The Hindu : Front Page : “Caste-based solution will create disharmony”

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Friday, Aug 10, 2007
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“Caste-based solution will create disharmony”

J. Venkatesan

New Delhi: Caste-based solution of providing reservation to Other Backward Classes will create disharmony in society, senior counsel Harish Salve argued in the Supreme Court on Thursday. A five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justices Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakker, R.V. Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari is hearing a batch of petitions assailing the provisions of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 providing for 27 per cent OBC quota and the 93rd Constitution Amendment law under which the OBC quota legislation was enacted.

Appearing for one of the petitioners, Mr. Salve assailed every provision and described the quota law as an unconstitutional one. He said that in the Indra Sawhney (Mandal) case the Supreme Court had directed the Government to identify the ‘creamy layer’ among the reserved communities.

“Even after 14 years, the Government don’t want to undertake that exercise. You don’t have any figure or data. If you don’t want to do that exercise then don’t create caste-based solution.”

Pointing out that not a single caste had been excluded from the purview of reservation in the last over 50 years, he said: “What the Government is attempting is we can’t exclude any one but we will include every one and thus broaden the base. Caste-based reservation had served its purpose for over 50 years. If you continue it further, it becomes a vested interest and you end up in going on increasing the base. What upsets harmony in society is a brazenly political measure masquerading as social justice without doing the basic exercise.”

Mr. Salve said “providing reservation in the garb of ‘special provision’ created under the law upsets the whole system. In a country where [a] majority of the people are poor, the Government using the ‘special provision’ has to break the cycle of poverty and distort the whole system. If [a] majority of the population were to get the benefit of reservation, it is a hoax and you can’t say it is a special provision. It is a shame in this country that we have to go back to the 1931 caste-based census for the data.”

Blaming the Government for deliberately not undertaking the exercise of identification of the ‘creamy layer,’ Mr. Salve said “the fear is it may throw up politically inconvenient results. The moment somebody is left out it results in disharmony. We all saw what happened recently in Rajasthan [when the Gujjar community resorted to agitation demanding their inclusion in the Scheduled Tribe list].”

He argued that providing quotas was not an award for the backward classes. “It is only an ameliorating measure. Across the board reservation of 27 per cent for the OBCs in all educational institutions in all courses falters at the altar of equality. This type of reservation is nothing but reverse discrimination.”

Mr. Salve quoted extensively from earlier judgments to drive home the point how perpetuation of the caste system would create vested interest and result in divisions in society. He contended that the quota law should be struck down and the court should lay down a proposition of law. Maintaining harmony in the country would be the duty of the Government. He will continue his arguments on August 14.

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