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The Constitution (Amendment) Bill which provides for 33 per cent of
reserved seats for women in the Legislatures has not been openly
opposed by any political party or group because everyone wants to
be branded as progressive by empowering the effectively
disenfranchised women of India. The only opposition to the Bill
has come from caste and community leaders who by joining the
bandwagon of reservations want that such reservations should be on
the basis of caste and religion of the women. Thus, these leaders
want the casteisation and communalisation of the Legislatures.
If one follows the yardsticks of the political class of the 1990s,
the makers of the Indian Constitution would be dubbed as social
reactionaries because they showed great caution in dealing with the
whole social project of affirmative action for safeguarding the
rights and interests of sections who were inheritors of
historically determined social discriminations. It is essential to
mention that the Constitution tried to reconcile many
irreconcilables by adopting a balanced middle path while dealing
with the complex and contradictory social realities.
If, on one hand, a bold experiment was launched by adopting the
principle of universal adult franchise, on the other, reservation
of seats in Legislatures was provided for the Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes. It was a powerful intervention by the
Constitution to empower the most underprivileged and discriminated
sections of Indian society. The authors of the Constitution did
not go berserk on the policy of reservation of seats in
Legislatures because they clearly rejected the demand for communal
representation. Not only this. The reservation of seats for the
Scheduled Castes, Tribes and for Anglo-Indians was only for a
temporary period and it was to be reviewed after ten years of the
commencement of the Constitution.
By various amendments of the Constitution, especially the
Constitution (Forty-fifth Amendment) Act of 1980 and the
Constitution (Sixty-second Amendment) Act of 1989, it is proposed
to extend it up to 2000 AD only. This cautious attitude of the
Founders of the Indian Republic is also clearly reflected in
adopting a policy of reservation of seats in public services for
the deprived strata of society. If, on one hand, every citizen was
guaranteed equality of opportunity, on the other, reservation of
seats for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was provided to
take care of the inherited social disabilities of sections of
society who were to be protected against the unregulated principle
of abstract equality.
Further, even these reservations in public services were to be
consistent with "the maintenance of efficiency of administration."
Many a time, the Supreme Court has applied correctives in reminding
the policy makers about the limits of the policy of reservations in
public services. The Supreme Court in 1951 in the Venkataramana V.
State of Madras case held that a person could not be kept out of
public services because he was a Brahmin or again in the Balaji V.
State of Mysore case in 1963, observed that reservations made
"under Article 16(4) beyond the permissible and legitimate limits
would be liable to be challenged as a fraud on the Constitution."
When Mr V. P. Singh, a self-appointed messiah of social justice,
found the recommendations made by Mandal Commission on reservations
as a profitable political commodity, he created a stir by suddenly
announcing the acceptance of the Mandal report on August 7, 1990.
This raw politics of reservations was played by Mr V. P. Singh and
others without any holds barred and the Supreme Court again
intervened to tell the adventurist political class that
reservations in services cannot go beyond 50 per cent and that the
policy of reservations in public services shall exclude the "creamy
layers" of the reserved social categories.
By abandoning the note of caution administered by the Constitution,
the new messiahs of reservations in Legislatures and public
services have completely fragmented and factionalised the already
divided society. Politics is not just a mirror reflection of
social reality. It is equally concerned with changing the
inherited social categories and identities. The political class by
following a reckless policy of reservations has encouraged social
antagonisms based on caste versus caste, sub-caste versus sub-caste
and now it is wanting to bring this division among the women in
India.
India has inherited a very complex caste system, but the policy of
reservations has solidified 04 institutionalised caste divisions
and caste identities. Politics of reservations generates and
stimulates caste, community and gender consciousness and every
group in India is involved in targeting the other group as villain
of the piece. Social deprivations are not attributed to the
Himalayan failures of the economic path of development followed by
the country. The political class does not want to become a target
of the deprived people and by following a policy of reservations,
politicians have successfully created a situation where different
social groups are targeting each other for their deprivations.
The journey of casteism began with Forward Castes versus Backward
Castes and it has reached a stage where every sub-caste is against
every other sub-caste. Tamil Nadu has witnessed violence by
backward castes against the Scheduled Castes and the rural
population of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is actually involved in a
violent caste war. Has the policy of reservations brought social
justice for the really deprived groups in society? The answer to
this question is a Big No.
If the unending system of reservations has promoted serious social
cleavages, it has also displaced from public controversy the
serious agenda of economic growth with justice. While Mr Mulayam
Singh Yadav, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mr Kanshi Ram, Miss Mayawati
and future women representatives in the State Legislatures have
created assured social and sectarian constituencies for winning an
election, they have completely failed to evolve socio-economic
programmes for the real empowerment of the Dalits. Mr Laloo Prasad
Yadav is electorally invincible because of the electoral support of
Muslims and Yadavs of Bihar, but the landless agricultural workers
of Bihar have to migrate in distress to search for their livelihood
to Haryana and Punjab. All political factions which are
masquerading as champions of the Dalits have not undertaken a
single real step which can empower people living below the poverty
line.
The Constitution favoured limited reservations because it was
believed that gradually the need for reservations will not be felt
because the successful implementation of the programmes of
socio-economic development will create new opportunities for the
development of the whole of India. Not only has India badly messed
up its developmental agenda, the self-appointed guardians of caste,
community and gender reservations do not have any agenda for the
social and economic development of the country. Mr Laloo Prasad
Yadav, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mr Kanshi Ram, Miss Mayawati, who
are the product of casteisation of Indian politics, have failed to
pull out their states from the existing stage of poverty and
underdevelopment.
The politics of Forward Caste versus Backward Caste, or Hindu
versus Muslim or Male versus Female has succeeded not only in
dividing the society, it has legitimised the idea of politics for
the sake of power alone. The believers in the policy of
reservations have reduced social justice to a meaningless slogan.
The unfinished task of land reforms has not been implemented by the
practitioners of social justice and the landless agricultural
workers have not escaped from the continuing tyrannies of the
landowning castes.
Every political party has become a victim of the aimless politics
of reservations. The Communist Parties resisted and very
reluctantly fell in line with Mr V. P. Singh's politics of Mandal.
'Re BJP's Hindutva has no answer to the politics of caste versus
caste among the so-called Hindus whom the BJP claims to represent.
The growing decline and decay of the Congress can be attributed to
its failure to respond to sectarian politics of the votaries of
reservations. Fragmented society has also fragmented politics.
Since the 1990s the Central Government has become weak, unstable
and vulnerable to domestic and foreign pressures because the
electoral verdict is fragmented.
The upshot is that the policies of reservations are mere rhetoric
because the real flesh and blood of empowerment and social justice
is conspicuous by its absence in the agenda of the champions of
reservations. This policy is socially disastrous because it has
generated the feelings of social distancing. The political parties
which emerged as champions of reservations have failed to provide
stable governments because the electoral verdict has been
fragmented as a result of sectional reservations. There is no
evidence that political empowerment of Dalits has brought any
change in the life of the Dalits. Similarly, political empowerment
of women will not bring any benefit to the landless agricultural
women of India.
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