Reservations: Diminishing returns for politicians

The Gujjar vs Meenas stand off is probably a good outcome as it puts the politician too at a risk. Suddenly the reservation pie has become so attractive that every other caste could cue up to be counted as backward. If the government tries to woo them, they face the backlash of those who will have to share the pie and if they don't, they face the ire of those demanding inclusion. The rich in the general caste are fuming anyway and the poor among the general caste -- they would never forgive the politicians for sealing their fate forever.

Keep the spirit of free competition aside for a moment. Also step aside the debate on the number of OBCs and assume that they do comprise 50 per cent of the population. Take the combined SC and ST numbers at a widely agreed 25 per cent. Effectively, 75 per cent of the country comprises of backward caste. Does this justify 50 per cent reservation?

India has a working population of about 450 million. There are about 25 million government jobs and about 10 million in formal private sector. Let us include the Prime minister's suggestion of job reservation in the private sector. Take the total formal jobs at a generous 45 million. As we do not have data on vacancies and people looking for jobs – take a macro view -- 45 million such jobs for 450 million workers. Now lets hike the reservation in jobs to 75 per cent from 50 per cent!

This will result in about 337 million backward caste people competing for 33 million reserved jobs. On the other hand, 110 million general caste workers would fight for 12 million unreserved jobs.

The top 10 per cent (33 million) of backward castes will grab the 33 million reserved jobs, right? These will mostly be the rich and resourceful among the backward castes. The government has been categorical that it does not wish to exclude the rich among the backward castes from reservations. Therefore, even 75 per cent reservations will not help the really backward.

The situation would be similar for reservations in higher education. If there were enough seats in colleges, IITs and IIMs and if there were 50 million jobs in formal private sector then reservation would not be an issue, right? But that is a problem that the government has failed to put on its agenda.

Lets try again. So what if reservations do not really benefit the backward? No harm in trying. Ok. The recent Gujjars vs Meenas standoff stands out as a new brand of divisive violence. Gujjars staking claim as backward and downtrodden while Meenas (already categorised as ST) fighting to ensure that they did not have to share the benefits. We have now managed to divide the country further by adding lowercaste vs lower caste to the upper caste vs lower caste battle.

What stops political parties or some leaders of specific castes from luring communities with the promise of getting them an ST, SC or OBC tag for votes? Nothing. The outcome - riots and caste wars. The argument of reservation can be extended to any field - sports, arts, defence etc. Why not have 50 per cent reservations for women?

How will the government evaluate the presumed benefits of reservations? Imagine the riots Meenas would create if it were ever to be suggested that they no longer needed reservations! Caste cannot be a proxy for backwardness as caste is fixed by birth. An OBC, once labeled so will remain so. The 1931 census shows 75 per cent of the population as backward and after 75 years we still use the same numbers!

How many caste has the government notified as being no longer backward till date? Note even one? Will it be able to do so in the next 50 years? Based on caste, will 75 per cent of Indians be always backward?

Seventy five per cent of the population is very large vote bank. The government had hiked the reservation levels in government jobs to 49.5 per cent from 22.5 per cent in 1990. This was based on Mandal Commission's recommendation which used data from 1931 census. Mandal labeled 3,743 caste and communities as OBCs which accounted for 54 per cent of population. There were serious questions about this list as it was argued that same castes were included two or more times by changing the spelling or by including an SC or ST caste in the OBC list.

LR Naik, the only Dalit member of the commission refused to sign the recommendations as he feared that upper class OBCs would corner all the benefits. The quota could have been higher but the Supreme Court had capped total reservations to 49.5 per cent.

Seventeen years have passed and the politicians have now turned to extend the reservation in higher education to 49.5 per cent from 22.5 per cent. It is now toying with the idea of reservations in private sector jobs. With even backward castes now set fight to fight among themselves the politicians might as well reassess the potential political gains. For a start, any numbers on the castes which could potentially react the way the Gujjars did?