White or grey?

By P. Radhakrishnan

THE TAMIL Nadu Government's White Paper on job reservation tabled in the Assembly by the Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, is not so much white as it is grey. Of the contentious issues which it has thrown up, albeit unwittingly, at least four merit consideration. One, despite the Supreme Court rulings of November 16, 1992, in what is known as the Mandal case limiting overall reservation (for the Scheduled Castes, SCs, Scheduled Tribes, STs, and other Backward Classes, OBCs or just BCs combined) to 50 per cent, and directing the elimination of the ``creamy layer'' from the listed BCs, Tamil Nadu persists with implementation of 69 per cent reservation and retention of the creamy layer for reservation benefits. Two, the Government's attempt to circumvent the rulings through the Tamil Nadu Reservation Act, passed by the Assembly in December 1993 under section 31(c) of the Constitution, the Presidential assent to it obtained in July 1994 under political pressure, and for political expediency, its inclusion in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution in August 1994 under Article 31B; and the challenging of the legality of both the Act and its inclusion in the Ninth Schedule as violative of the basic structure of the Constitution. Three, judicial ad hocism bordering on discrimination between the States, allowing them to get away with truancy, and dashing the hope held out by the nine-judge Bench constituted for the first time to finally settle the legal position on job reservation. Two illustrations should drive this home. The first, while staying the Karnataka Reservation Act the Supreme Court on November 11, 1994, frowned upon the calculated manner in which the Government went about making the law override Court orders, and asserted that the Court had already laid down the law on reservation which it wanted to be complied with by every authority; and a year later it directed that the State should continue to provide reservation to the extent of 50 per cent only in terms of the law laid down in the Mandal case. Though in trying to circumvent the rulings in the Mandal case Karnataka only followed Tamil Nadu's precedent, the Court did not or could not do to the latter what it did to the former. The second is, though the rulings in the Mandal case were mainly in the context of job reservation, the judiciary's interventions in Tamil Nadu have been in reservation of seats for professional education, by directing the State from time to time to create additional seats in the open category to offset the seats which those in this category might have lost as a result of the State's excessive reservation.

Four, the political opportunism which has made the Tamil Nadu Government's reservation policy lopsided, devoid of any genuine concern for the really needy and deserving. As this is precisely what the figures on job reservation given in the White Paper reveal, they need elaboration. Though the Tamil Nadu Government has been conducting census of its employees since 1978 only the fifth census conducted in 1992 has any data on reservation. This itself should mean that despite the long and specious history of reservation rhetoric deeply embedded in the State's politics of competitive populism, reservation has seldom been a central issue in the State's scheme of things.

Even in the case of the fifth census the data on reservation is of limited utility for a comparative understanding of the reservation scenario. For it gives the data separately only for A and B and not for C and D group jobs, and since the groups were decided on the basis of pay scales, it is not clear whether these are really comparable with those in the White Paper. All the same, a quick comparison should suffice to agitate the really backward and make them wonder if the State is really doing anything worthwhile for their social uplift.

As State Government employees alone accounted for 62 per cent in 1992 and 70 per cent in 1999, comparison of the figures for them alone should give a broad idea about reservation in the State. Thus of the total State Government employees the percentage of BCs, ranging from 61/55 to 55/46 in groups A+B and C+D in 1992/1999 was well above the 30 per cent reservation fixed for them; whereas the corresponding figures for the Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities (MBCs/DNCs), the lower strata of the BCs, though eligible for 20 per cent reservation, were 10/16 and 13/15. The representation of the SCs and the STs, though eligible for 18 per cent and 1 per cent reservation, was broadly similar to that of the MBCs and DNCs. That is, 9/13 and 20/18, and 1/0.4 and 1.5/1 respectively. The only redeeming feature of the data is that the representation of both these categories in C and D groups combined was close to the quota fixed for them.

Apart from the fact that the BCs are over-represented, in the absence of exclusion of the creamy layer from reservation benefits, it is only to be expected that a small number of BCs will continue to monopolise the reservation benefits. Relevant to note in this connection are two important finding. The first is by the first Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Commission of 1969 that in the late 1960s just nine out of the numerous castes listed as BCs accounting for only about 11 per cent of the total BC population had cornered much of the benefits. That is 37 per cent of the non-gazetted and 48 per cent of the gazetted posts, 44 per cent of the engineering and 47 per cent of the medical college seats, and 34 per cent of the scholarships. The second is derived from the report of the second Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Commission of 1982. Analysis of these data reveals that of the total BC students admitted to three professional courses, more than three-fourths were from a small number of the BCs (34 out of 222) accounting for only about two-fifths of the total BC population; of the total number of BC scholarships, the total amount of these scholarships and candidates of all grades selected by the Public Service Commission (PSC), about two-thirds again went to this relatively small number of BCs; even within this small number, just about one-third, accounting for about one-third of the total BC population, had cornered as much as two-thirds of the BC admissions to the professional courses and more than half of the scholarships, scholarship amounts, and BCs selected by the PSC.

If the over-representation of the BCs indicates, in an overall sense, that they as a category have already crossed the Rubicon, especially when seen in the light of the fact that of late they have been neck and neck with the forward communities (others, or open category) in the marks obtained for admission to the professional courses, the State is confronted with two choices: (a) to peg the reservation for BCs at a reasonable and realistic level, say, 20 per cent, so as to provide more scope for open competition, especially in the context of globalisation; and (b) excluding the creamy layer even from this reduced quota, so that only the really needy and really backward will depend on the State.

While these choices may be politically unpalatable, if the Supreme Court decides to strike down the Tamil Nadu Reservation Act of 1993, which is most likely, the Government will be compelled to reduce its overall reservation to 50 per cent, though it may then have the excuse that it has acted under coercion. In any case, if that happens, the quota for the MBCs/ DNCs will also have to be reduced. If the really backward among them, especially the numerically smaller groups, like washermen, barbers, and denotified communities many of whom are still in a nomadic state, have to benefit from this change, it will again be by adhering to the directive to eliminate the creamy layer. The under-representation of the MBCs/DNCs and the SCs-STs clearly shows that job reservation by itself does not ensure jobs to the reserved categories. What is equally and even more important is to equip them for the reserved jobs. This cannot be done by mere concession; for the nemesis of concession as R.H. Tawney said long ago, is death by dilution. Such a trend is already evident from Tamil Nadu's declining share in the higher echelon all-India services.

(The writer is Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai.)

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