Caste-Census – Reservations & Merit

The Congress Party and other Lohiaite opposition parties like the RJD, the Samajwadi party (and the JDU, though it is in coalition with the Central Government) have been insisting on Caste-Census and using the demand as a stick to beat the ruling BJP with. They have ensured that it gained traction among the public, causing some kind of schism in the Hindu society for garnering votes from among Hindus, as they have already mustered the strength of minorities. That is the opposition’s calculation. The Government of India’s sudden and stunning announcement of a schedule for conducting the much-delayed national census along with a recently cleared proposal for caste-enumeration baffled the opposition. According to the GOI, formal census operation will  kick off soon, making March 1, 2027 the freeze-frame date i.e. a child born after this date will not be counted. Now, the opposition, in particular the Congress Party, has been defanged and is bereft of any potent issue to gather votes among the weaker sections of society in the coming Bihar election and has also been deprived of a strategic issue to daily confront the ruling BJP. In its wisdom, the Congress leadership thought Caste-census would get them an electoral dividend. But it slipped out of hand as a result of the BJP’s smart play.  

As the caste-census is not an issue any more, suddenly, Tejasvi Yadav (the heir apparent of Lalu Yadav) started shooting darts by saying: “The NDA’s reluctance to conduct a nationwide caste census in the spirit demanded by Opposition parties like us is rooted in a combination of political, ideological, and electoral calculations.” Tejasvi Yadav wrote an article in a national newspaper that went viral among the progressives. He has no qualms in castigating the judiciary, when he wrote that “50% ceiling on reservations imposed by the judiciary is artificial and unscientific”. He met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to demand an increase in state reservation quota to 85% and to include enhanced quotas in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution (this schedule gives immunity from judicial reach). If it was not done by the government, that would expose, according to Mr Yadav the latter’s ‘…hypocrisy on social justice issues…hostile attitude towards the poor, the oppressed and the marginalised’. This brings back to mind the late Justice Krishna Iyer’s warning on reservations that says, “The remedy of ‘reservations’ to correct inherited imbalances must not be an overkill”.

The ruling Congress party in Telangana and Karnataka, going by the dictates of their high command, conducted caste-surveys (only the Centre is empowered to carry out a caste-census, states can only go for caste-surveys). But they could not put up proper figures for each community. Karnataka decided to go for a redo. Again this requires spending a huge sum of money. In Telangana the BCs were miffed by the estimates showing their percentages to be undercounted. State BJP leaders also objected to the inclusion of Muslims as BCs. The state government is mulling some corrections. In this scenario, the Union government’s digital census in 2027, where online self-enumeration, mobile applications for enumerators, and real-time monitoring tools, will help in assessing correct data with no scope for missing figures.

Reservation quota increase – Merit impairment

 In India, generally we equate merit with the number of marks obtained in the final examinations. This is because we have no other way to assess it. This evaluation is  questionable. Those students belonging to more privileged sections of the society can get quality education in good schools. If they lag behind, they can make up for their loss by  private tuition and tutorials. The backward classes that study in not-so-good schools get poor quality teaching and would have no means to make up for the disadvantage.  Reservations under the Mandal Commission Report brought about an uplift of many backward classes. However, the Mandal 2.0 of Rahul Gandhi and Tejasvi Yadav has no such sheen. These sterile ‘reservations’ will not help the nation progress as long as the chronic drought of employment opportunities persists. The solution to all these problems is faster growth. For social justice, increasing the reservation quota above than 50 percent, (which negates the fundamental principle of “equality” enshrined in the Constitution) is not the answer. The earlier quoted Justice Krishna Iyer pointed out, “The dubious obsession with ‘backwardness’ and politicking with caste, labelled backward classes may, on an appropriate occasion, demand judicial examination. The politics of power cannot sabotage the principles of one man, one value”.

The population census of 2027 is not for caste-census alone. That is only one of the components. It is for delimitation purposes and to set a women’s quota in parliament, all in all for a positive change in India’s politics, if it goes well.