Reserve Force

There was a constitutional consensus to allow me to work for the most marginalised groups, though our fathers did not intend to make me live beyond ten to forty years.

Occasionally I was misused. I am particularly appalled at the way the railway ministry prefixed headquarter to my name and created a headquarter quota. What a diminution of so large a personality!

Initially, I was not demanding. My growth was restricted: twenty two point five percent for jobs; for legislatures the proportion of the SC/ST population in the state. But my attractive look draws crowds. States in the south enlarged my stature, groups scrambled to join me. A man called Mandal put OBCs on the quota bandwagon. The Supreme Court, bless its soul, decided that if I grew too tall, I would break my back, so capped me at fifty percent.

Sometimes I was not utilized to the full capacity by groups to whom I was assigned, but my attractions continued. Some politicians felt that religious minorities should have quotas, but given my experiences before partition I am reluctant to go down that street.

Of course I was delighted when women began to find me attractive as well. But surprise surprise, jealous males are refusing to allow me entry into the affairs of women, and they are finding every excuse to circumvent my entry. Have a quota within a quota for women, some demand. How awful. I am not a Russian doll that you can have a smaller version of me and fit it inside the larger me. This is a ruse to diminish my attractiveness. Even the Supreme Court said so when it argued that SC was a constitutionally protected category. It is not possible to have quotas within quotas. What applies to SCs should apply to women.

I DO sometimes wonder why only identity types like me. In principle I am happy to render service to anyone who will embrace me: farmers, economists, liberals, anarchists, cartoonists, authors, wrestlers or whatever. Why can’t every one have a quota of their own? Perhaps then I will not generate resentment. Some say I have grown too fat, mainly because I devour something called the creamy layer. And having grown too fat on cream I am crushing those who really need me.

The Supreme Court has started disliking me and is using that old tool of the powerful, property rights, to disallow me entry into private institutions. They say I am incompatible with merit. I say, my critics have got things upside down. Access creates merit and I am all about access.

Some think I am an overgrown spoilt child that will not achieve much. They want to replace me, quota, with something cumbersome called affirmative action. What is affirmative action? How is it different from me? Ostensibly it is designed to achieve the same purpose as me. But it does not involve setting numerical benchmarks and distinguishing people on the basis of a single dimension to their identity: caste or gender. But you can see why affirmative action does not generate as much excitement as I do. I have a clear identity.

Affirmative action has no numerical targets, which is the core of my being. So I am likely to retain the political edge. After all, I am cheap and provide an easy alibi for everything.

If you support me, all you have to do is pass a law and do nothing else. Every other alternative to me requires real action: social, financial and political. That is why I, quota, am made to bear every burden, every cross that Indian society has carried. I may be crushing under the burden but I will keep trying.