Azimul Hoque, TwoCircles.net,
Reservation is a special constitutional provision to some special category of people aiming to bridge the gap between the comparatively advantaged and disadvantaged or weaker section in the society. These provisions may be economic in the form of scholarship, fees exemptions, special quota in employment, etc; or in the form of political with seat reservation of public representation, developmental programs in preference basis. But one thing is clear that all these provisions were made with an objective of a balanced, overall development of the country making the entire community stands at an equal position of socio-economical status.
India is a country with a vast diversity in its demographic feature identifying the country as one of the peculiar in the world in policy making for various issues. Diversity of population, based on caste, community or religion has been disturbing the unity and peace of the country since early. The biasness of the rulers or the administrators has made this caste and religion based diversity into socio economic inequality. So through the reservation provision for the backward people, this inequality or gap has been trying to bridge up. But after passing through almost six decades of independence, the evaluation of this system of special provision has become necessary.
Though it appears unfair to say, it must be admitted that reservation anywhere leads to sacrifice of the best choice. And thus, rationally, reservation in any where affects the pace of growth negatively. It also makes thinking against self respect. If one goes back to one century before India, he/she would have been feeling shame to be a person from a backward caste. But these days one wants to manage a certificate of backward caste by any means. Even a person belonging to general caste or higher caste community doesn’t hesitate to introduce himself as a member of scheduled caste or backward class only to get some special provisions which are not available for a person belonging to general caste.
This is how the mind set of the people has changed. From one side this bears a good sign while other point of view, this witnesses frustrated scenery of the society. The only good sign is that it indicates the welcomed eradication of the caste system. That is, today no one feels proud of being from Brahmin (higher caste) or in inferiority complex of being representing a ‘doom’ (lower caste) group.
But it is alarming that this vanish of caste system is not a straight-forward change of the mind set of the people, rather it is only to have the special provisions which have been awarded only to some specific category of people by the state or the nation. Religiously or communally the caste system has been well maintained in each and every social phenomenon.
Now let us proceed from the 2nd view point. Why today there is the trend that a person belonging to higher caste wants to be introduced himself as backward caste? The reason will be, most probably, that he feels lack of sufficiency which he/she should have as a member of advanced class and feels needs for provisions which are not available to him that are well available to a person belonging to backward classes. That is there is a mismatch between the systems of categorization of the people with the socio economic needs for special provisions from that categorization!
Which indicators should be the basic factor to identify the most vulnerable groups or person is a big issue at present context of the social scenario and also this is the challenge for the policy makers from time to time. But before going into the contemporary policy making, we must have a look into the foundation of the system from beginning. Generations of a particular poor or backward family may not remain backward after six and half decades. Even the assumption that person belongs to ‘shudra’ or the backward caste will be the economically poorest in the society may not hold good today.
But how the propounder of Indian Constitution (at the time of constitution building) found the ‘caste based reservation raj’ as rational is also a debatable matter. History witnesses that as a result of higher class exploitation on the lower class Hindu, Muslim aggressors took the advantage to convert the lower class Hindu to Muslim. But the Muslim did not succeed to improve the socio economic condition of life of this portion of population. Most probably this was caused by the fact that the Muslim saints were not supported by their emperor (Nawabs) since the Nawabs were not interested in strengthening the religion rather their aim was to win the war and capture or rob the resources of the country. And that is why the Arabian or Persian Muslims were not able to enter the tribal areas of the country which have been full filled by the British and American Christian Missionaries.
Christian missionaries went beyond the Muslim peers and entered the every location of the country. Since they had the financial support from their rulers for fostering and strengthening the Christianity in the world, they were able to enter the tribals inhabitants of the country to convert them into Christian easily.
Thus the inhabitants converted into Christian comparatively became economically advanced. One thing is important to note here that, as a person converted into Muslim needs to change his name and should take a name which bears Muslim identity. But in case of conversion into Christian there is no need to change his name. Thus a lower class Hindu becomes general as he or she converts into a Muslim and unfortunately it is also assumes that his economic conditions have also become better off at once. On the contrary it is assumed that a converted Christian Indian inhabitant/tribe remains economically backward though he has been getting many more facilities from the missionaries.
And constitution builders while providing the reservation to uplift the backward sections, made the same criteria. But if it is assumed that the lower caste people are also economically backward, then how the Indian Muslims were categorized under general caste? Wasn’t it necessary to enquire their socio economic background? This truth comes out in the Report of Sachar Committee where it is clear that the socio-economic conditions of the minority people of India are even poorer than the dalits. Literacy is one of the main indicators of status of lives of people or a community. In case of Assam the condition of the minority, especially the Muslims are worse than the STs/SCs. According to the 2001 census, literacy rate of the Muslims recorded 48.4% against the 64% for the SC/STs in Assam.
Thus, the main indicator for the development of a society or an individual is the socio economic condition, and reservation also provides such economic advantage to the categorized people. Hence, the base for the identification of backwardness also should be the present socio-economic status of an individual, not by which caste he or she belongs to. The statistical department collects the data for every indicator relating to socio economic status of the people and thus also well capable to find the people who are really poor.
And it can be well admitted that social advancement is positively related to the economic condition of the society. So why not this easy way for identifying the needy person for bringing under the banner of reservation is being utilized? The generalization that the ‘poor’ people are ‘backward’ may not be all right in all dimension of the word ‘development’ but it may be better criteria than caste based assumption. Just the BPL card and job cards are not sufficient for eradication of inequality among the people. They need some special provision like reservation or special attention. So if reservation has been considered inevitable, this should be on the basis of economic condition of the people.
(Azimul Hoque is the Research Officer at the Project Implementation Unit in the Directorate of Town & Country Planning, Dispur, Assam and can be reached at [email protected])