Kill Bill, Congress style

Ignoring its UPA allies, the government and its Moily committee have embarked on a dangerous path with huge risks

The Bill enabling reservations in educational institutions for SC, ST and OBC categories, by virtue of the 93rd Amendment, is being virtually killed by the Congress, despite sage advice from its allies in the UPA. The style adopted was two-fold: first through a decision to provide extra seats to compensate for the 8220;loss8221; of seats to the general categories and secondly through an Oversight Committee, better known as the Moily Committee. At this stage it is important that the government is clear on providing reservations in the enabling law and on the assurance that Articles 154 and 5 aren8217;t vitiated.

The decision to provide extra seats probably has no parallel in nations adopting affirmative action or similar policies. This dubious credit goes to the Group of Ministers, a decision which the Congress will regret in time. A bunch of urban elite upper-caste medical students and the media have brought the UPA to its knees, forcing it to make an unprecedented concession which negates the entire concept of reservations provided by the Constitution after the 93rd Amendment.

One of the demoralising aspects of the Oversight exercise is the likelihood that funds meant for primary education will be usurped by the IITs and IIMs. The dons of these premier but casteist-elite institutions, have always looked at the oversight framework as another funds-grabbing exercise. It was never looked at as a chance to create equal opportunity in the campuses by the representatives of the IITS and IIMs. We should not be surprised if the government tells us this year that the funds meant for Sarva Siksha Abhiyan are now diverted to the Oversight exercise, that too without even providing a single seat for the reserved candidates. The casualty would be primary education.

The major losers, though, seem to be the SCs and STs. Nothing new has accrued to these two categories who have, in fact, lost their reservation opportunities and borne the brunt of anti-reservationists. The graffiti in AIIMS hostels and the segregation of SC and ST students remind one of South Africa8217;s apartheid regime and US laws against blacks.

The SCs and STs have lost on two counts. One, they lost the reservations that were mandatory in all minority educational institutions by virtue of Article 15 5, which exempts any kind of reservations in minority institutions. Unfortunately we are yet to define what a minority educational institution is, and how many seats in a minority institution are to be filled up by that minority to be eligible to be declared as a minority institution. Secondly, the positive aspects of Article 15 5 are being nullified by the government not allowing reservation in super-specialty courses and by imposing cut offs in the proposed laws, thereby scuttling the basis of reservation.

The OBCs lose vis-a-vis the enabling law on two counts. One, the staggered implementation proposed by Moily Committee, which seems to have usurped the responsibility of 8216;destroying reservations8217; from the anti-reservationists itself. Every year that is lost in such reservation is an opportunity lost. Then whither equal opportunity? Secondly, the OBCs lost on the creamy layer issue with the threats of imposition of creamy layer on them. The OBCs will, ab initio, lose their opportunities in super specialty courses like their SC and ST brethren and also will be pushed out of the central elite institutions by the misuse of cut-offs proposed to be imposed by the new law.

The mess that the government is in began with the idea of an extra 27 seats per hundred for the open category and further heightened by the appointment of Moily as the committee chairman. There could have been no bigger blunder than appointing Moily, whose political experience and erudition on matters related to OBCs and reservation seems to be contrary to the constitutional provisions. The explicit position of Moily mostly talking outside the ambit of the mandate of the Oversight Committee, and in a manner detrimental to the UPA8217;s position, is reaching scandalous levels.

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The government8217;s eagerness to keep the promise given to agitating students regarding their 27 percent share is quite disturbing because the government seems to be oblivious to the fact that they will need to ensure reservations in central institutions till now the haven for urban upper caste elite from the ensuing academic year. It is time that promises are delivered. The government8217;s credibility is on the verge of a great fall, whatever the surveys predict on their winnability in the next elections.

The writer is National Secretary, Communist Party of India