Quota games: The race backwards

NEW DELHI: The joke is that if Jats and Marathas are backward, then may as well put Thakurs and Brahmins on the OBC list and end the farce. With Jats recently put on the central list of backward classes, the day is not far when Marathas and Jat-Sikhs too will be in queue for quotas in jobs and education.

It's a strange race where more and more communities, dominant in contemporary times, want to be categorized as backward castes or OBCs. The sole objective: Availing the 27% job quotas. Despite the clout of these resourceful groups, the weak-kneed political class has caved in to demands, fearing their wrath in the elections.

If UPA2 accorded Jats OBC status at its last cabinet meeting , it was after electoral calculations about how the decision would benefit the alliance. Days ago, the National Commission for Backward Classes had "rejected" the proposal, saying Jats were "not socially or educationally backward" .

Congress is not the first villain. The blame lies with former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee who promised the community backward status on an election trail in Rajasthan and fulfi lled the promise in 1999. The irony: Rajasthan's Jats were included in the central OBC list, but weren't considered backward in the state.

Now, with the sounding of theelectionbugle,wordhasleaked about how the Maharashtra government is ready to carve out job quotas for Marathas. Akali Dal began demanding OBC status for Punjab's ruling class — the Jat Sikhs.

The modus operandi is simple: Powerful groups demand backward status and up the ante around elections. Parties, wary of attracting their hostility, nod and begin seeing political wisdom in the demand . Finally, it's clinched.

In two decades of the Mandal Commission that instituted the central quotas for OBCs, the number of backward communities has swelled from 1,352 to 2,404 castes. The race for "backwardness" and a pliant political class have played havoc with the system designed to help those weaker groups that still suffer discrimination . Experts point to a dichotomy. The farming communities were "shudras" in the caste system. Post land reforms, they've achieved social and economic mobility to be rid of historical stigma, says Vivek Kumar, a sociologist with Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. "These communities shouldn't get quota benefits because most would fall in the creamy layer (economic status beyond which an OBC isn't eligible for quotas)," he argues.

The political expediency trap is messing up the tenuous social balance. The inclusion of Jats in the OBC list in 1999 triggered the Gujjar agitation. They insisted that they be put in the Scheduled Tribe list. The agrarian Gujjars lamented that resourceful and educated Jats had cornered quota benefits at their expense.

The Gujjar push was met with resistance from Meenas, a dominant ST community that loathed a competitor for its share of tribal quota, resulting in a bloodbath between the 'martial' groups that put the country on edge in 2007.

Many believe the open-ended process of identifying backwards provides the opening for "motivated" inclusions in the OBC list. The government can put a deadline to the process. "65 years of independence is enough to have found the backwards," an expert says.

While the political class has been quick to capitulate to demands , it has been reluctant to bite the bullet on "exclusion" - a purge of the OBC list of communities that have made progress with time. Section 11(1) of the NCBC Act that identifi es backwards , says the OBC list should be revised every 10 years.

The fear is that communities which have made progress and run the risk of exclusion are the ones with social and economic clout to scare the political class. Post the Jat decision, OBC activists and intellectuals lament that the endless inclusions in the backward category would render redundant the concept of reservations. Many see it as an upper caste conspiracy. That may not be far from the truth if reservations are not uncoupled with the interests of the political class and applied strictly for the purpose they were conceived.

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>>> It should be the poor individuals (living below or near the poverty line) making progress through Govt. help and not the entire communities getting Govt. help and benefits in education and jobs.