Not Only About Quotas

A new book brings a refreshing wealth of data to ground the debate on reservations in recent history

Caste-based Reservations and Human Development in India
k.s. chalam
Sage, Rs 275
Caste-based reservations and Human Development in India8217; by K.S. Chalam charts a difficult course. The author, who is also a member of the Union Public Service Commission, is very clear about his faith in affirmative action and quotas. For those who are unlikely to catch on, there is the dedication of the book to Ayothidas, a 19th century figure in Tamil Nadu who converted Tamils to Buddhists, and to E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker Periyar, the founder of the Self-Respect movement.

What makes this publication interesting and worth a serious look is the route taken by Chalam. Instead of sticking to clicheacute;s and calls in the thin air about 8220;social justice8221;, he has decided to take the road less travelled. Methodically, through data culled from NSSO rounds, the Census reports and other studies, he has constructed more than a hundred tables. Organising his arguments into nine chapters where, interestingly, the last chapter examines 8220;The Alternative 8212; replace caste-based reservation with representative democracy8221; or other options to what have been tried so far in India by proponents of social justice, his book makes for systematic reading and allows the author to pack in history, the pre-Independence record while dealing with the Dalits and the regrets that he has about Indian scholars not adequately analysing the impact of the policy of reservation on development.

Chalam writes that in United States as the debate grew on affirmative action after the civil rights movement of the 1960s, 8220;treatises like Jencks8217; Inequality, Becker8217;s Economics of Discrimination and, above all, Rawls8217; A Theory of Justice8221; were written. He laments the absence of similar work in India that should have followed up on policy. The debate has remained polemical and also mostly split along caste lines, not making for very refined positions.

An important area Chalam ventures into is the impact of technology and the new economy on social integration. The author is largely sceptical of liberalisation and the privatisation witnessed in the 1990s which, by the way, is a point of view that all pro-reservationists don8217;t necessarily subscribe to. Chalam cites data and studies by NISTADS National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies to suggest that 8220;all classes, strata and sections of society cannot interact with science and technology in the same way and with the same degree of intimacy and intensity8221;, and therefore, this necessitates intervention to ensure that simply one class, caste or group doesn8217;t walk away with the opportunities of the new world. He also offers his take on history8212;talking of how even when the British introduced English and modern education in colonial India, it was only people of a certain social level read upper, privileged castes who were in a position to take advantage.

Another useful and thorny question Chalam gets into is analysing Socially and Educationally Backward Castes versus Economically Backward Castes. That is, considering whether there is such a phenomenon as social backwardness quite distinct from that of merely having no money.

There are two important case studies that he undertakes to good effect. Over the years, south Indian states have arrived at much better standards of human development; their relative successes in literacy and population stabilisation are well-known. Chalam looks at these indices vis-a-vis the policy of reservation in place for more than a century in some places south of the Vindhyas like Karnataka, it goes back to the 1850s, arguing that there is a positive correlation between the two things.

Also, for the Dalits, he looks at the state of Andhra Pradesh, and he has used a variable devised by him in 2002, akin to the Human

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Development Index HDI called the CDI or Caste-related Development Index. His findings are that between 1971 and 1990, there is an improvement in the CDI, which Chalam concludes is because of better maintenance of social welfare hostels, residential schools and a better effort to implement some of the other schemes 8220;due to Dalit assertion from the early 1980s onwards8221;.
It is an interesting concept, and hopefully he will inquire further into its many possible dimensions in future research.