Discussion so far on Reservation

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

SUMMARY OF DISCUSSIONS SO FAR

TOPIC:	RESERVATIONS

Utkarsh proposed:
-----------------
AGENDA FOR ELIMINATING RESERVATIONS IN JOBS AND EDUCTAION

· Amend constitution to remove reservations in jobs and education based on
caste 

· Decentralize power to states to Introduce legislation to reform programs
mandating reservations based on caste in jobs and education 

· Introduce mandatory course work in secondary education and college
curriculum on democratic values and equality 

· Legislation to Limit Government Benefits to students found involved in
caste discrimination 

· Need based benefits for children with parents/legal guardians below
State poverty line

· Free lunch programs to children in such category

· Free books/school supplies to children under such category

· Extra Teaching staff to attend such students after school 

· Government Loans to Attend Private Polytechnics to students in these
Categories · Merit based promotions in all Government Jobs 

· Government Funded Loan Programs For continuing Higher Education for All
Government Employees 

· Legislation to Bar Individuals from Government Jobs If Found guilty of
caste discrimination 

· Introduction of special counsel reporting directly to the state chief
minister to investigate caste discrimination cases 

· Bar Political parties and Political groups promoting caste division in
the society

Sanjeev's response:
------------------
On the first one while agreeing in principle, I would promote a formula as
follows:

First 5 yrs: Let reservations be at 100% level of population share of the
         	concerned group.
Next 5 yrs:  Reservations drop to 75% 
Next 5 yrs:  Drop to 50%
Next 5 yrs:  Drop to 25% and stay there.

In other words, the reservation for SC/ST would drop from the present 37%
(I think: Smita, pl. confirm the figure) which is their share in India's
population, to about 9% at the end of 15 years, and would remain at that
level until further review.

Why I propose this formula is because 

a) Reservations are not the cause of India's problems. Bad economic policy
is. Let us hit at that, first and foremost. Education is critical. Let us
hit at that. Let us never forget that it was the Brahmins and high caste
people (Nehru and his dynasty) who have let India down by their stupid
economic policies; not the few Jagjivan Rams or whatever (I won't comment
on personalities, though) [second, this is not a critique of brahmins or
high caste people in general: I have no caste or religion, but my family
avers they belong to some of these 'higher' echelons. My comment on
brahmins etc., is designed only to show clearly that the problems of
India were not created by the backward classes/ castes/ tribes]. 

Those who knew better, took the advantage of socialism to feather their
nests with illgotten gains (has anyone analyzed the illgotten wealth of
the Nehru family, for example?), and it is easy to blame corruption and
reservation as the cause of our problems. Instead, I see clearly that
corruption, reservation policy, and illiteracy are deeply entwined as the
outcome of socialistic policies. As capitalistic and competitive policies
come in, the very topic of reservations will become irrelevant - over the
next 100 years.

b) Let us not make enemies (i.e., open too many fronts at the same time). 
We want to ensure that people do not use this "anti-reservation" agenda to
beat this group advocating essentially right wing policies. Initially,
when reservations were introduced, these were for a few decades only
(anyone has facts?). But indecision went on, particularly since the vote
banks of the illiterate caste-ridden poor people, continued to dominate
our political system.  Unless illiteracy goes and competitive, high paying
jobs are available to the best, the attraction of government jobs will
remain very high and we do not want to throw the baby (capitalism) with
the bath water (reservations). 

Therefore, as a first pass (given my constraints of time this week), I
think the points below are good, and could be sligtly refined (for
strategic reasons) here and there, to make this as a secondary agenda
rather than a primary agenda. 

Utkarsh's response:  
------------------- 

To certain extent I agree that reservations is not our problem but
economic policy is. But when we say reservation, I think the issue is more
of equality. In a democracy today we have to treat every one equal. If we
don't, we are teaching our kids to aspire for give away programs.  I want
to see this as a group which does the right thing.  Because if we don't
then we are like others who are out their to get votes by not doing the
right thing. I am open to gradually reducing the reservations.  20 years,
I am not sure. But fundamentally I would say that we should the raise
concept of equality. I am not anti-reservation. I am for fundamental
equality in a democracy. Task is to teach millions of people the basic
concept of equality. It is not much differnt than teaching them importance
of competition and economic wealth through application of thought. It is
an issue most of the educated people will ask as soon as we go out as
rational people want to change the world.  So we need to articulate our
policy.

e-mail from a friend of Sanjeev:
--------------------------------
Dear Sanjeev,

Thanks for the mail, and that you thought of me.  My frank view on the
subject:  At this juncture, why rake up the issue of reservations at all? 
The very reference is enough to get you branded. I know you have specific
ideas about India's development (so do I ) but the problem is that all of
us in the dialog are people who ultimately tend to benefit from the
proposed reservation policy. 

Our effort should be to build allies, and examine why are people
clamouring for reservations.  Sarkari job reservation and holidays are
perhaps the only things that the state governments can offer today: for
the administrative system in most states has virtually collapsed. there is
no money, or inclination or the systems to achieve asnything. Once the
economy starts growing at say 7-8% which is not a pipe dream, but a
function of good macro management, and inflation kept within reasonable
limits (below 3%) again manageable by ensuring a check on govt
expenditures over the next decade or so, the dependence on govt jobs will
get reduced. Tkae Punjab(the industrial belt of Jalandhar, Ludhiana or
Amritsar for example. With or without reservation,one finds more people
opting for entrepreneurship, or looking at jobs also as an enterprise (on
account of very high corruption, and rent seeking behaviour).
 
Could we not focus on developing entrepreneurship oppurtunities for the
other groups (SC,ST,OBCs) Once they become economic entrepreneurs, just as
they have shown political enterprise as a sequel to political
enfranchisement, the economic wheels will start moving : and this high
dependence on government will wane away. For when we talk of reservations,
we talk of an ever expanding government system, which itself is becoming
unsustainable. 

I am all for the general suggestions like mid day meals schems, and would
reccommend that we have a National Loan Scholarship scheme revamped with
sufficient funds so that whosoever gets admission to a College of whatever
variety gets laons from banks at affordable rates to be repaid over the
next 30 years orso. this will have the advantage of making our higher
education system viable, attract better teachers, focus on research about
he local problems, and also ensure that only those who are seriously
intersted in education actually sign up for colleges (as is perhps the
practise all over the world). 

Please  go through Sunil Khilnani's book, The Idea of India, and request
your friends also to got through it. Although it does hold out a defence
for Nehru, it is  a well argued case.

Prem's response:
----------------
Hello Everyone: Thanks to all who have been writing on this forum. The 
quality of discussion here is indded very high, and I hope to keep it at
the same level. Here are my thoughts at this point:

While it is indeed true that reservations sap the morale of the hard-working
students and employees and they are a stubling block to fundamental equality,
we are probably better off not taking this issue head-on. A few reasons have
already been put forward for this approach, and here's my summary of it:

1. We cannot open too many fronts at the same time, we already have a lot on
our hands to do. This argument assumes that we need to get elected
first to start doing the MOST important things such as education and economic
policy (prioritization of tasks at hand, basically). Once we start off on the
right foot and all are happy with the way things are, we can move on to more
contentious issues. 

2. Reservations are not a big issue, and we don't need to rake this matter up.
By following the right kind of economic policies, we can reduce the dependence
of people on govt. jobs and that would make it a complete non-issue.

I fully agree with the above points. I think we cannot afford to make
enemies at this point; we need people from EVERY section of the society to
come and join us in this already hard task of fighting the well-entrenched
evils in the current system. Once we are branded as anti-dalit, we can
simply forget more than 50% of the population. More over, we don't really
know what the backward communities themselves feel about the reservations. 
I think this question should first be debated at the social-level before
taking it to the political/policy-making level. There is a lot of mistrust
and feeling of betreyal among the backward communities against the
upper-castes. If we say we'd take away their most valuable asset at this
point, I don't think we can succeed in doing the much much more important
things we have put on our agenda.  I think we must plan towards organizing
such debates; maybe we can delegate it to any of the good NGO's. We need
to support such initiatives that will break the barriers between the
various communities down, before attempting to formulate policy on such a
sensitive issue. As far as doing the right thing is concerned, sometimes
it may not be the right thing to take the brute-force approach. I don't
think this is a dilution of our committment to equality and justice. We
must recognize the uniqueness of the Indian social conditions to be really
effective.  There is no doubt that reservations need to go eventually, but
first we need to prepare the ground for such a step. Here again, we need
proper education. Let's concentrate on that.  Thanks for your attention.

Comment from Charu:
------------------
Now about the reservation issue- I've sort of held back because it looks
like you guys are pretty advanced in the discussion already and I'm not
sure if you've covered these preliminaries. As with any policy, I think
the motivation of the policy needs to be pretty clear- what do you
expect to accomplish and how does it tie into the overall goals of
social change.

My view is that the goal of a society is to give everyone an equal
chance to seek happiness, and all members of a society will participate
in advancing it not so much when they see benefits to them selves but
when they see that they make some difference for that means they will be
able to exercise some control over the course of their lives. When an
individual or an arbitrarily defined section of society (e.g. low
castes) are excluded from access to resources- water, land, education,
credit, whatever- they have a lot less motivation in preserving and
supporting that society and it's governing institutions, and possibly a
motivation to destroy that society- as in the creation of many insurgent
movements- when you leave people with nothing to lose, they will do just
about anything. On a related note the collapse of the Soviet empire is
one example where a majority of the society was ill served by its
institutions and it suffered an internal collapse.

OK, to get back to reservation policy,  the objective is to give every
member of a society an equal chance. In real terms there are 2
generational levels at which it can be addressed (and I largely agree
with Utkarsh's proposals here: ). All children need to get access to
reasonable levels of nutrition, health care and education. The
distinction of who gets it and at what level, in my view, should be
based on income/wealth not hereditary (caste) criteria. Though there is
room for research here into the question- if some members of a caste
group are pushed to advance, do they drag along a significant amount of
their community or do they simply leave the poor communities they come
from and join the wealthier/advanced communities (are you aware of any
existing research in the literature?). The answer has direct relevance
to the assignment of weight  to wealth level vs. caste background
criteria. To address the generation that does not benefit from programs
implemented for children, I do agree with your proposal of phased
removal of reservations. Critical to the success of it's acceptance is
that the majority does not perceive it as a zero sum game and there have
to strong arguments to convince people that (almost) everyone benefits.