Manmohan’s Mandal moment?

It is becoming all too evident that politicians will try to convert this into a game of political football to cater to their constituencies. The Congress-NCP will try to pull out all stops to get the SC vote, since Mayawati, who dented the Congress-NCP base in the Lok Sabha elections, is all set to go it alone again. Earlier this year, Maharashtra passed a bill which could pave the way for reservation in the private sector for dalits and OBCs but this is to apply only to businesses aided by the government. However, some companies have recently written to the Maharashtra chief secretary threatening to pull out of the state if what is coming to be known as “Manmohan’s Mandal” goes through.

The UPA’s formulation in the Common Minimum Programme is vague, even as it tries to send out a pro-dalit signal. It promises to initiate a dialogue with political parties and industry, while being “sensitive” to the idea of reservations for SC/STs in the private sector. But Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan is pushing for a Central legislation before the next budget session. Meira Kumar, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, has lashed out at the “Dronacharya mindset” which prevents quotas in the private sector. Given dalit sensitivities, no party is going to find it easy to oppose it.

When V.P. Singh implemented the Mandal Commission recommendation for job reservations for OBCs, one of the charges against him was that the decision was not preceded by a nationwide debate, even though it led to a paradigm shift in the country’s politics. He had not even consulted his allies, the BJP and Left parties. In contrast, the process of reservation for OBCs in the south spanned decades, a period during which society was prepared.

FICCI President Y.K. Modi has suggested that instead of reservations, the focus should be on raising the standard of education, on upgradation of skills — industry, he said, can partner the government on setting up schools and institutes for vocational training — and on putting in place a policy of affirmative action and fiscal incentives like tax breaks, bank guarantees and preferential purchasing by the government from those who employ the disadvantaged and the differently abled. This could be a good start. But it needs to be concretised and a blueprint prepared.

Politically motivated or otherwise, the issue raises fundamental questions about the kind of nation we want to build. Do we want to fashion a society which favours the survival of the fittest, which has no time or place for the disadvantaged and the disabled, or for that matter for the very old, the very young, the diseased? By that logic, it would be possible to argue that it could be more efficient to have a dictatorship of a highly intelligent person who takes decisions with despatch. Democracy is after all a more cumbersome, slower process of decision-making, even though it gives everyone, high and low, a voice and equal opportunity.

Merit-efficiency versus reservation is an old debate. Merit is determined not just biologically but also sociologically. Someone can have natural talent but it requires support systems to develop it. The opportunity to go to a good school or college, a congenial atmosphere at home, parental emphasis on education, wide exposure to the world — all these contribute to merit. Contrast this with an SC child who has to study without electricity, who may not be able to afford books, whose teacher does not show up at school, whose mother is out cleaning other people’s toilets instead of helping her with homework, or who is forced to drop out of school because she has to look after siblings. Indian SC/ST girl-children probably form the biggest group of illiterates in the world.

There is a strong case for affirmative action for SC/STs and the differently abled in the private sector, if we are to be a humane society, where diversity is not only accepted but also celebrated. But the debate has to move beyond political sloganeering. Sensitising society to the wrongs of centuries is not easy when the tide is moving in the other direction in a market oriented, highly competitive, globalising environment where success and profit are the benchmarks of achievement and recognition. Yet, the initiative should be seized by captains of industry and there are enough socially conscious people among them to take the lead.