Merits of Mandal report

In view of the confusion created by Mandal II, the Supreme Court has asked the government to clarify two things: One, what is the basis for determining who belongs to an OBC category; and two, the rationale behind 27 per cent reservation for OBCs. These two points need to be immediately cleared.
OBCs belong to the shudra category in the caste classification. Several people confuse shudras with Dalits (earlier known as untouchables). OBCs were supposed to be people who lived by their physical labour.

Though not treated as untouchables, they formed the largest segment of low castes and suffered from all sorts of social disabilities. That is why they qualify to be categorised as socially and educationally backward, and thus entitled to affirmative action under the Constitution.

As to their identification, the Mandal Commission undertook the biggest social survey ever attempted in this country. To begin with, an experts’ panel under the chairmanship of eminent sociologist M N Srinivas and 14 other social scientists was formed to devise schedules for identification of OBCs.

Simultaneously, Delhi University held a seminar for a thorough discussion of the terms of reference of the commission. After several meetings, the experts’ panel prepared four comprehensive schedules, two each for rural and urban areas.

All the state governments were sent these schedules for conducting the survey. Two villages and one urban block were selected at random in each and every district of the country, and all the residents of these areas were covered by the survey.

Questionnaires were also sent to all the states and 30 ministries of the central government, and notices published in national dailies and regional papers inviting public response.

The data thus collected was passed on to the National Informatics Centre, which analysed the information contained in the four pre-coded schedules.

The results of this analysis were used by the experts’ panel, which derived 11 indicators of social, educational and economic backwardness. It was by the application of these indicators that OBCs were identified.

As to the number of OBCs and their percentage, government had stopped collecting caste-wise enumeration of population after the 1931 census.

Consequently, the population of various OBCs identified by the commission were culled from this census, and extrapola-ted on the basis of population growth trends over this period.

That is how the percentage of OBCs was arrived at, and it worked out to 52 per cent. When the 11 indicators were applied to identify OBCs, 44 per cent happened to be Hindus and 8 per cent were from other religions.

That shows how authentic the indicators were as it picked up a fair number of non-Hindus who were socially and educationally backward.

Some commentators have pointed out that the National Sample Survey Organisation’s investigations show that OBCs constitute 32 per cent of the population, and National Family Health Survey places the figure at 30 per cent.

These two surveys cannot match the span and depth of Mandal Commission’s investigations, and its findings can be revised only if an exercise of the same magnitude is attempted.

It has also been pointed out that 25-50 per cent of the reserved seats remain vacant for lack of qualified OBC candidates, resulting in a colossal waste of resources. This is true, but it is the result of sloppy and unplanned implementation.

The commission had laid great emphasis on creating suitable infrastructure in institutions to enable OBC candidates to derive full advantage from reservation. This required adequate planning and financial commitment. But as in 1990, the issue is again at present being treated purely as a vote-getting ploy.

The government is now dangling the carrot of proportionately increased seats in professional institutions to obviate any shrinkage in the ‘merit’ quota, as if the additional infrastructure can be created by waving a magic wand.

The current turmoil could have been averted if educationists had been taken into confidence, a sober assessment made of available capacities and a phased scheme of implementation prepared for a smooth transition.

By S S GILL, Times of India, 13 June 2006

[The writer is a former secretary, Mandal Commission.]

Mr C.V. Devan Nair and the Malayalis

CHENGARA VEETIL DEVAN NAIR, or C.V. Devan Nair, is dead. Not where he was born – in Malacca, Malaysia; not in the land of his adoption, Singapore whose president he became; but in exile in Canada, hounded to the end by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, then prime minister but now two steps higher as minister mentor, whose colleague he was and who had him elected as President. He was born in 1923, and died in December 2005. He was, of course, a Malayali, a clan Mr Lee was, and is, afraid of, and who gave him his biggest trouble in his march to be Prime Minister. He regarded them more dangerous than snakes, and did not look upon them kindly.

Mr Devan Nair was weaned into Mr Lee’s People’s Action Party, from the pro-communist Anti-British League, and later, so Mr Lee’s supporters said, he sold his friends to be firmly entrenched with Mr Lee. Mr Nair never wrote his memoirs, so we will never know the truth of this. He was an active writer since 1954, but wrote less and less after he was removed as President in 1993. In 1999, he attracted a libel suit from Mr Lee for what he wrote in Canada, but which was thrown out after his counter-claim. He married a Tamil, who died before he did, had four sons and five daughters.

Why he resigned as President is shrouded in mystery. Mr Lee said he resigned to be treated for alcoholism. Mr Nair said he resigned because of political conflicts with Mr Lee, and asked to resign, failing which Mr Lee said he would be removed by a motion in parliament. Mr Nair said his bizarre behaviour was officially induced: he was given drugs that made him act irrationally. At the time of his resignation, he is said to have grabbed the breasts of a Sarawak state minister’s wife, when he was on an official visit. The minister’s wife later told me the incident was true, but anyone who would would have who otherwise would have fallen into the pool, and was shocked to find the incident treated as an indecent aberaration. Mr Lee wanted him out, and his reason was as good as any! No one questioned his version, or asked Mr Nair for his. In Singapore. Then as today, what he says goes. Mr Lee, who is of the same age as Mr Nair, is minister mentor of Singapore, two steps higher than the Prime Minister. And so Mr Nair became a non-person. There was a humiliating condition to his pension, that he had to get a certificate from a competent authority that he was not an alcoholic before he got it. He rejected it, rightly. The only pension he got was from the Malaysian parliament, where was elected to in 1964, when Singapore was part of Malaysia. He remained in Malaysia after Singapore was ejected in 1965.

He was the son of I.V.K. Nair, from Palghat, who had come to Malaysia in 1910, and was brought to the then Federated Malay States. He appointed agents later in all districts. That is how Inspector P.C. Joseph. from Alwaye, and my father, from Thalavady, came to Malaysia. It was to Inspector Joseph’s house in Johore Bahru I was taken after I was born at the General Hospital in Johore Bahru in 1939. James Puthucheary, who joined the Indian National Army in his twenties, was in detention with Mr Nair, when his father in 1956 died. He was among the small band of Malayalis who provided the PAP with the left intellectual framework, for which they were exiled in old age. Mr Puthucheary studied law, died a rich corporate lawyer in Malaysia, believed to the end he had failed. He said to me he would title his autobiography, which he never wrote mainly because of the stroke that ravaged his last days, “The Autobiography of a Failure.” He was banned for almost 25 years from the island, lifted after his friend’s wife died in Singapore, he wanted to attend the funeral, and just before he did. As an aside, I was put on restricted entry into Singapore in 1971, and permanently banned in 1991. But as I told an Italian journalist, who put the quote in his book, “I have already done my shopping.”

But Singapore cannot escape from Malayalis. The republic has put a statue for a Nair, who came to Singapore in 1819 as cook to Sir Stamford Raffles, the island’s ‘founder’. The history of modern Singapore is peppered with Malayalis. Some were exiled to Kerala, whence they came, but many are in Singapore, out of politics, but gather whenever a like minded spirit passes away. Today, if the modern Indian plays a prominent role, he is usually not a Malayali. But it has to live with many whom it detained in the past. The PAP had all the seats in Parliament until 1981, when Mr Nair vacated his Anson seat to become president. His successor is Mr J.B. Jayeratnam, a lawyer who is facing bankruptcy by the PAP and is reduced these days to selling his law books to escape bankruptcy.

In Malaysia, those expelled from Singapore did provide the intellectual framework for much of its policies, although some had occasion to regret what they did. The former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, in his eighties and had a heart attack around Christmas last year, is the grandson of a Malayali policeman from Travancore who became head of security to the sultan of Kedah. Many others though came here to earn a living, fought for Indian independence, and returned to serve the Indian government on independence. Among those were N. Raghavan, a lawyer who became India’s ambassador to Argentina. Dr N.K. Nair practiced medicine in Penang, fought for Indian independence, married a German, and remained in Malaysia. His son died as a UN representtive in Thailand. But they are a minority in Singapore and Malaysia. In Singapore, they are looked down upon officially. In Malaysia, they are look down upon by the Tamils, who represent the Indians in power. They cannot join the Malaysian Indian Congress, unless they forget Malayalam and adopt Tamil. But in either territory, they cannot be ignored. Once in a blue moon, someone like C.V. Devan Nair would arise to make their presence felt.

M.G.G. Pillai, Sunday, 11 June 2006

Reservation in India : a Southern record

South India has an enviable history of reservation in education

THE controversy over the proposed Bill to introduce reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in educational institutions has been characterised by a number of arguments against the proposal. Broadly, they have been that “reservation militates against merit and excellence” and that it harms “the interests of other communities, especially the economically weaker sections among the upper castes”. There is also the fervent contention that the system of reservations does not actually help the weaker sections among the OBCs and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (S.C. and S.T.) since the benefits are cornered by the affluent among them. The sum total of the arguments is that reservations in institutions of higher, professional education such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) would be nothing short of a sociological disaster.

Ironically, this line of reasoning has been most vehemently advanced from regions that have no real or concrete exposure to reservation in the education sector. This includes the majority of North Indian States. In contrast, in the four South Indian States as well as in Maharashtra and Gujarat, which have had varying degrees of experience in this regard, the opposition is marginal or absolutely nil. The overwhelming opinion among people in these States, and even in “excellence-pursuing” academic circles, supports the principle and practice of reservation. More important, the system seems to have got so embedded in the education sector in almost all these States that the reaction is notably balanced.

All these States have had to go through periods of turbulence on this question before acquiring the balance. Social activists and vast sections of the academia in these States, therefore, refute the arguments put forward to oppose reservation. A quick appraisal conducted by Frontline correspondents in these States, in the wake of the recent controversy, reiterated this.

The concept of reservation in education for historically oppressed sections of society took roots in South India over a century ago, along with the freedom movement. That a number of initiatives associated with the freedom struggle in this region had their lineage in the social reform movement against caste discrimination. According to B.R.P. Bhaskar, a veteran journalist and social analyst, this social reform lineage is a significant factor that differentiates between regions and societies that understand and support the concept of reservation for social justice and oppose it.

This concept was first advanced by Tamil Nadu, where the social and political assertion of OBCs and other deprived sections led to the creation of the powerful Dravidian movement. Reservation in education and public service began in the Madras Presidency (much of it is now in Tamil Nadu) as early as 1831. The British Raj initiated this in response to petitions from various public groups. Over the next few decades the provisions of reservation were progressively redefined and modified, correcting anomalies and rationalising affirmative action.

The process continued after Independence too and successive governments under the leadership of Dravidian parties such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) introduced “rationalising” classifications like “economic scale” and Most Backward Castes (MBCs). The sum total of these measures was that reservation in the educational institutions in Tamil Nadu rose to 69 per cent, a figure commensurate with the total population of S.C.s, S.T.s, OBCs and MBCs in the State.

Tamil Nadu had 69 per cent reservation even before the Mandal Commission recommendations, promoting 27 per cent reservation for OBCs, were introduced at the national level. In this context, the Supreme Court came up with a stipulation seeking to limit reservation in educational institutions to 50 per cent. This order was a result of efforts by a number of anti-reservation organisations and individuals trying to bring down the reservation quota in Tamil Nadu. But the cumulative initiatives taken by various governments led by the Dravidian parties successfully resisted these counter-moves. The net result of all this is that since 1994, Tamil Nadu’s 69 per cent reservation has the sanction of being part of the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution and hence is beyond judicial scrutiny. Equally important, the reservation system has the near-total support of the entire political spectrum of the State, barring a few fundamentalist Hindutva organisations.

The Tamil Nadu experience is reflected in the quota system in Karnataka and Kerala. Both these States had initiated reservations in the education sector for OBCs in the late 19th century or early 20th century, with periodic revisions and modifications. Reservation in education was initiated by the princely states of Travancore, Kochi and Mysore under the British Raj with widespread popular support. The tradition, naturally, helped imbibe schemes such as Mandal Commission recommendations as positive measures to advance social justice. According to Professor Ravivarma Kumar, former Chairman of the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes (KSCBC), “children in Karnataka are taught from the very beginning that reservation is very much part of the social justice system, so they learn to live with it”.

In Andhra Pradesh as also in Maharashtra and Gujarat, the process started relatively late. In Andhra Pradesh, it was initiated in the 1970s while in Gujarat and Maharashtra, the schemes were formalised in the 1980s and 1990s.

At present, Karnataka has 50 per cent reservation – 32 per cent for OBCs and 18 per cent for S.C.s and S.T.s – in all institutes of higher learning. According to Ravivarma Kumar, from 1992 to 2002, over 25,000 OBC students were able to gain admission to professional colleges in Karnataka thanks to this. Kerala has approximately 50 per cent reservation for its OBC, S.C. and S.T. populations, while Andhra Pradesh has 49.5 per cent reservation.

A number of “well-known experiences” over the past few decades in these States challenge the contentions against reservation. The life and career of former Karnataka Chief Minister and Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily is evidence of how reservation helped a family from a socially marginalised community come up the ladder of society. Moily maintains that but for reservation he would not have come up in life. He recounted to Frontline how, during the first two years of his undergraduate course, he lagged behind and after that became the class topper. “We have to have an inclusive society. The IIMs can’t become islands for the privileged. If this quota system is crude, let educationalists re-engineer and restructure it,” he commented.

Well-known writer and social analyst Professor Kancha Ilaiah, who is a faculty member of the Political Science Department of Osmania University, and T. Devender Goud, former Andhra Pradesh Home Minister and a senior leader of the Telugu Desam Party, support Moily’s views. Prof. Ilaiah said that but for reservation, OBC members would have been living in the medieval age. Goud pointed out: “It is because of reservation people like me could make a mark.” The TDP leader added that in all the four south Indian States, various OBC communities have registered a steady rise in education and social status.

Commenting on the merit versus reservation debate, Dr. M. Anandakrishnan, Chairman, Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), pointed out that the assumption that reservation per se would lead to an erosion of excellence and quality was based on insufficient evidence. Anandakrishnan, who is a former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, Chennai, said it was erroneous to argue that those who came under reservation were generally incompetent and could not cope with the level of performance expected in the IITs and the IIMs. He added that the reservation issue had been dealt with as an emotional one and was being unnecessarily politicised. “Reservation existed in many well-known universities in India, including those in Tamil Nadu such as Anna, Bharathidasan and Tiruchi universities and Osmania and Andhra universities in Andhra Pradesh. Yet the quality or prestige of these universities has not been vitiated,” he said.

Anandakrishnan argued that it would be a fallacy to imagine that OBC communities cannot throw up sufficient number of bright students to fill up their quotas in institutions of higher education. He said: “Assuming that 5,000 students were to be admitted to the IITs every year and 27 per cent reservation was made for students belonging to OBCs, it would work out to 1,350 seats for the OBCs. The number of IIT aspirants from the OBC communities is about one lakh. You cannot say that out of this 1,00,000, there will not be 1,350 candidates competent enough to get into the IITs.” The academician also pointed out that there is not much difference in the failure rates between the open category and the reserved category of students. “In fact, my experience as the Vice-Chancellor of Anna University showed that those who come under the reserved category tend to put an extra effort to perform better because they think that this is a rare opportunity for their upward social mobility and economic security,” Anandakrishnan emphasised.

The MIDS Chairman is of the view that the urge to preserve brand-named educational institutions as ivory towers on the argument that their quality would be diluted by reservation is similar to the historical social anomaly that sought to ban temple entry for lower castes on the argument that temples would be desecrated if they were thrown open to them. No temple was desecrated after it was thrown open to them, he remarked.

Professor Anil K. Gupta, Chair Professor of Entrepreneurship, IIM-Ahmedabad, is of the view that the construct of merit in many of the merit versus intellect debates is in terms of proficiency in the English language. “This is an absolutely gratuitous term of reference, which fails to understand real merit,” he said. Gupta added that in the context of this debate, one needs to take into consideration the fact that 60 to 70 per cent of those who win National Innovation Foundation Awards are school dropouts.

Prof. Ilaiah perceived the Merit versus Reservation argument as a kind of conspiracy by certain sections of the upper castes to make institutions such as the IITs and the IIMs the exclusive preserve of the English-knowing social elites. He also pointed out that, at the socio-political level, the South Indian States are credited with democracy that is more functional and economies that are better performing, despite the high level of reservation. “In a way, it is all because of reservation. After all, if the economy does well, whom do you sell your products to? It has to be to Dalits, OBCs and minorities. Only after the blacks were given equal opportunities did the American economy witness a boom. You have to make the deprived sections share power and become partners in progress,” Prof. Illaiah said.

There is also nuanced criticism of some aspects of the system. According to Prof. G.K. Karanth, head of the Bangalore-based Centre for Study of Social Change and Development of the Institute for Social and Economic Change, there is no point in making available higher education without creating the path to get there: “The State governments by insisting that the medium of instruction should be in the mother tongue, confines the students to a local world. Later they are not able to communicate. They might have a degree but no employment.” Karanth is of the view that reservation is benefiting only a few OBCs, especially the urban rich, the urban-educated and second-generation beneficiaries: “With people devising so many ways to earn money, the sense of social deprivation is not proportionate to the economic deprivation. We have been able to deny Public Distribution System benefits to those above the poverty line, but we have not been able to devise a foolproof method to remove creamy layer OBCs from the reservation list.”

Professor Gupta emphasised the need to have compulsory universal primary education if measures such as reservation in institutions of higher education have to go beyond window-dressing. According to Achyut Yagnik, social activist and writer, there are many nomadic tribes, denotified tribes and even religious minorities in Gujarat who have problems in gaining access to even primary education. “There are 20 Muslim communities on the OBC list in Gujarat but they find it difficult to get even certificates from the bureaucracy,” he pointed out.

Dr. P. Radhakrishnan, a Professor at the MIDS, is apprehensive that the relevance of the constitutional provisions on vital public issues such as reservation is in danger because of judicial delays and the tendency of politicians to manipulate constitutional provisions in some way or the other.

In spite of these concerns, the overall social atmosphere in States exposed to reservation is one of support. As B.R.P. Bhaskar points out, a number of historical, social and political factors have contributed to the general support in these States and the frenzied opposition in some other parts of the country.

“The social reform movement and the demands for reservation in these areas, especially in the southern States, had come up along with a general reform movement and the national liberation movement in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. It was a period of democratic aspirations and social churning, and one could see reform movements of all communities helping one another. The leaders of the Brahmin reform movement supported those who advocated reforms among OBCs, and both joined hands to lend a voice of solidarity to those who led a reform movement in the Muslim community,” Bhaskar said. Unfortunately, that climate no longer exists, particularly in those areas where movements against caste discrimination and oppression did not develop along with the general reform movement, he lamented. In fact, he added, at present we do not seem to have the socio-economic conditions to discuss the reservation issue objectively owing to widespread unemployment. He noted: “The competition for jobs is intense and many think that reservation divests their opportunities, little realising the negative impact of historical social subjugation and oppression of the disadvantaged sections and the need to rectify such negative impact.”

Front Line Magazine, Apr. 22 – May 05, 2006

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN, T.S. SUBRAMANIAN, K. VENKATESWARALU,RAVI SHARMA & DIONNE BUNSHA,