NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

The Rediff Interview/ Professor D L Sheth

'Extensions to more communities might well make the concept of reservations meaningless'

Professor D L Sheth, political sociologist and senior fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, was a member of the first National Backward Classes Commission, 1993-96, set up in the wake of the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations.

Even though he is a firm believer in the need for affirmative action to help those people whom history and society has denied equal opportunities, Professor Sheth is extremely upset at the cavalier manner in which politically dominant castes are seeking to be part of the "OBC bandwagon".

In an interview with Amberish K Diwanji, he spells out what appears to be going wrong and what should be done.

Let us start with what is happening to OBC reservations. Is it under threat?

I don't think it is under any kind of threat, either politically or legally. Today reservation is an established policy, accepted by all parties and has been renewed in Parliament. But what has happened is that there has been some indiscriminate intrusion of communities into the reserved categories. Such extensions to more communities might well make the concept of reservations meaningless, a bit like 100 per cent reservations for 100 per cent of the people! It is one way of making reservations totally absurd and meaningless.

Why has this been happening?

This has been happening because of electoral politics and the so-called politics of vote banks. So any community that has numerical strength and is conventionally backward but not really backward seeks reservation for itself. By conventional backwardness, I mean traditionally and by caste but in reality may not be that worse off as the economically and socially forward castes.

And that is what happened when the community of Jats both in Delhi and Rajasthan were included in the OBC list.

Is their inclusion objectionable?

The Jats of Rajasthan may be backward, I am not too sure. One name may cover many people across a vast area and among them, some people are backward while others are not. But certainly Delhi Jats are not backward, to me at least, and for several reasons.

First, Delhi is largely urban, offering better opportunities. Secondly, many of them have earned good money for their land as urbanisation spread, and this money in turn has helped them better their lives.

Thirdly, in this part Haryana and outer Delhi, there has been a strong movement of the Arya Samaj, which has really helped the Jats to overcome conditions of social backwardness.

And in many other ways, comparing their strength with other castes, one can say the Delhi Jats are not backward. They are politically powerful and they have numerical clout. There may be 20 to 30 per cent households that are backward but it does not apply to all of them. In fact, one can clearly say it is because of their political clout that they could get their names included in the OBC list in what is becoming competitive backwardness!

What all this does is to make the utility of reservations more and more problematic.

Is there no way that we can categorise who are OBC and who are not?

Firstly, the OBCs are very heterogeneous and there are no real criteria of what constitutes backward. Despite the efforts of Mandal and several commissions, there are no well laid rules about inclusion. But one vague understanding is that those who are non-dwija (dwija, literally twice born, the so-called forward castes), that is the Shudras are the other backwards, besides the scheduled castes and tribes.

Among the OBC, there are all types of problems. Some of them have improved their position with modernisation, with the green revolution, because of land reforms recently and because of British policy of ryotwari and land tenures earlier. All this contributed to the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of many Shudra castes, so much so that some have become the dominant castes in various states and regions of India.

Now such castes or communities -- Patidars in Gujarat, Kammas in Andhra Pradesh, Marathas in Maharashtra -- have never been included in the OBC lists, though they are still not considered as part of the dwija communities.

But within these castes, there are many differences and the broad consensus is that those who are socially and educationally backward should be given reservations. Now educationally backward is easy to understand and quantify. For instance, the number of graduates or matriculates from a caste, the number of children in school, how many dropouts, etc.

But socially backward is very difficult to quantify or judge. But the Mandal Commission listed certain conditions like the practice of child marriage or widow marriage, but it remains a problematic zone. Yet, overall, the understanding has been that people who have been discriminated against because of their low ritual status, and which in turn has led to their deprivation in society in terms to access education and other opportunities, deserve special help and action through policy. This is the only way we can create a truly egalitarian society.

NEXT:'Several communities who may have been backward once, taking advantage of such a policy, are not backward any longer'

The Rediff Interviews

Tell us what you think of this interview