HVK Archives: Classes clash over quotas in India
Classes clash over quotas in India - The Washington Post
Kenneth J. Cooper (Washington Post Foreign Service)
()
18 July 1997
Title: Classes clash over quotas in India
Author: Kenneth J. Cooper (Washington Post Foreign Service)
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: July 18, 1997
Laws meant to favor lowest castes now aid well-off applicants
The first time A.T. Shibu filled out a job application form that asked
which caste he belonged to, he did not know where to place himself in the
traditional Hindu hierarchy defining religious purity, social status and
occupation. He had to ask his parents.
Shibu discovered that he belongs to what India considers a "backward caste,
and this heritage gave him an advantage in the heavy competition for
government job here in the palm-fringed capital of Kerala state. Despite
being a middle-class college graduate with a master's degree who says he
has "never experienced or witnessed" caste discrimination, Shibu, 27, has
joined millions of beneficiaries of the world's oldest system of
affirmative action, which grants quotas or "reservations" of prized
government jobs to India's lower castes.
Shibu was given a job as a government clerk on the basis of his caste and
his score on a civil service exam, but now he says he believes the time has
come when caste alone should not determine who benefits from job quotas.
"When you are financially well-off, I don't think you should be needing
this," Shibu said.
The system of preferences is one if independent India's defining
institution, enshrined in the nation's 1950 constitution in an attempt to
erase inequalities fostered by the centuries-old caste system. But the
Supreme Court and many upper-caste Hindus now argue that many "backward"
castes have made such gains that most quotas should now be based on
economic need rather than caste.
Such a change, ordered by the Supreme Court in 1992 but still being
implemented ion some parts of India, has been opposed by lower-caste
activists and their allies, who maintain that the gains thus far have not
been sufficient to sustain progress or erase upper-caste dominance in top
government posts.
The controversy parallels an ongoing debate in the United States over
race-based affirmative action, which many conservatives contend should be
abolished or at least exclude minority group members who have risen to the
middle class and beyond.
The questions swirling around India's debate echo those being posed in the
United States: How long does it take for disadvantaged groups to advance?
What role does targeted employment play? What other approaches help? How
serious is the impact on other groups?
300 Years of Bias
In India, while there are few comprehensive studies, researchers have
concluded that affirmative action has diversified a growing middle class,
estimated to include 200 million of India's 950 million people.
"It has changed the character and composition of India's middle class in
the last 50 years," said Dhirubhai Sheth, who has written extensively about
the nation's quotas. "Before, it was entirely upper caste. Now about 20 to
25 percent are from lower castes.
Viewed in broader terms, however, the overall impact of job quotas has been
limited. Researchers have estimated that no more than 10 percent - and
perhaps only 2 percent of lower-caste individuals have benefited directly
from job quotas. The top echelons of the national administration are still
dominated by an upper-caste minority. No outcaste, dalit, formerly called
"untouchable," has ever directed on of the most important ministries.
Bias against India's lower castes goes back 3,000 years, and remedial
measures have been stronger here than those designed to attack racial
discrimination in the United States, resembling the kind of rigid quotas
that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional.
By religious tradition, every Hindu is ranked at birth as a member of one
of four broad castes - with Brahmans at the top - or as outcastes, formerly
untouchables, who were considered irredeemably "polluted". A further
subdivision into 2,200 sub-castes, each deemed to have a traditional
occupation, makes upward mobility virtually impossible for individuals at
the bottom.
Three years after independence, India authorized quotas across the new
nation in its 1950 constitution. Kerala and other southern states, where
quotas were instituted a century ago during British colonial rule, have
even longer experience trying to wipe out social inequality.
In some ways, India's job reservations differ from quotas in the American
sense: They are not proportional to every lower caste's percentage of the
population, do not set maximum levels of employment and do not apply to the
private sector. But the government has been the traditional source of
relatively high-in-come jobs, status and security in India, where the
public sector is by far the country's largest employer.
Reservations are proportional for only two group-former untouchables and
indigenous tribes, who together comprise about 22.5 percent of the
population. In 1993, the last year for which statistics were complied,
those groups held 1.4 million of 6 million jobs in the central government.
Climbing the caste ladder
The effect of job quotas has been uneven across India's many distinct
regions. In the rural north, where caste prejudices persist, implementation
has been weak, sabotaged by upper-castes officials. But some power castes
in southern India have risen after several generations of job quotas, and
the advancement of Shibu's caste - called Ezhavas - rates among the most
dramatic results of efforts to compensate for India's long history of
caste-based discrimination.
At the turn of the century in Kerala, Ezhavas (pronounced IR-uhvahs) were a
despised people, not to be touched or even seen by upper-caste Hindus.
Ezhava men and women were forced to go bare-chested outdoors so that
upper-caste passersby could recognized them quickly, avoid looking at them
and avoid being spiritually polluted just by the sight of a people whose
main traditional occupation was production of palm fruit liquor.
The Ezhavas since have climbed one rung on the caste ladder - from outcaste
to backward - and have become about as socio-economically diverse as any of
India's castes. Many have taken jobs as civil servants, health
professionals, farm workers, and artisans. Others, building on their
traditional caste occupation, have proposed as liquor distributors; one
owns the best hotel in Trivandrum. Another has served as the state's chief
minister, the equivalent of an American governor.
The Ezhavas are among 10 groups that together are allocated half of
Kerala's government jobs. The caste, which accounts for about quarter of
Kerala's 30 million people, holds 17 percent of approximately 500,000 state
government jobs, more than the 14 percent quota set by the state.
The Ezhavas have done so well, in fact, that upper-caste critics argue that
most Ezhavas should no longer benefit from job quotas. A commission
appointed to settle the issue has submitted a confidential report to the
Supreme Court recommending that quotas for Ezhavas and Kerala's other
backward castes be limited on the basis of income and assets - thereby
excluding what the court has labeled the prosperous "creamy layer" of
Ezhavas and other backward communities.
Over coffee and ice cream at an Ezhava-owned hotel in Trivandrum college
students expressed unanimous support for economic tests for quotas. The
students, all of whose parents are highly accomplished, said they had never
experienced discrimination - snickering at a foreigner's questions about
the subject - and dismissed the caste system as an irrelevant relic of a
distant past.
N. Anand, an Ezhava whose late father was an entrepreneur, said most
Ezhavas have become "very economically independent people. They've had the
benefit. Now they should stop this thing."
Many working-class Ezhavas who still prize government jobs - and would
benefit from income-based yardsticks-likewise favor excluding the more
affluent.
Gopidas, a security guard, said he wanted his two teenagers "to be employed
in government, even if it's at the grade of a peon....... It there are
reservations, the people who are getting the employment are people having
money and influence. That is unfair."
To protest the proposed change in economic criteria outlined in the
confidential report - which has yet to be accepted by the Supreme Court and
would have to be enacted by the state government - the caste's activists
called a general strike earlier this year that virtually shut down Kerala.
In addition, because most of Kerala's residents belong to backward castes,
state officials have resisted the Supreme Court's 1992 order to exclude
prosperous individuals from job quotas. The legislature even passed a
resolution denying a "creamy layer" existed in the state.
The Ezhava improvement association has concurred. "I am cream, but there is
no layer," said Natesan, a wealthy contractor who leads the group.
Although there is disagreement about quotas and how much they have helped
Ezhavas, it is clear that other factors have contributed to the group's
upward mobility: civil rights activity, political empowerment and self-help
- most notably through a network of 24 schools and 20 colleges that a caste
improvement association has built since early this century.
Despite having come a long way, Ezhavas still have not come close to
rivaling the state's traditionally dominant castes. The upper-caste Nairs,
in particular, remain relatively more prosperous. Nair families dominate
the best neighborhoods near the centre of Trivandrum, a city of about
800,000, which most Ezhavas live in scattered communities on the outskirts.
R. Prasannan, and Ezhava who served as the top administrator of Kerala's
legislature after receiving a law degree from Yale University in 1963,
acknowledged that most caste discrimination had already faded away when he
was growing up in the 1940s. But he has opposed economic tests for job
quotas, saying the change would stop disadvantaged groups from solidifying
their economic gains. "I'm not saying we should perpetuate the whole thing
forever. Maybe it will take another 10 or 15 years."
While the quotas have provoked an upper-caste backlash, the caste's
economic advances do not appear to have come at the expense of other social
groups. Ezhavas have come a long way since they were first granted job
quotas in 1915, but not far enough to surpass the state's traditionally
dominant castes.
(Special correspondent Rama Lakshmi contributed to this report)
INDIA'S CASTE SYSTEM
A system of preferences for civil service jobs is one of India's defining
institutions aimed at empowering groups that have historically faced
discrimination. But now, India's supreme court as well as many upper-caste
Hindus argue lower-caste people have made so much progress that highly
desirable government jobs should be awarded according to merit and economic
need.
History of India's quotas
Before Independence:
1895: Mysore is southern India reserves certain government jobs for
"backward" castes, the first quotas recorded in India.
1915: Travancore, a former princely state, in what is now southern Kerala
state, reserves jobs for the "untouchable" Ezhavas and other disadvantaged
groups.
1942: The British colonial administration imposes a 8.5% quota for
"depressed classes."
1946: Quotas are increased to 12.5% corresponding to the proportion of
population.
After Independence:
12% of government jobs are reserved for former untouchables and 5% for
indigenous tribal people. Quotas for both groups are incorporated into the
1950 constitution.
1984: Lower court rejects quotas for poor members of upper castes. It holds
that some Brahmans, members of Hinduism's highest caste, may be poor, but
cannot be socially and educationally backward.
1992: Landmark judgment by supreme court orders 27% quota for the socially
and educationally backward, but excludes the more prosperous people. The
court also caps overall quotas for disadvantaged groups, more than 70% of
the population, at 50%
(Compiled by special correspondent Rama Lakshmi)
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