dalits and backwards a disservice if she extends quotas to economically weaker upper castes. To argue that the hegemony of Brahmins and Kayasthas has disappeared under the growing social and political might of other backward classes (OBCs) would be an oversimplification.
She should know, as a disciple of Babasaheb Ambedkar, that caste oppression is extra-economic in nature. A ‘poor’ upper caste remains socially privileged by virtue of having centuries of history on his side, and is therefore unworthy of state sympathy. OBCs and Dalits have been unable to rid themselves of social stigma, despite their growing influence on levers of state power.
A community’s position in the social pecking order is not only determined by its political and economic influence, but also by its intellectual clout. OBCs and Dalits still lack the intellectual and cultural capital of the upper castes. Mayawati’s mandate is to improve law and order, so that enterprise can flourish and knowledge-based industries strike root in the state. She would visualise a growing participation of backwards in this scenario, forgetting that upper castes can steal a march here, given their headstart in education in a historical context where knowledge is not accessible to all. Upper castes may have been pushed to the background in the contemporary rural economy, but even as absentee landowners in the cities their position in society is not as dire as it is made out to be.
Mayawati has fallen for the creamy layer argument, forgetting that it is an upper-caste ruse to sabotage reservations. Quotas are an acknowledgement of the fact that caste should be treated as a category distinct from class. Mayawati must treat caste as the primary social category and see the present conflict as one between bahujan samaj (including OBCs), rich or poor, against upper castes, rich or poor. To be swayed by class analysis in the Indian, particularly UP, context is to be unmindful of the force of history.