The Supreme Court upheld a law, which provides for 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in educational institutions supported by the Central government. It has, however, excluded the creamy layer from enjoying the benefits of the OBC quota.
Shouldn't the Government have hiked the total number of seats in IITs, IIMs and other colleges supported by the Centre, before implementing this? What will happen to meritorious students belonging to the general category?
CNN-IBN's National Affairs Editor Diptosh Majumdar discusses all these questions in an Online Chat with readers on IBNlive.com.
Here we reproduce the unedited text of the chat.
Aditrya: I am just interested in knowing if, through the course of arguments, there was any mention of implementing the OBC quota on a larger scale, i.e. not only in just the central universities, IITs etc(which are only a handful, after all), but also in private institutes. That way, perhaps, the percentage of reserved seats could potentially have been much less, say 5% or 10%. I am not presupposing the intelligence levels of people entering under quota, but the sheer concept has the drawback of being settlement till eternity. Remember that SC/ST quota was to be for only 10 years when the Constitution was drafted. Those who benefit from it are expected to help their fellow community members on a cumulative basis and not hold the country to ransom. As things stand, there are no hopes that such quotas are even remotely time-bound.
Diptosh Majumdar: Constitutionally that is possible...but then the courts might intervene...that will be difficult for the government to implement.
Sandhya: The cream layer like IITians,IIMS are already leaving the country , Now it looks like they are not getting chance to even study in India. Arent we losing the cream layer to other nations because of these reservations?
Diptosh Majumdar: Sandhya, if somebody wants to leave the country he or she will always look for greener pastures. IIT and IIM reservation will only be an excuse. Tell me how many people are genuine patriots. I have met a group of doctors from AIIMS who are working in the Chhatisgarh jungles to treat tribal. I think people like them matter in the end.
Manik : Sir, we from General category would be affected how much in all calculations????
Diptosh Majumdar: Not that hugely to begin with. It will take time to take effect. The OBCs will also take time to understand how much potential this entire reservation has for them.
S Bhasin: So you agree partly with SC's decision... Now, a straight question: do you agree as a human or you are worried that your channel will be branded as anti-SC? please clarify.
Diptosh Majumdar: Why should I be worried about the judiciary? Once the judgement is out, we are free to comment on it. I said before the Supreme Court has seen merit in the reservation. The judges believe that a social correction needs to be made. So I partly agree with their logic. But I don't know how the judges changed their mind in a year's time. I am yet to read the voluminous judgement. If you recall the division bench had asked in 2006 on what basis the government had arrived at the figure of 27. After all there has been no caste census. I have to figure that out how the judges were now convinced about the number. At the end of the day 27 per cent is a huge percentage.
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khushboo: Is this simply Arjun Singh's ego ? Do you anticipate a backlash?
Diptosh Majumdar: No I don't think because in the beginning it won't make a huge difference...it will be difficult to find a huge number of applicants from the OBC categories straight away.
Prerit: One honest answer plz!!!! Is this quota system going to help the backward, poor, rural sections of society? And do you think that government is also aware of this?
Diptosh Majumdar: I am an optimist. I think the huge globalization wave sweeping the world will wash away these caste differences in the next fifty years. It's not just my wish. I think the world is moving in a single direction. It's inescapable.
S Subramaniam: Sir, How the Government would ensure that the MNC both in India and abroad will recruit passed out students from IITs and IIMs in consonance with the percentage of reservation envisaged in the Constitution?
Diptosh Majumdar: Mr Subramaniam you question is suggestive. You are assuming that IIMs and IITs are going to compromise with quality. That won't happen. They'll have a filtering process whereby those who don't deserve will not survive the course period. They'll be eased out. That is the reason why I am insisting that the schooling system should be improved instead of focusing so much on higher education.
Satyajit Nayak: Hi Diptosh..This is really ridiculous decision.It seems merit doesn’t count in Modern India. Is there any possibility if the Govt.can apply the same quota in private sector companies also?
Diptosh Majumdar: Not a chance constitutionally it will be difficult...it will affect fundamental rights.....
Piyush Gupta: This quota is based on the report that india still has 52% of OBC's as of now. But in today's verdict creamy layer is not included. So shouldnt this 27% figure be revised based on actual population that is expected to benefit from this step.
Diptosh Majumdar: Creamy layer is not such a huge percentage of the 52 per cent. There won't be much of a difference. I think even then 27 per cent is too high because we need to do more for the SCs/STs. The wrong, which has been historically done to them, is huge. Even OBCs have exploited them. I have seen the caste hierarchy in the villages myself. Where even OBCs treat SCs like untouchables.
Dr praveen Sinha: A year back arjun singh said that this quota will be introduced in step wise manner and seats in the higher institutions will be increased so that general people will not be affected. and today he said that 27% will be intoduced in single step and there is no provision of seat increment...
Diptosh Majumdar: That's not right. It's still going to be phased. It will be very difficult for the institutions to accommodate the huge addition in one go. And in fact a large number of Central institutions are not ready as yet.
Piyush Gupta: What about the number of seats in these institutes?? They will be increased together with the implementation of quota or there will b some lag in it???
Diptosh Majumdar: The seats are being increased and quota is being implemented in a phased manner for three years. The total number of seats for the general quota will remain the same. There will be no diminishing in that. But the percentage will definitely go down substantially because all the new seats will go to the OBCs.
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Aparna:Do this present generation of the so called forward class stand a reason or a cause or a source for the unseen suppression under gone by the past-OBCs or SCs ?
Diptosh Majumdar: I agree with you. It's a deep sense of hurt. Any deprived society anywhere in the world have gone through it. But in the 21st century, caste war will be slowly replaced by the war of city versus the countryside. We have to ensure that city and the countrywide are not cut off from each other.
Raju: Sir, what's your take on this decision?
Diptosh Majumdar: I am not wholly against it. I wanted only 12 to 13 per cent quota for OBCs half of what we have actually allowed but not to this extent. We cannot send such a huge demoralizing signal to the people. Fifty per cent reservation is a little too much.
Radhakrishnan: is this the death knell for merit.
Diptosh Majumdar: No not the death knell for merit. That won't happen. I think governments will now open up education to private sector. We definitely need more colleges and those colleges will be without quota. Though there is a constitutional provision going by the past amendment that the government can enforce quota even in private colleges.....but more educational institutions is the answer.
Mfdmohit: Has supreme court laid any guidelines for defining 'creamy layer' or this work has been left to government.
Diptosh Majumdar: They have fallen back on the 1993 Indira Sawhney judgement of 1993. That judgment allowed 27 per cent reservation in government jobs for OBCs. The creamy layer was left out. Refer to that judgement please and the notification that followed.
Shyam: I was going through the whole debate, and it seems Diptosh is of the view that, whatever been happening in India since years should continue in this 21st century also..and one should crush meritocity - is not this correct?
Diptosh Majumdar: No Shyam, read my answers carefully...there are no black and white answers to this entire debate....it's all quite grey....so please don't dismiss as taking this side or the other......it's not such a simple business.....had it been so simple then we would have spoken one language in casteless, single-religion India....India can never be simplified.
Nitin Kumar: Diptosh why are you pre-assuming that reservations means less merit or no merit at all? I think this thought process needs to re-aligned.
Diptosh Majumdar: That's a good observation. I think I have partially erred in that. But only partially. Tell me why bring in the concept of reservation at all if you are depending wholly on merit? Are they necessarily compatible terms. I think not. They are terms, which confront each other.
Deepak Saxena: What is the future of next generation in India in terms of education and employment?
Diptosh Majumdar: I think government has to give the private sector a free play in education. So those who can pay will go to the private sector colleges...let the private sector set up engineering, medical and management colleges. Let them compete with the government colleges in quality and competence. Let quota exist only in the government colleges.
Kun: Hi Diptosh I hv a straight forward question "India is a poor country with the richest men in it." To what extent do you think the introduction of Reservations in general benefit to minimize the above quoted reality?
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Diptosh Majumdar: Reservations are hardly a guarantee that it would remove disparity. It will definitely act as a catalyst. But quotas can also demoralize a very creative section of your society.
Akshay DB: is reservation in the private sector the next step?
Diptosh Majumdar: As I have already said non-government jobs and non-government education are different propositions. The government will not be able to do much.
Sandeep Malik: hasn't congress' vote bank politics strengthened by the sc decision?
Diptosh Majumdar: Strangely, it won't. At least not everywhere. There may be immediate beneifts in Karnataka but definitely not in the north Indian OBC-dominated states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Citizen: Hi Diptosh, I would like to ask you personally do you prefer quota over merit?? It is really sad that our politicians using this one as weapon to woo voters. It has been 60 years after we got independence still how many more decades we need this quota.
Diptosh Majumdar: In ideal conditions I am against all forms of quota. But I think that there can from time to time need for quota to rectify a past wrong. But it cannot be perpetuated. Quotas have to be removed as soon as they have served their purpose.
V Seshadri Sesha: DM: In my opinion, while ensuring 27% for OBCs and 22.5% for SC/ST, overall, their numbers admitted in the open category itself should also be taken into account. When their quotas are totally full, rest must be open on merit only.
Diptosh Majumdar: I think that 49.5 per cent is very notional. It won't happen straightaway. Even now IIMs have never been able to admit 22.5 per cent SC/STs. There won't be so many eligible applicants. As in the SC/ST experience, several students haven't been able to cope with the IIM/IIT pressure and have dropped out after the first year. I think more than reservation, the government should have really thought of improving and strengthening the school system.
Gagan: Is there any data to take in to account how many people have been benefitted by reservation. Then why increase more reservations?
Diptosh Majumdar: The last caste census was done in 1931. But going by sample surveys done by Mandal Commission and later by the NSSO (National Sample Survey Organization), it should be a little above 50 per cent of the total Indian population. It is the majority caste segment in this country.
Sumit Gupta: Communities like Vanniyars (Ramadoss's community), are among the creamy layers. But they are still a part of the OBC list. Who will be the watchdog whether certain community forms creamy layer or not. The Govt in itself decides that. So overall this policy with or without creamy layer is more or less same. Don’t you think we need some independent authority / regulator to decide on creamy layer.
Diptosh Majumdar: Agreed. The criteria has been laid down quite clearly but I do agree with you that there would be efforts to get on board the reservation bandwagon even by those who don't really deserve it a regulator should be put in place. In fact if you read Justice Arijit Pasayat's judgement, it 's slightly.
Different from other judges...he has suggested that the entire reservation business be visited every five years.
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Jaibhim: Diptosh you make the implicit assumption that discrimination doesn't exist today. But recent academic studies by economists like Ashwine Deshpande (published in EPW) show that even when one controls for factors which the market should value ("merit" and stuff), people from lower castes have a lower probability of getting corporate sector jobs.Once you incorporate discrimination into the model,providing equal opportunity doesn't help..I hope I am able to explain my situation.
Diptosh Majumdar: I know, you cannot have affirmative action in a day. I only want to say that sixty years have been a long time but we still haven't managed to great deal for the SC/STs despite reservations. Remember OBCs were never the untouchables. They had tilling rights, cultivation rights. They were far better off than the SCs. Even now in the caste hierarchy of the villages, the OBCs are not doing very very badly. They need help and they are a huge population, possibly 52 per cent. But we cannot discount merit as a civilized country completely. China didn't do that to correct wrongs that had happened under different dynasties. We have to think of middle paths. We could have given 12.5 per cent reservation to the OBCs and restricted the total reservation to 35 percent. 49.5 per cent reservation does not augur well for a society.
Suryakant: Diptosh, Could you explain this creamy layer?. How will for instance rich Farmers and their children be ousted from the purview of reservations, if creamy layer just means children of class I and Class II employees?
Diptosh Majumdar: No you haven't read the whole definition. It's on IBNlive. It also means any family with an annual income of Rs 2.5 lakh and above. So there is a wealth indicator.
Vikram: Will congress be able to translate this decision in terms of vote success? Diptosh Majumdar: I don't think so. If you look at the OBC voting pattern over the past four decades, they had begun moving out of the congress fold from the Sixties. In fact, even Nehru knew OBCs would drift away. The JP movement threw up the current generation of OBC leaders like Laloo, Mulayam and Nitish Kumar.
Even the regional leaders like Deve Gowda are OBCs. They are usually anti-Congress. Arjun Singh has thought it out carefully but it does not automatically endear the Congress to the OBCs.
Babu: 1)How the creamy layer will be identified? 2)What are implications on the general category by providing 27% reservation to the OBC s?
Diptosh Majumdar: Just check the Ibnlive.com site. We have given out every detail of what the creamy layer comprises implications babu are these there'll now be 49.5 per cent reservation in government-run central education institutions in IIMS, IITS, medical colleges like AIIMS
Sharmila: Why the issue of quality of engineers and doctors is raised by anti-quota camp? Why they did not bring up the issue of rights of the students who have merit and cannot get education because upper cast label?
Diptosh Majumdar: They have thought that it is the a better way of going about their anti-quota campaign. I'll tell you I met a young OBC doctor in AIIMS. He had come through exams and no quota. He is one of the finest young docs I have met in my entire life and I have lived long.
Samir kumar nayak: If the Government can increase the total number of seats and keeping the creamy layer out of this quota purview then there will be some solace for the General students.
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Diptosh Majumdar: I think the country needs hundreds of colleges at this moment. I was told by my friends in Prime Minister's Office a few days ago that Dr Ramadoss is sitting on a file for the last eight months that would have allowed corporates to build medical colleges throughout the country. The Prime Minister is pushing for it but the Health Minister wouldn't listen.
Shanku: Why has the English language media taken a biased stand with regard to reservation? It has abashedly supported the corporate funded anti-reservation protests. Even today only one channel beamed images of students celebrating in Patna university. Every other channel were showing old images of anti-backward caste protests. Is the English media showing what it's elite viewers want to see and hear?
Diptosh Majumdar: To some extent I agree with you that the English viewership is a little different...but tell me Shanku frankly. I'll wait for your answer in the course of the chat if education was equal at the primary level best possible free education for everybody wouldn't that be a better option than reservation at higher education institutions. why is the country not being able to provide good school education at zero prices, no fees, to everybody shouldn't that be the best way of creating a level-playing field?
Sam: This will in all likelyhood take us back and keep us as a nation in which only 50% can be treated as ok class and the rest as reservation class. The appointment ads also will need to advertise persons in ok class need only apply, and matrimonial also will be similar as persons having acquired degrees under reservation please excuse. The foreign recruiter will come to terms with this syndrome very soon and will ask all types of awkward questions before he will recruit any one. The politicians in this country who are basically having very little merit and huge skills in skullduggery have dealt a final deathblow to our country where one has to search for merit on the basis of a needle in the haystack. This is black day for all students who are unfortunately born to upper caste parents and to all children in general including those under reservation, as they will never have their self esteem and even if they achieve any position in life, they will always feel that somehow they don't deserve it.
Diptosh Majumdar: The Dalits with their reservation have not done too badly in the last sixty years. So reservation does help in the uplift of backward classes. There are many real life stories to prove that. My question is that you cannot make it permanent. Look what happened to the battle in Rajasthan between Meenas and Gujjars. If you ask me frankly Meenas have made extremely good use of their Scheduled Tribe reservation after Independence but they cannot continue with the benefits even now .the problem in India is everything is permanent...we cannot make reservation permanent
p v maiya: By extension of this judgement, can we reserve for OBC and SC&STs 49.5% reservation[ excluding creamy layers of course] of seats in the Parliament and other legislative bodies , membership of which anyway does not require any educational qualification? If not why not?
Diptosh Majumdar: I don't think we'll do that, we are a rich democracy, good sense will prevail.
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Bharath Kumar: The way this question is framed also reflects some sort of bias that exists in our country. Is it the case that all upper castes, Brahmins in particular, have monopoly over intellect and wisdom when most of them serve their white masters as inferior beings staying abroad? Even if there is a gestation period for the talents to flourish for these OBC students, it is worth waiting as hardly 15% of the population enters the corridors of higher education! Is it not a crime not to allow majority of the population to pursue higher studies in the name of 'quality'? Myself an upper caste, feel that quality = Money+ social (cultural) standing + opportunities (of course, qualities like hard work and sincerity are granted, anyway our rural population toils hard than us sitting in our ivory towers) When the creamy layer is excluded I really do not see any point in opposing this in the quota or quality.
Diptosh Majumdar: That is what I have been arguing Bharath but don't you think a country which has 49.5 per cent reservation doesn't really encourage merit. I want everything done for the backwards... I know the entire tale of deprivation for centuries....but then what are we saying in the 21st century that affirmative action is everything....you have to do penance for your past sins but that doesn't mean you kill merit........ no unfair move can right all the unfairness of the past.
Giridhar: Why does the SC still accept the caste based reservations. Cant it negate based on the PIL's filed? and make it valid only based on economy based?
Diptosh Majumdar: If you travel to the Indian countryside, you will still find caste is in our blood and I can guarantee without hurting anybody's sentiments that all of us on this chat are upper caste... only because most of us are upper caste that we have access to the internet and to chat sites
Gopalakrishnan: What’s the use of young ministers in the cabinet ?? Decision makers of the country, which has largest number of youngsters, are sick old people. Probably, the best idea is that every MPs,Politicians and Judges should be asked to clear IITs and IIMs entrance examination for their job.Do you think that this is reason why IITians and IIMians move out of India after their higher education ?
Diptosh Majumdar: To some extent I agree but don't you think that we need to pause and think of what opportunities the deprived are getting... reservation is not
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