The reservation debate
SURESH NAMBATH
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Analysis of facts, figures, statements and judgments on reservation
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FALLING OVER BACKWARDS — An Essay on Reservations and on Judicial Populism: Arun Shourie; Rupa & Co., 7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 495.
Methodical research rarely lends itself to passionate writing. But in Falling Over Backwards: An essay on Reservations and on Judicial Populism, Arun Shourie seeks to combine facts, figures, statements and judgments with the argumentative rhetoric of a propagandist. The result is an eminently readable book with more than its share of logical inconsistencies.
Thorny issue
Reservation in education and jobs has always been a contentious issue. No one sees it as a perfect solution to the social inequities of the country. For this reason, persuasive arguments for and against reservation are aplenty. Shourie, of course, chooses to argue for only one side: the anti-reservation lobby. There is no weighing of the pros and cons of the reservation policy; instead, the book relentlessly seeks to discredit pro-reservationists of all hues.
Although Shourie begins the book by attacking the pro-reservation judgments of the Supreme Court, elsewhere in the book he relies on the observations of the Supreme Court against reservation to debunk governments and policymakers pushing for reservation. The authority of the Supreme Court is invoked wherever convenient, and especially against the political class.
"Progressives" and "secularists" are dirty words in the hands of Shourie. After pointing to a casteist defence of reservation, Shourie clubs together all those who defend reservation. The "progressives" and "secularists" are damned for their support for reservation merely because some virulent casteists too support reservation. The political purpose seems to be much larger: to denounce all that the "progressives" and "secularists" stand for. Reservation is seen as only one thorny issue in the public discourse dominated by "progressives".
For Shourie, all arguments against the pro-reservationists are good arguments, even if some of them make contradictory points. At one point, Shourie approvingly quotes Sardar Patel informing the Constituent Assembly how he had urged Sikh members "not to lower their religion" merely to obtain for their community the benefits of reservation extended to Hindu Scheduled Castes. In another place, however, he deplores the British for instilling in the Sikhs a feeling of separateness from the Hindus through the Census and Army ceremonies.
Caste politics
As Shourie argues, "Politics congeals around whatever criterion is selected for State policy and programmes; interests get vested around it; relations of power, of patronage solidify around that criterion." No doubt, caste politics draws sustenance from reservation benefits extended to certain groups. But this cannot be used to deny the reality of caste-based social inequities. The much-derided political class is first shown as having a vested interest in perpetuating reservation, and this is then served up as an argument against reservation per se.
The behaviour of caste groups is sometimes influenced by reservation benefits. Caste groups surveyed by the 1931 Census (in the pre-reservation era) claimed for themselves a higher status within Hinduism. He points to what the Census recorded: "Every Hindu who claims to be a Hindu at all would claim to be either Brahman or Kshatriya." The book details how Census officials reported that caste groups that were thought to be lower down in the social ladder abandoned customs and practices associated with their caste. Thus those claiming to be of a higher caste renounced eating beef, gave up liquor, and refused to do certain kinds of labour. Interestingly, they also gave up widow remarriage and adopted the purdah, both retrograde, by way of aping upper caste customs. But with reservation came the clamour from different caste groups for being included in one or the other reserved category.
Contradictions
Originally, all caste groups thought of themselves as highborn, though this did not necessarily result in respectful treatment by other groups. Thus, the difficulty in enumeration of castes was real, but such enumeration was, as the author writes, essential for distribution of reservation benefits.
Shourie devotes a lot of pages to expose the contradictions in the Mandal Commission report that recommended reservation for the Other Backward Classes. Besides questioning the very rationale behind the definition of OBCs, the author also draws attention to the success of students from these sections in admission to medical colleges to argue that the reservationists have overcome their handicaps. Thus in one place the argument is against reservation itself, and in another it is that reservation has already achieved the desired goal. The book thus hits out at pro-reservationists in different directions. The aim, as Shourie says, is to liberate discourse from cowardice, to point to the "truth about reservations: that they are a sleight of hand of the politician." Whether this would have been better served by cold logic rather than passionate writing is the point of debate.
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