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Look beyond Mandal Anil Nauriya [ 19 Dec, 2006 ]
With Parliament having passed reservations for OBCs in institutions of higher e
ducation, attention has been focused on the creamy layer issue. But there are mo
re serious issues of reservation policy that require consideration. Though I had
supported V P Singh's initiative for OBC reservation in public employment at th
e Centre, I had argued at the time that the composite arpuri Thakur ( T) formul
a, then already in force in Bihar, was more appropriate than the Mandal-V P Sing
h (MVP) scheme. T was philosophically and ideologically superior and more pract
ical. T provided 20 per cent caste-based reservation with the remaining 7 per c
ent being subdivided on economic and gender criteria. MVP based the entire 27 pe
r cent OBC reservation on caste identification. Appreciating the difference may
still help prevent errors from being replicated. First, as the MVP exercise was
projected in the context of empowerment it was crucial that OBC reservation did
not become imbalanced in relation to SC/ST reservations. The latter had traditio
nally stood in the region of 22.5 per cent. MVP tilted the scale although the in
termediate castes, comprising the OBC population, are often most in conflict on
agrarian issues with the SC and ST population. T reflected a more measured appr
oach. Second, T had greater acceptability as a cross-section of society had som
e stake in it, howsoever marginal. MVP on the other hand drew a line through soc
iety. Third, once caste became virtually the sole criterion for determination of
backwardness under MVP, it complicated the jurisprudence on religious hate camp
aigns in politics and elections. Not that caste was not used as a criterion or a
n organising principle earlier. But when caste was sought to be essentialised ac
ross the board, as in MVP, political defences against sectarianisation of politi
cs also became weaker. This was reflected both among the people at large and in
institutions. The Supreme Court in the Mandal case (1992) broadly upheld MVP, bu
t ignored the T approach, presumably because its attention was not specifically
drawn to it by either side in the controversy. Some features of that judgment,
specifically the disregard of economic criteria even as one of many independent
criteria for identifying social backwardness, created difficulties for the conti
nued operation of the composite T approach in Bihar itself. The pendulum had sw
ung from the days when caste was treated as one of the factors contributing to b
ackwardness, whether general, social or educational. The social and the economic
causes were now treated in the judicial and political discourse as though there
was a wall between them. Whenever the importance of economic factors in identif
ying social backwardness was mentioned, attention would be diverted to the Manda
l commission having utilised economic, among other, criteria for the purpose of
identifying backward castes. On the other hand, T correctly recognised the need
for including as a backward class certain categories of people identified on pu
rely economic and gender criteria. Fourth, T implicitly recognised that as one
moves higher on the scale of groups demanding reservation, it is not necessary t
hat reservation be based on the proportion that the group bears to the total pop
ulation. Thus if the SC reservation was fixed in relation to the demographic pro
portion of these communities, it was not essential that the intermediate castes
must also have reservation in accordance with their population. Being better pla
ced than the SCs, they do not require an equal degree of encouragement. A positi
ve feature of the Mandal judgment was that it had kept OBC reservation open to o
thers belonging to comparable occupational categories. The court had referred to
Muslims in arnataka and erala and to some Christians in erala. This aperture
, transcending strict caste criteria, avoids specifying preference for any singl
e religion. The Sachar recommendations could be usefully adjusted as reservation
s for backward classes from religious minorities. The overlooking of the more op
en-ended principles underlying T may take time fully to rectify.
[The writer is a Supreme Court advocate. ]