Here I would deeply look at the issue of caste based reservation in education and Job opportunities in India by trying to answer the question “Who defines the Nation?” or “Who gets to define the Nation?” .When the State and Nation are largely in agreement, the role of state in defining the nation is phenomenal. In such cases civil society takes up the comparatively minor role of critiquing the state and pressurizing for improved efficiency in the functioning of the state. This is the case with regard to the post independence India. The four agencies of the state that largely contribute and influence each other in defining the nation are legislative, executive, judiciary and the free media. Today when the world economy is largely based on the capitalist principles, the influence of the private enterprises and their role in defining the nation has also become very significant. Along with this the emergence of science and technology as a part and parcel of everyone’s life has led to the dominance of scientific principles and philosophy in the social science research. Present day policies are guided by the empirical evidence and research with these underlying epistemology. The free media largely draws upon the ethos of the research community. Hence the research community too is a major player in defining the nation.
So the answer for “Who defines the nation?” can be broadly as follows
- Legislative
- Executive
- Judiciary
- Media
- Research Community and
- Private Business Enterprises.
Within these broad categories we can further ask the question “Who gets to define the Nation?. For this we have to look for the centres of power within these broad categories. It is these centres of power not just the mere number of representatives that determine the imagination of nation. I have attempted to identify these centres of power though it is purely based on my discretion. I eagerly welcome suggestions, comments or criticism regarding my choice of centres of power.
Centres of Power in Legislature
Let us have a look at the caste profile of the ministers in the present government with Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister for instance. Here in the table below, the caste profile of the ministers is given in decreasing order of the power or authority. First the cabinet ministers then the minister of state with independent charge, at last the minister of state without independent charge. It is obvious from the numbers that upper caste dominate the centres of power. At the apex of the cabinet ministry the divide between upper caste and lower caste is huge while it decreases as we move down vertically within this entity. Taking the average of both mandal commission report and NSSO the population of OBC is around 46.5% of the total. As per the 2011 census the population of SC is 16.6% and ST is 8.6% of the total population. So the remaining 28.3% of the population includes the upper caste and others. In a democratic nation it is expected to have a fair representation of individuals in the legislature proportionate to their population. Even though there is reservation of seats in the legislature for SC and ST, it turns out that the majority of key decision making positions are in the hands of the upper caste.
Total
|
Upper Caste
|
OBC
|
SC
|
ST
| |
Cabinet Members
|
24
|
12
(50%)
|
5
(20.83%)
|
2
(8.3%)
|
1
(4%)
|
Minister of State With Independent Charge
|
10
|
5
(50%)
|
4
(40%)
|
0
|
1
(10%)
|
Minister of State without Independent Charge
|
12
|
3
(25%)
|
4
(33.33%)
|
1
(8.33%)
|
4
(33.33%)
|
Total
|
46
|
20
(43.47%)
|
13
(28.26%)
|
3
(6.52%)
|
6
(13.04%)
|
Centres of power in Executive
Centres of power in the descending order in the executive category is secretary level, additional secretary level, Joint secretary and director. As of March 2011, according to a reply given by the MoS in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy the representation of SC and ST in the executive is as given in the table below.
SC
|
ST
| ||
Total
|
15%
Quota reserved during appointment
|
7.5%
Quota reserved during appointment
| |
Secretary
|
149
|
0
|
4
(2.68%)
|
Additional Secretary
|
108
|
2
(1.85%)
|
2
(1.85%)
|
Joint Secretary
|
477
|
31
(6.5%)
|
15
(3.1%)
|
Directors
|
590
|
17
(2.9%)
|
7
(1.2%)
|
While the quota reserved for the appointment of SC and ST in the executive category is 15% and 7.5% respectively, the number of SC and ST who turn out to hold the key decision making positions is negligible as given above.
Centre of Power in Judiciary:
Here I would quote Sharad Yadav of JD(U), a prominent political party in India.
“In the 68 years of Independence, there have been 52 Chief Justices of India but there was none from backward class, only two were from Scheduled Castes and one from Scheduled Tribe, besides five from Muslim category”. He also said these categories were neglected to the extent that out of 145 former judges of Supreme Court, there was none from BC, SC or ST categories while the number of Muslims was 9.
Given the fact that even after having reservation quota in the appointment of the executives and in the selection for the legislature, the number of BC, SC and ST’s holding the key decision making positions in both the categories is very low as we have seen earlier. It would not be a difficult task to imagine the state of affairs in the case of judiciary given that there is no reservation for appointment of Judges in High courts and Supreme court of this Nation.
The same holds good for the defense sector too. Though the defense sector is supposed to run according to the orders of the legislature the huge defense community can’t be taken for granted as a neutral spectator with regard to the social issues. By and large assuming that it is inherently unbiased with regard to the religion, caste, language and region is questionable. The role it might play in cases of critical social unrest within the nation is something that has to be explored with greater urgency.
Media as a centre of power:
The National media has played a proactive role in the anti reservation campaign both during the implementation of the mandal commission report and the recent implementation of reservation in admission in the central universities for OBCs. The national media has always been an elitist in nature. It hardly the covers the issues of the rural and backward classes. This bias is also because of the audience that it caters to. The audience for the national media is mostly urban and elitist in nature. The survey to identify the caste profiles of the top journalists in the national media brings out interesting insights. As per the survey “Of more than 300 senior journalists in 37 Hindi and English newspapers and television channels in the capital has found that "Hindu upper caste men" who form eight per cent of the country's population hold 71 per cent of the top jobs in the national media. Women, non-upper castes, and Muslims are grossly under-represented in relation to their share in the population.”
The Same survey says that there is not a single person in the top 300 journalists who is dalit or ST. And out of 315 key decision makers in the national media none are from SC or ST. In english print media OBCs account for just one percent of the top jobs while in hindi print media they account for around eight percent.
National Media is very influential in framing the views and outlooks of the urban elite and middle class on various social issues. Its contribution in defining the nation is also immense but given the fact that it shapes and upholds the perceptions of very few elites and is completely indifferent to the issues of rural and backward section of the population makes it the powerful agency in promoting social disharmony and unrest within the civil society.
Research Community as a centre of power:
As per the report of the working group on higher education for the XII five year plan, at doctoral level the enrolment share of SC and ST is 11% and 4% respectively at all India level. Another report states that at doctoral level the dropout rate is around 50%. Based on this it can be assumed that SC and ST form the negligible part of the larger research community which is again dominated by the upper castes. Social Science research dominated by the particular section of the population lends the whole research to be biased with regard to the way it looks at the social issues affecting backward section of the society.
Privately owned enterprises as a centre of power:
As per the working paper on Caste and Entrepreneurship by the faculty of Harvard Business School and Brown University, the statistics with respect to the percentage of privately owned enterprises by different sections of the population in India is as given below
It can be seen that the share of enterprise ownership is very less in the case of SC and ST. With regard to OBC, overall it is slightly less than the general category. The net market worth of these privately owned enterprises under different section of the population would further help us in assessing the actual financial clout of each section. Assuming that the net worth of privately owned enterprises in urban areas is significantly higher than the ones in rural areas it is easy to see the dominance of General category.
In a capitalist economy private enterprises with enormous financial clout influence the policy decisions and the media behaviour and hence play a significant role in defining nation.
It is a well known fact that all these centres of power work in collaboration with each other in a very subtle manner while outwardly exhibiting some friction amongst themselves. It is now easy to see who defines the nation and who gets to define the nation. With the clarity that it is the upper castes who define the nation I will now focus on the question “Whose purpose does their definition of nation serve?”.
What are salient features of the nation as defined by the upper caste?
Muslims, Dalits and Tribes consider their religious or caste identity as their primary identity whereas the national identity comes second to them.
Equality of opportunity holds that opportunities should be solely based on merit. Merit is an indicator of quality and capability. Nation can only prosper with due credit to the merit.
Reservation in admissions and job opportunities will further strengthen the caste and religious identity while undermining the national identity.
Perpetual Continuation of Reservation is an outcome of vote bank politics. It has no sanctity like any other social welfare programmes. Reservation in promotion will bring down the quality and efficiency of the administration and de-motivates the other candidates.
Extent of Reservation for OBC is based on the dubious assumptions on 1931 census data.
It is the vote bank politics that is withholding the caste based census needed for effective implementation of the reservation.
Reservation is dividing the nation on the lines of caste.
Reservation is only needed when the resources or opportunities are
scarce. Abundance in opportunities and resources can by itself bring down the inequality and injustice in the society.
All the above arguments creep in along with other things that define the nation.
My question for all the above arguments is who is responsible for the continuing inequalities, injustice and poverty faced by SC, ST and OBC? Given that for 68 years of independence of India upper castes have been the key decision makers in the functioning of the state, should not they be held responsible for the poor implementation of social welfare schemes targeted at backward classes. Inspite of them being meritorious, quality and efficiency oriented why is that we see so much of corruption and red tapism in the bureaucracy. Notwithstanding their claim on quality and efficiency how come still the majority of SC, ST and OBC live below the poverty line?. Given that upper castes have dominated all the key decision making positions in the state who stopped them from conducting a caste based census for half a century? Who is responsible for national identity not serving the purpose of the backward classes? What is wrong if caste identity is serving the backward classes welfare by uniting them politically? Even a decade of rapid economic growth could not bring down the inequality between the haves and have nots. Injustice against SC and ST have continued to this day.
Caste identities have helped the backward classes to strengthen themselves politically. Political strengthening in turn has led to the increased pressure on the legislature, executive and judiciary to be pro disadvantaged section of the population. Since there is a wide ideological gap between the political pressure and upper caste dominant legislature, executive and judiciary none of the welfare measures targeted at disadvantaged sections of the population is implemented whole heartedly. Probably this can also be the prominent reason for widespread corruption and delay in the functioning of all state machineries. Fair representation of all sections of the population in the key decision making positions of the state can drastically bring down the ideological gap and hence increase the efficiency of the functioning of the state. This also is the single most workable solution that can bring down inequalities and injustice with respect to the disadvantaged section of the population. Reservation in education and Job can act as a catalyst in bringing about this fair representation according to the proportion of the different sections of the population. This is in greater good of the strong and prosperous nation which can withstand the competition in the globalised world.
References:
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