Taking the reservation benefits further to the deprived

In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court last week permitted the states to subclassify the quota reserved for scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs).

In simple words, it is endorsement of the wisdom to identify layers of empowerment and deprivation within a category that has availed of reservation benefits for nearly eight decades.

It is also a belated recognition that omnibus reservation has not helped all communities within the broader categories of castes to ameliorate their lot in equal measure and there is a dire need to revisit the quota system and identify those who have benefited more than the others and those who still remain deprived.

A sub-classification of castes would etch to broad relief how the affirmative action policy could percolate to the layers of people it has failed to reach so far. It would also enable to exercise ingenuity in identifying sub-castes within the broader categories of castes and find out ways to apportion their due.

Reversing a former judgement from the same court, the seven-judge bench rejected the plea that SCs and STs are homogenous groups and recognized that there exist layers among them as degrees of discrimination varied between the communities grouped together within the broader SC and ST categories while the Constitution was being drafted.

The judgement would go a long way in ensuring that reservation benefits among the SCs and STs will not be monopolized by only those communities that are more advanced within these categories.

There have been conflicts between Malas and Madigas in states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana; between Thevars and Pallars in Tamil Nadu; and Valmikis and Majabis in Punjab complaining about most opportunities from within the reservation quota being cornered by more educated and economically better-off sections within them thereby depriving the worse-off section of any opportunity.

The inequality in drawing benefits of reservations had led to activists belonging to Madiga communities launching agitation urging sub-reservation for them as Malas were taking away the entire benefits. There have been similar such demands from other states too.

Significantly, Justice B. R. Gavai has also observed that creamy layer should be identified within the SCs and STs in order to take them out of the purview of reservation.

The suggestion is worthy of consideration. It is natural to ask as to why the offspring of an IAS officer, or for that matter, a minister or a governor be allowed to access the reservation benefit when his/her parents ascended to the top position merely by using the reservation ladder and do not any longer face the hassles and disadvantages that circumscribed his progress due to being born in a family placed at the lowest rung of the caste ladder.

There is merit in the argument. If reservation gets perpetuated generations after generation, it is all likely to create a power elite among the SCs and STs which will take away all the benefits, leaving the weaker helpless and in penury endlessly.

It is therefore fair to demand that those who have benefitted from the reservation policy once should pave the way for the deprived categorized within the SCs. Notably, at the argument stage, the Punjab Government representative had pointed out that currently 43 per cent of the SC communities hold 81 per cent of the posts reserved for the SC category.

The judgement by the apex court has now cleared the way for a fresh exercise to identify the more disadvantaged members among the groups that benefitted from the reservation policy heretofore. It will open new vistas for identification and empowerment of deprived sections for whom the reservation was just a promise so far.