This is another midnight stroke, quite like the one on 08 November 2016, which began with a prefaced address to the nation that rang with the syllable echo of “Mitron”! Only here this was a Cabinet decision of the government that enjoys a clear majority in the Lok Sabha, the first in three decades, and one that has been posturing on ‘Sabka Vikas’. And like many of these decisions, there have been previous deliberations on this matter. There must have been a note or two put up which would have told the Government that this decision was made by PM PV Narasimha Rao government in the 90s, and it was upended by the Honourable Supreme Court, struck down when it delivered its constitutional order.https://www.rediff.com/news/report/upper-caste-quota-will-modi-meet-same-fate-as-narasimha-raos/20190108.htm Yet the exact same 10% reservation across all castes and communities are on offer through this proposed Constitutional Amendment which is meant to offer succour to the underprivileged of India. Yes this 10% is for the Economically Weaker Section and the classification of this EWS criteria for public as has been noted from the Cabinet proposal and the hurriedly tabled bill in the Lok Sabha, which has already passed the Lok Sabha last night as the proposed Constitutional Amendment offers economic criteria that is vastly different from the current EWS definition given by UPA in the RTE Act which is mere ₹ 32 per diem. The earning metric stands at ₹ 8 lakhs per annum, which is nearly 68 times the older definition.
Now what exactly is the political calculus behind this move? The 124th Amendment Bill passed Lok Sabha with 323 votes in favour out of a present 326 which is a two thirds majority. Now the bill moves to Rajya Sabha. It was not in the Manifesto of the BJP, but it was in the manifesto of guess what- The Indian National Congress! And the Congress had promised this in 2004, 2009 and 2014! So it was a masterstroke to fulfil a promise made by the opposition party? https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/upper-castes-reservation-live-updates-modi-government-constitution-amendment-bill-lok-sabha-bjp-congress/1436840/?#liveblogstart
The INC will not oppose the bill, rather they will allow it to drift as they have done in the Lok Sabha where they do not have the numbers in any case, and will allow it to move unopposed in the Rajya Sabha for in 2014 too they had issued a notification allowing Jat reservation under OBC quota which was eventually struck down by the SC in 2015. Mr Jaitley is sanguine that the SC will not have any reservations about EWS reservations since it is coming as a non caste based reservation scheme, as like a Welfare scheme, duly amending the ARTICLES 15 and 16 of the Constitution, and as recommended by Ram Vilas Paswan it is likely to be placed in the 9th Schedule. What is amusing is how across the political spectrum parties have joined issue, with JD Secular, Nitish Kumar, and Kejriwal welcoming the move, while BSP’s Mayawati reminded every one that she too had proposed it in her Party Manifesto as part of her Sarvajan scheme.
The timing of the act is what perhaps weakens it. In 1991, PM PV Narasimha Rao had just taken office when he issued a notice extending 10% reservation for EWS. The matter was listed in the Supreme Court as Indira Sawhney and Others Versus UOI and it was a 9 member Constitutional Bench that set aside the reservations for upper caste and across religions reservation. The key objection was that first the Constitution did not recognise any other basis for reservation in educational institutions and government jobs, other than ‘caste’ which was an entity that belonged to solely the Hindu religious community. Secondly it said economic criteria is not based on social discrimination or religious prejudice that it needs a statist intervention, when schemes were available as scholarships and amenities through subsidies to offer a level playing field.
One of the key aspects that were covered in this Supreme Court order included this question before the Apex Court-Would making “any provision” under Article 16(4) for reservation “by the State” necessarily have to be by law made by the legislatures of the State or by law made by Parliament? Or could such provisions be made by an executive order? Surprisingly the answer to that was that it could be made by Executive order itself. So then why is the NDA government going for a Constitutional amendment?
In 2000 and 2001, the NDA introduced two amendments to the Constitution, clubbed as the 77th Amendment, since it was basically to do with exceeding the ceiling of 50% to enable roll over of backlog vacancies of previous years due to non availability of candidates and the second one was for promotional vacancies. This was a further modification of the 77th Amendment that took place in 1995 which originally introduced the provision of reservations for SC, ST category in government posts for purposes of promotion.Disputes of any new criteria can be raised only in the Supreme Court said the order. So this 124th Amendment will be contested in the Supreme Court.
There are hoary references in the verdict of 1992 https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1363234/to the Founding Fathers, how though of limited franchise their mandate, they in their vision had proceeded to resolve the inequities that were not coterminous with a modern state, by providing for the communities that had been burdened by their caste identity alone to all manner of demeaning menial tasks, and for their selective upliftment and to motivate society to groom itself into that befitting a modern state the Constitution provided for caste based reservations for SC and ST at the very outset. Yet while the Mandal Commission was cause for much of agitation at that time, and PV Narasimha Rao being an adept practitioner of politics introducing this 10% economics based reservation was also under review by this Court order.
It is actually the context that signals why perhaps India’s politicians today cannot be persuaded to think about reservation as social intervention in the form of affirmative action, but as a sop, an electoral device to create vote banks. Or alternatively a view can be taken that India’s politicians are faithfully reflective of the social pangs of the Indian society at large, which has been fulminating about reservations for seven decades, from the very outset of its inception. In that sense the Mandalisation of Reservation was incomplete without this added reservation for the economically disadvantage irrespective of caste or creed. So when Indian Courts have accepted Mandal, they must now accept this Mandal Plus, or ‘Kamandal Reservation’ as an ode to the Party which had the audacity to pull it off the way it has!
The optics of this is sweeping, even as it has the way of turning out to be another pyrrhic victory for the BJP. It will hardly take any time before the voters realise that if no party actually opposed it, then may be where was the need for grandstanding and introducing it just when the BJP was facing heat over Rafale and the reinstatement of the CBI director by the SC? Why was the ethical economically disadvantaged not allowed to benefit from this provision for last 4 years when Mr Modi has presided over the fate of India? Then the Opposition counter on jobs comes into even sharper focus, for with these reservations, the existing job market gets further squeezed for the general merit category, and this is perhaps where the Government has been clever in pushing for an upper ceiling limit at 8 lakhs per annum. It brings a huge chunk of India to compete under both the general quota and this economic quota, as some aver nearly 90% of India will now come under some or other reservation clause after this 10% is added to the existing 50%. So why not then increase the reservation for existing reserved quotas by creating quotas for say weaker sections community wise, to take it upto 90% and leave the 10 % for the creamy layer and the meritorious to battle it out?
May be this was just the social reform that India needed, as with this one stroke the venal objections for caste based reservations would vaporise into thin air and we would be a society much more open to caste and community related subsidies? It is here that Mr Paswan’s ernest request to Parliament makes an interesting case. If now Indians across the board have no hangups about reservation, then why not extend it to the Private Sector, for is that sector also not operating under Indian Law. There is Affirmative Action related legislation in the USA and it operates across segments, and it involves both Government funded, open ended and privately held institutions. So why cannot Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Cognisant, Mahindra and all the other behemoths of the Private sector open their hiring to reservation quotas as prescribed by Government of India?
Beyond all these longterm considerations, we come straight to how Mr Modi’s core base will take this whammy? For a class that was devoted to deriding reservations, to demoting leftist socialism, who viewed the Vemulas of the world as rent seekers, preying on the present for the ailments of the past, would this be a tough one to swallow? This core is what provides that rock like stability to the Modi coalition, as over this is layered those who seek a non controversial decision maker, one who is not swayed easily by vested interests and who is famously ascetic in his personal ethic, depriving himself of holidays, of family and of other perks of office as he works tireless for the nation. It is this political version of Barmy Army or Bharat Army, this Modibhakt Sena is the loudest cheering and rooting for the leader. How has it handled this decision in past 48 hours? Silence. We will have to see how this pans out for them.
The effect of the 124th Amendment will be very minimal on electoral outcomes. The Manifestoes of parties that promised it will be revised no doubt, but beyond this, the electoral mood is currently besieged by matters economic. It is about jobs, it is about farm sector distress and it is about overall economic climate. The way Mr Jaitley is piloting the BJP through matters that concern other ministries, either he has forsaken Finance to autopilot or he is ready with a flurry of tricks up his sleeve to be announced right before the elections, in the Budget Session of Parliament 2019!
indiarubberman.com 