Quotas will deepen the existing crisis of governance and demoralise government employees.
It was with surprising alacrity that the Union Cabinet paved the way for
SC-ST quota in promotions in government jobs, brushing aside the
serious reservations expressed by the Attorney-General on its
non-feasibility. This is the latest trick of the scam-hit UPA government
— piloting the promotional quota legislation in Parliament with
surprising speed and vigour to divert attention from misgovernance. It
sees a demanding supporter to placate, a constituency to woo, and votes
to garner, no matter what price the country pays, how socially divisive
and administratively debilitating the whole move is likely to be.
Today, governance is by all accounts the Achilles’ heel of the country.
Government does not govern; bureaucracy does not deliver. The most
important and urgent task for the country is to infuse a modicum of
purpose, ability, and passion among the rank and file of administration
at the local, state, and central levels.
There is no substitute for diligence and determination to excel.
Strangely, the political class chose to ignore this imperative and,
instead, paved the way to further erode the efficacy and morale of the
vast government workforce.
Swift to see the vote-bank gains, they play competitive games so that
“reserved” sections of the population get a better deal than others.
There is already a clamour for OBCs, too, to have reservation in
promotions as envisaged for SC/STs.
The erstwhile BSP-led government in Uttar Pradesh provided for a promotional quota for SC employees in government.
The Supreme Court thwarted the State government’s bid to impair and
erode the spirit of equity and justice enshrined in the Constitution.
Characteristically, the political class have cried foul and avowed to
insert an amendment in the Constitution.
SOUND ADVICE IGNORED
Besides heeding the legal advice of the Government’s own experts,
shouldn’t our venerable leaders revisit the Supreme Court’s 500-page
verdict by its five-judge Constitution bench on April 10, 2008?
While upholding the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in
Admission) Act, 2006, it renounced the anachronistic shibboleths of
caste perpetrated over the last six decades. The then Chief Justice KG
Balakrishnan maintained, “Poverty, social backwardness, economic
backwardness, all are criteria for determination of backwardness.”
Another important observation of the Court related to the need for a
finite time limit for enforcement of the quota law, lest it should end
up creating “a fractured society for ever suspicious of each other”.
Justice Raveendran maintained, “if caste-based reservation was continued
for an unlimited period, the country would be a caste divided society
permanently.”
Nani A Palkiwala had earlier pointed out five fatal flaws in the
reservation policy: it divides the country along caste lines and works
against social harmony; it ignores the reality that there is no backward
caste, only backward individuals; while equality is the very heart of
free republic, the bedrock of reservation is discrimination in reverse –
against merit and calibre; the sub-standard replaces the standard and
the reigns of power pass from meritocracy to mediocrity; and reservation
in promotion is disastrous for administration.
CREAMY LAYER
Blinded by avarice, the political satraps choose to be oblivious to the
fact that competent persons among the backward castes abhor flaunting
their caste badge. A large number of them perceive caste-based
discrimination as a deliberately divisive act. As people get more
educated, as they join the economic mainstream, and caste distinctions
become less conspicuous.
Surely, the self-proclaimed guardians of the Dalits would be aware that
only a miniscule number of SC-ST youth avail the benefit of reservation
in higher educational institutions. Until a few years, the actual SC and
ST numbers in Delhi University remained only 6.2 per cent and 2.4 per
cent, against the provision of 15 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively.
The Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes &
Tribes 2001-02 rued that, between 1995-2000, only about half the SC
quota and one-third of ST quota of undergraduate seats was filled up.
Not only have reservations and quotas have led to an elite minority, the
“creamy layer”, which has cornered much of the benefits, there have
also been several corrupt and ignominious practices such as SC/ST and,
in some cases, OBC certificates traded for rich gains.
“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and
wrong”, said that eminent satirist H.L. Mencken. Populist politics
should not deflect our attention from the central question of how to
redress complex inequalities, social and economic.
LIMITED VALIDITY
An alternative path to the politically attractive ‘quick fix’ is an
arduous, slow and ‘less glamorous’ path of sustained amelioration of the
disadvantaged through infusion of human capital. Education is indeed a
great leveller and equaliser.
If the erstwhile UP chief minister would only set up a top class hub of
infrastructure to infuse multifarious skills among the disadvantaged
segments instead of creating lofty monuments and memorial parks, the
situation would have been very different.
Sadly, the country finds itself bereft of leadership across the entire
political spectrum. This is occasion to recall how the framers of the
Constitution were clear that reservations can have only a limited
validity.
In his letter addressed to all chief ministers on 27 June 1961,
Jawaharlal Nehru maintained, “…I dislike any kind of reservation,
particularly in service. I react strongly against anything, which leads
to inefficiency and second rate standards…It has annoyed me to learn
that even promotions are sometimes based on communal or caste
considerations.”
Clearly holding that policy of reservation had “encouraged backwardness,
inefficiency and lack of competitive merit …barring a few stray cases”,
Ambedkar declared that the provision of reservation in service should
not extend beyond 1960-61. Nehru and B.R. Ambedkar would have been
aghast at the way the ambit of reservations has been enlarged and
expanded in time, scope and content -- to extent that the Constitution
is now being sought to be rewritten to this end.
Source : http://www.thehindubusinessline.com
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