The Mandal Commission report, which revived the “Varna system” though in a different form, received an impetus with the Supreme Court upholding the Constitutional validity of the 27 per cent quota for the Other Backward Classes (OBC)in central higher educational institutions. The division of caste was not complete, however. The Bihar chief minister recently declared that government departments that outsource jobs would introduce reservations, as in government organisations. The Karnataka chief minister wants 70 per cent of the jobs reserved.

However, the rationale of keeping out the “creamy layer” has been debated for quite some time. Euphemistically speaking, those with family income above Rs 250,000 a year make up the creamy layer. Also, children of doctors, engineers, chartered accountants, actors, consultants, writers, bureaucrats, defence officers of colonel and equivalent rank or High Court and Supreme Court judges, all Group A and B officials are to be included in the list.

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Reservations for OBCs, introduced in 1993, have often triggered stronger controversies than quotas for SCs and STs. From the powerful Marathas in Maharashtra to the influential Patels in Gujarat and the dominant Jats and Gujjars in North India or Kapus in Andhra Pradesh, all are intent on grabbing the opportunity. On the surface, however, it seems rather fair to reserve 49.5 per cent of government jobs and seats in educational institutions for STs, SCs and OBCs who constitute 61.5 per cent of the population. But going by the data, it appears that OBCs have already dominated the whole quota pool. Between 2004 and 2013, the share of OBCs in A, B and C grade jobs in the central government rose to 17.31 per cent, whereas between 2003 and 2013, the share of SCs grew to 17.3 per cent from 14.18 per cent; for STs, it grew to 7.59 per cent from 5.01 per cent.

The slab of less than Rs 2.5 lakh was fixed in 2004, and it has of late been revised to eight lakh. However, the concept of creamy layer in reservation has sometimes been termed as unconstitutional as there is no mention in the Constitution. Also, neither the Constitution nor Dr Ambedkar wanted such provisions to continue for long because the aim of the state is to establish an egalitarian social order at the earliest where these differences will not exist and the former weaker sections will join the mainstream of national life. Even Jagjivan Ram admitted that permanent privileges “would make people think that it (SC) is a community of incompetent and inferior people”.

Though the Mandal Commission was called a “Backward Class Commission”, its report does not define the term “class” and assumes, rather unwittingly, that class means caste. So the principle of reservation in educational institutions, based on caste, is impervious to the sweeping changes that have taken place since the inception of the Constitution. If the same caste is categorised differently   in different regions, the concept of creamy layer seems to be    illusory.

To separate the creamy layer from the rest will always be an arduous task. There will be a mad rush to declare oneself as a citizen who is not a member of the creamy layer. In fact, the progress made by the beneficiaries of reservation so far is yet to be reviewed, but it is well known that the number of castes in the OBC list has been increasing. Institutions of higher learning were expected to increase seats by 54 per cent over three years so that the general category seats did not suffer. It is open to question how effectively the infrastructure of the premier institutions is streamlined with efficient faculty members.

Though Jawaharlal Nehru had set up the Kelelkar Commission in 1953, his understanding of the danger of social fragmentation and his realistic awareness of the fact that merit cannot for ever be subordinated to the accident of birth prompted him to shelve a report that apparently listed some 2399 allegedly disadvantaged groups. Numbers were not specified, but it was assumed that only 930 of these groups comprised 115 million people nearly 54 years ago. The Commission failed to formulate any objective criteria for identifying backward classes and this was the reason why the government rejected its recommendations.

The demographic impact of the Mandal Commission report, which identified about 3000 socially and educationally backward castes and communities, must be infinitely greater. Between 1953 and 1978, the number of backward castes ought to have shown a decline to reflect the impact of the development programmes. The Mandal Commission concluded that 52 per cent of the country’s population was backward and accordingly argued in favour of 52 per cent reservation.

True, the reservation announced stopped short of violating the Supreme Court order not to exceed 50 per cent, but the Court did not specify that half the seats in all educational institutions and half the employment vacancies be earmarked as of right to those who might rank low by birth in the traditional hierarchy. On the contrary the Supreme Court had warned that the “supposed zeal” of reformers could destroy “the ideal of supremacy of merit, efficiency of services and absence of discrimination”. It had also observed that while quotas should not exceed 50 per cent, “how much less than 50 per cent would depend on the relevant prevailing circumstances in each case”.

Both VP Singh and Arjun Singh rushed in where Nehru had feared to tread. It bears recall that Ramkrishna Hegde’s government in Karnataka had rejected the Venkataswamy Commission’s report because the Vokaligga community just would not be deprived of the backward label. The Chinappa Reddy Commission had applied the economic criteria to remove 32 communities, including both Vokaliggas and Lingayats, from the backward category and scaled down the percentage of reservation from 50 to 38.

Instead of caste being on the decline, it is becoming part of the Indian psyche, thanks to the reservation policy. As a result of the creamy layer policy, many will remain deprived of the opportunity to improve their economic status because seats in higher education institutions will be allotted to others of his own caste through a lower academic benchmark. The soft corridor of admission will deprive the talented students belonging to the same caste. This is bound to spark resentment, threatening to tear apart the social fabric, and serve as a potentially explosive threat to social cohesion.

There is no denying that the politics of backwardness has damaged the social fabric, resulting in fragmentation along caste and communal lines ~ “Jathwads within Jathwads”, as Rajiv Gandhi once described it. It has also encouraged politicians to fish in the troubled waters of divisiveness at the expense of national integration.

Historically, caste has been the curse of our country. Our society is already divided as it is. The government should perform better than to divide it further on caste lines by singling out the euphemistically termed “creamy layer”.

(The writer is former Associate Professor, Dept. of English, Gurudas College, Kolkata)