Reserved for upper-caste bias

There was predictable outrage when the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) recommended that there should be 27 per cent reservation for backward classes in the private sector. I say “predictable” because any proposal that seeks to further the cause of social justice is met with expected howls of protest by those who believe that they alone have the sacrosanct right to be the primary beneficiaries of economic development.

The fact of the matter is that even after 69 years as an independent nation, India has the world’s largest number of the abjectly poor, the illiterate and the malnutrioned. Moreover, in spite of a great deal of empowerment — both political and socio-economic — in the last few decades, the numerical majority in our nation, consisting of dalits, the scheduled tribes and the backward classes, does not as yet have a level playing field in terms of opportunities.

Can one segment of a nation grow and another languish in perpetuity A nation is an organic whole. All its parts are inter-related and must benefit with equity from the fruits of economic growth. However much they wish to, the successful cannot secede to form their own Republic. We must either swim or sink together. That is why, when the visionary founders of our nation wrote the Constitution, they included the element of affirmative action in the form of reservations in government jobs for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). Later, this reservation was extended to include Other Backward Classes, with the caveat, as laid down by the Supreme Court (SC), that reservation should not exceed 50 per cent of total jobs available.

These reservations were restricted to government jobs. But after 1991, when we opened up our economy, government jobs have reduced in number. In the period between 2006 and 2012, they fell from 18.2 million to 17.6 million — a 3.3 per cent decline. In the same period, jobs in the private sector grew by 35.7 per cent, from 8.7 million to 11.9 million. In other words, if we accept that social justice was an article of faith enshrined in our Constitution, the opportunities to implement it have constricted where government jobs are concerned, and grown exponentially in the corporate sector.

Is it unfair to ask the corporate sector, for which I have the highest respect, to partner with the government in furthering the cause of social justice I believe not, because I am convinced that this will be, in the long run, in the corporate sector’s own interest. Some corporate houses — alas, by far a minority — have volitionally implemented a policy where along with profits, they have invested in welfare programmes for the under-privileged and the marginalised. They understood that by doing so they were increasing the market size and the catchment area from which talent could be recruited.

In fact, in 2004 the corporate sector gave a categorical assurance that it will volitionally implement a programme of affirmative action. In a letter written to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 218 of our top corporate houses and their associations said we will “expand our current activities for disadvantaged persons with regard to scholarships, company run private schools, vocational training and we will implement in letter and spirit a programme of affirmative action to empower persons who are socially and educationally backward”. More than a decade has passed since then, but can the corporate sector say with honesty that it has fully, or even in substantial measure, implemented this pledge Any objective survey will show that SCs, STs and OBCs, even today, constitute a miniscule minority in the senior managements of the top 500 BSE companies.

For all its entrepreneurial energy, the corporate sector cannot become an island unto itself. Many, if not all, private firms are beneficiaries in some form or the other, of government support policies. The other day Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself remarked sarcastically that when financial interventions are made by the government in favour of the under-privileged they are called “subsidies”, but when the same support is given to corporates it is called “incentives”. If the private sector has grown with the help of the government — and that support is valid — why should it not lend its support to goals of social inclusiveness that is the unambiguous intent of our Constitution

The argument that merit will be compromised by affirmative action is an elitist fallacy. In fact, the opposite is true. If more people are given the opportunity and exposure to become full participants in the national mainstream, we will increase the talent pool, as also the scope of the competition to select the best. To argue that only those who have been the beneficiaries of societal benevolence for centuries are entitled to have a monopoly on opportunity is the worst form of unsustainable elitism. The Constitution specifically speaks of affirmative action for the “socially and educationally backward” because under our repressively hierarchic caste system certain castes were for millennia kept socially and educationally backward. The already privileged do not have an extra cranium that makes them inherently superior. And no democracy can be truly effective unless all its citizens are provided the opportunity of a level playing field.

At this stage, what the NCBC has recommended is precisely that: a recommendation. Parliament will have to consider it to take matters forward. I would suggest that in the interim the leaders of our dynamic corporate sector do some introspection on their own. It would be best if they voluntarily accept a substantive and verifiable programme of affirmative action as they had promised to do in their letter to Dr Singh 12 years ago. The government and our private sector must become partners in the great project of making our nation a more equitable and egalitarian entity. Economic growth with social justice should be the goal not only of the government but also the captains of business and industry.

Author-diplomat Pavan K. Varma is a Rajya Sabha member