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Muslim artisans making the pots for the Chhat pooja: Bihar

The recent Bill passed by the TRS government in Telangana that increased the quota for OBC (Pasmanda) Muslims and STs in public employment and education is flawed on many counts. Let me turn to the mathematics first. As we know the reservation structure in Telangana before the passing of the Bill was OBC 29% [Group A: 7%+Group B: 10%+Group C: 1%+Group D: 7%+Group E: 4%], SC 15% and ST 6%. The Bill has increased the OBC-E quota, which included 14 Muslim backward castes, from 4% to 12% and the ST quota from 6% to 10% thereby taking the quantum of reservations in the state to 62%.

The population of Muslims in Telangana is 12.68%. As far as Muslim castes are concerned while OBC-A includes Muslim scavengers (mehtars) and OBC-B includes the Muslim cotton carders (known variously as dudekula, laddaf, pinjari or noorbash) along with other Hindu backward castes, the OBC-E exclusively recognizes 14 Muslim caste groups. According to the Sudheer Commission Report (2016) about 81% Muslims were already covered in the existing OBC sub-quotas (A, B and E) and it were mostly the forward ashrāf castes like the syeds, pathans, mirzas, moghals, etc., that were excluded. One may therefore infer that 10.27% Pasmanda Muslims (81% of 12.68% Telangana Muslims) were already recognized in the OBC (A, B & E) quota before the passing of the recent Bill. However, the dudekula caste alone constitutes about 35% of Telangana Muslims and 4% of Telangana population. So after adjusting for the dudekula and mehtar castes the OBC-E group actually includes around 6% Muslim population. In that case the existing 4% quota for OBC-E was quite reasonable. The increase in OBC-E sub-quota from 4% to 12%, almost double the population that it actually encompasses, defies all rational argument to say the least.

How then does one interpret the recent move?

Before going further a few preliminary remarks would be in order here to contextualize the discussion:
A. Indian Muslims, like all religious groups, are differentiated into various caste groups. Historically, the high caste ashrāfs conceived Muslims as a ‘nation’ and mobilized for self-determination through the Muslim League before 1947 (When I say this I mean ashrāfs as a class. Indeed, a few nationalist ashraf Muslims like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and others opposed the Pakistan movement).

The 1946 elections which is dubbed as the consensus on Pakistan and in which Muslim League won handsomely was marked by a restricted electorate and ‘nearly 85% of the population was excluded…’. It is mostly the propertied and educated classes among Muslims, the high caste ashrāf, that voted for Pakistan and the vote of subordinated Muslim caste groups was not even put to test. In fact, lower caste Muslim organizations like the Momin Conference were actively contesting the two nation theory at the time, a factor much ignored in the dominant discourse.

It is due to the tragedy of the Partition that Muslims lost the reservations in Independent India that they enjoyed as a ‘community’ in the pre-1947 phase. One cannot simply demand a separate ‘nation’ and ‘reservations’ at the same time. The ashrāf class have already got what they desired—the nation-state of Pakistan—and now they have no moral claim left for reservations any longer. It is only the subordinated Pasmanda Muslims who can negotiate with the state for reservations now.  

B. Since the category ‘Muslim’ had already become a suspect category due to the Partition tragedy the ideologues of the Pasmanda movement have mostly preferred that similarly placed caste groups across religious communities be clubbed together for purposes of reservations.
In Bihar the OBC list is subdivided into Annexure I (Most Backward Classes) and Annexure II (Backward Classes) with most of the subordinated caste Muslims being recognized in the MBC category along with other Hindu castes. P. S. Krishnan has argued that sub-quotas like the “Backward”, “More Backward”, “Most Backward” and the “Extremely Backward” (Pichade, Ati Pichade, Atyant Pichade and Sarvadhik Pichade) could be crafted and similarly placed castes across religions and thereafter be judiciously accommodated. In this scheme while Extremely Backward refers to those castes which have neither skills nor assets (nomadic people or service providers), Most Backward to those who have no asset base but have skills (the artisans/craftsmen), the More Backward castes to the castes of small peasants, especially tenantry without rights, and the Backward to caste groups which have relatively substantial asset base but are yet socially backward. From the Pasmanda vantage point the Bihar Formula works well without triggering off communal polarisation and therefore the politics of exclusive ‘Muslim’ sub-quotas has been often criticized.   

C. Historically, religion has emerged as a political category in its own right and has been dominated by the interests of higher castes across religious groups in South Asia. It is indeed unfortunate that in the post-Partition phase due to their cultural capital and control over the community institutions, the ashrafs who had not migrated to Pakistan continued to represent the Indian Muslims. The persistence of the episodes of communal riots and symbiotic discourses of ‘Muslim backwardness’ and ‘Muslim appeasement’ whipped variously by high caste Muslim, Hindu or Secular nationalists have effectively worked to bury the substantive demands of survival and empowerment for the subordinated sections across religions. The limitations of secular-communal or majority-minority duopolies are too evident to be ignored now. I have called this the ‘post-minority condition’ elsewhere.

D. However, in the last few years with the substantive erosion of the state from employment and education, even the policy of reservations has become a useful tool for the hegemonic classes. The tendency to exploit the contradictions among the populace emerging from the principle of graded inequality in a caste-based social order is glaring. Hence, the politics of social justice has been effectively reduced to social engineering with all parties working to galvanise various caste/religious interest groups for electoral dividends. In this game reservation has become an affective rallying point for the bahujan salariat but has little to offer to the vast majority of other deprived community members. One has to rethink the overemphasis on the symbolism of reservations in social justice politics.

It is from the vantage point of the aforementioned discussion that one could understand the recent Bill. In all likelihood the revised quota will be struck down since it exceeds the Supreme Court ceiling of 50% for reservations and confronts the impossibility of being placed within the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution due to an unfavourable government at the Centre. While the TRS government credits itself for having realized one of the key promises in its manifesto by chalking out a 12% quota for ‘Muslims’, the BJP has predictably responded by suggesting that religion-based reservation may lead to creation of another Pakistan. While the almost coeval timing of PM’s recent statement concerning Pasmanda Muslims in Orissa (April 15) and the passing of the Bill by the TRS government (April 16) is indeed intriguing, commentators like Kingshuk Nag are not wrong in arguing that the Bill will pave the way for dangerous competitive communal populism and may advantage the BJP.

In fact, this drama could have been entirely avoided had the Andhra Pradesh government followed the Bihar Formula in 2004 itself when it first introduced the OBC-E category exclusively for Muslim caste groups. The subsequent Andhra High Court interventions rejecting this move as a ‘communal quota’ are sensible, but absolutely inconsistent because even OBC-C (which includes only Christian caste groups) and OBC-D (which includes only Hindu caste groups) are not technically immune from such a charge.

At the beginning of 2017 the AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi had asked the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao ‘to exercise caution while increasing Muslim reservation to 12 per cent as it may give rise to legal complications and cause Muslims to lose the existing 4 per cent quota’. However, with both the AIMIM and Congress supporting the Bill now it seems that those fears have been probably allayed in their view. In fact, ‘Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri (Majlis) supported the Bill and suggested an official amendment to create BC-F category to cover those groups among Muslims who had been left out. He wanted the existing 4 percent reservation for BC-E group containing 14 groups should be retained as it is and the additional 8 per cent hike proposed to cover Syed, Moghal, Pathan and local Arab groups’.

According to this position, Pasha suggests that one must continue with 4% OBC-E and the remaining 2.41% ashrāf  Muslims (19% of 12.68% Telangana Muslims) should get 8% reservations as OBC-F. This suggestion is again problematic because reservation is not a poverty alleviation exercise. Only socially backward and underrepresented sections can be included in the OBC quota. Ashrāfs are not socially backward and are already overrepresented in the Telangana government services (the representation of Muslims in Telangana government services is 7.36% which would be mostly cornered by them). There is no case at all for inclusion of ashrāf  Muslims in the Telangana OBC quota. The poor sections among ashrāf, or any other group for that matter, have to be addressed by other affirmative action/poverty alleviation programs and not through reservations.

Broadly speaking, the recent Bill appears to be a short term ruse by the TRS government to galvanise the Muslim vote-bank. It is bound to pave the way for communal rhetoric from which BJP is bound to benefit in the long run. Indeed, if one chalks out a 12% quota for 6% Muslim population segment then the charge of ‘Muslim appeasement’ doesn’t really appear off the mark at all. While being critical of TRS one may also ask that if the BJP is really serious about Pasmanda Muslims then it must work towards ensuring inclusion of Dalits belonging to Christian and Muslim communities within the SC quota. This has been a long pending demand of the Pasmanda Muslims and the BJP at the centre is well placed to execute that.

All in all, the recent Bill appears to be an exercise in deception, unjust in its mathematics and has the potential to ignite a spiral of dangerous communal populism. The strategic blunders of secular politics have turned out to be the biggest blessing for the BJP over the past few years. Since this is now understood even by a lay person on the street yet the persistence of such self-defeating moves, such as the recent Bill, pushes one to ask further: are they merely innocuous strategic blunders? Or worse?    

[The author is Director, Dr. Ambedkar Centre for Exclusion Studies & Transformative Action (ACESTA), Glocal University (India). However, the views expressed here are personal. He can be reached at khalidanisansari@gmail.com]
 

Related Articles:

1. ‘Stop pandering to the elite Mussalmaan’

2. Politics over Muslim Personal Law and UCC: The Pasmanda Position

3. For Dalit-Muslim unity, Mayawati must focus on caste, not religion

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जी हाँ आपको पढ़ कर आश्चर्य हो रहा होगा लेकिन यही सच है NCBC के पास अत्याचार निवारण से लेकर किसी छोटी सी शिकायत के समाधान का भी अधिकार नहीं है। वह किसी भी मामले की शिकायत, निवारण या सुनवाई का अधिकार नहीं रखती।
 
वेब साईट पर लिखे शब्द कुछ ऐसे हैं- "अभी तक राष्ट्रीय पिछड़ा आयोग को अन्य पिछड़ा वर्ग की शिकायतों की जांच का अधिकार प्राप्त नहीं हुआ है| संविधान के अनुच्छेद 338 (5) एवं अनुच्छेद 338 (10) के अंतर्गत पिछड़ा वर्ग से संदर्भित शिकायत/ उत्पीड़न/सुनवाई/निवारण/अधिकार जैसे मामले राष्ट्रीय अनुसूचित जाति आयोग को देखने का अधिकार दिया गया है।
 
अब सोचिये जिसके पास खुद कोई अधिकार नहीं है वो आपके अधिकारों की रक्षा कैसे करेगा? 

Courtesy: nationaldastak.com

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आरपीएससी ने राजस्थान राज्य एवं अधीनस्थ संयुक्त सेवा भर्ती प्रतियोगिता परीक्षा (प्रारंभिक) 2016 का परिणाम गुरुवार शाम घोषित कर दिया। 725 प्रशासनिक और अधीनस्थ सेवाओं के पदों पर भर्ती के लिए आयोजित हुई इस परीक्षा का कट ऑफ पिछली परीक्षाओं की तरह इस बार भी चौंकाने वाला रहा। एक बार फिर से ओबीसी का कट ऑफ जनरल से अधिक रहा! वाकई "अच्छे दिन आ गए!" लेकिन किसके "अच्छे  दिन" आये हैं यह हम लोग समझ कट ऑफ मार्क्स देखकर समझ सकते हैं। यह रहे कट ऑफ मार्क्स:

ओबीसी-94.98, सामान्य-78.54, सामान्य (टीएसपी) 69. 41, एसबीसी-80.82, एससी-71.69, एसटी-72.26  ज्ञात रहे कि इससे पूर्व राजस्थान पटवारी परीक्षा, आरएएस मुख्य परीक्षा, कॉलेज व्याख्याता परीक्षा और अब आरएएस प्रारंभिक परीक्षा में सामान्य वर्ग का कट ऑफ ओबीसी से कम रहा है। पटवारी भर्ती परीक्षा में तो सामान्य वर्ग का कट ऑफ सभी आरक्षित वर्गों से कम रहा है। हैरानी की बात यह है कि साल 2015 में हाईकोर्ट ने ऐसे ही एक मामले में आरक्षित वर्ग की कट-ऑफ का अनारक्षित वर्ग से ज्यादा होने को गलत ठहराते हुए फैसला सुनाया था। यह संविधान के अनुच्छेद 16 का उल्लंघन है जिसमें समान अवसर उपलब्ध करवाने की बात कही गई है। अगर राज्य सरकार कोई विशेष प्रावधान लाती है तब वह कानून आधारित ही होना चाहिए जबकि हाल ही की सभी भर्तियों में राज्य सरकार इसका भयानक तरीके से उल्लंघन कर रही है।

यहाँ अगर राजस्थान के टीएसपी क्षेत्र की बात करें तब स्थिति और भी विकट नज़र आएगी। संविधान के अनुसार ओबीसी को 27.5, अनुसूचित जाति को 15 और अनुसूचित जनजाति को 7.5 फीसदी आरक्षण की व्यवस्था है जबकि राजस्थान उच्च न्यायालय के जून 2013 के नोटिफिकेशन के बाद सरकारी नौकरियों की सीधी भर्तियों में टीएसपी एरिया में अनुसूचित जनजाति को 45 और अनुसूचित जाति को 5 फीसदी आरक्षण की व्यवस्था की गई लेकिन बाकी के 50 फीसदी पदों को स्थानीय लोगों के लिए सुरक्षित रखा गया। यह टीएसपी क्षेत्र के आदिवासियों और दलितों के साथ कितनी बड़ी सरकारी साज़िश है कि उनकी टीएसपी एरिया में जनसंख्या क्रमशः लगभग 70 और 12 फीसदी होने के बावजूद मात्र 45 और 5 फीसदी आरक्षण की व्यवस्था जबकि सामान्य वर्ग के लोग 15 फीसदी भी नहीं है और 50 फीसदी आरक्षण का सीधा-सीधा लाभ ले रहे हैं।

यहाँ एक बार राजस्थान पटवारी प्रारंभिक परीक्षा के कट ऑफ पर नज़र डालें तो समझ में आएगा कि जिस आरक्षण की व्यवस्था भारतीय समाज के वंचित तबकों को सरकारी नौकरियों और शिक्षा में उचित प्रतिनिधित्व देने के लिए की गई थी, उसका वर्तमान में असल लाभ वंचित तबके नहीं बल्कि सामान्य वर्ग उठा रहा है। यहाँ देखिएगा कि सबसे कम कट-ऑफ मार्क्स सामान्य वर्ग के उम्मीदवारों की रही है।

सामान्य वर्ग के पुरुषों का कट-ऑफ 104.5139, ओबीसी के पुरुषों का कट-ऑफ 147.4531, एसबीसी की 123.9037, एससी की 112.788 तथा एसटी की 106.5833 रही है। यह हालात उन लोगों के लिए एक सवाल है जो आरक्षण का रोना रोकर हर बार इस संवैधानिक व्यवस्था को कोसने में कोई कसर बाकी नहीं रखते हैं। सोशल मीडिया हो या कोई अन्य जगह, आरक्षण के विरोध में जातिवादी लोग मोर्चे पर खड़े नज़र आते हैं। लेकिन अभी जो 'मेरिटोरियस हादसे' ओबीसी, SC और ST वर्ग के साथ सरकार द्वारा लगातार किये जा रहे हैं इस पर अगर ये तीनों एकजुट होकर अपना मोर्चा नहीं सँभालते हैं तब वह दिन दूर नहीं जब सरकारें प्रतिनिधित्व की संवैधानिक आरक्षण व्यवस्था को पूरी तरह से बेअसर कर देगी।

अब समय है कि हम लोग तमिलनाडु की तर्ज़ पर 69 फीसदी आरक्षण के लिए पैरवी करें ताकि वंचित तबकों को उनकी संख्या के अनुपात में सरकारी नौकरियों और शिक्षा में उचित प्रतिनिधित्व मिल सकें।

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अब तक आरक्षण कोटा में 50 प्रतिशत की सीमा का बहाना बनाकर ओबीसी के आरक्षण कोटा को बढ़ाने से बच रही सरकारों पर अब इस वर्ग की तरफ से आरक्षण कोटा बढ़ाने का दबाव पड़ने लगा है।

सबसे पहले ये माँग भाजपाशासित राज्य झारखंड से उठनी शुरू हुई है।  इसकी अनदेखी करना भाजपा के लिए कुछ कठिन भी हो सकता है क्योंकि इस बार ये माँग ऑल झारखंड स्टूडेंट्स यूनियन (आजसू) ने उठाई है, जो राज्य में भाजपा नेतृत्व की सरकार का घटक भी है।

आजसू ने राज्य में ओबीसी के कोटे को बढ़ाकर करीब दुगुना करने की माँग की है। अखिल भारतीय झारखंड पिछड़ा महासम्मेलन में आजसू के अध्यक्ष सुदेश महतो ने कहा कि सरकारी नौकरियों और शिक्षण संस्थाओं में ओबीसी का आरक्षण कोटा बढ़ाकर 27 प्रतिशत किया जाना चाहिए। अभी ओबीसी को राज्य में केवल 14 प्रतिशत आरक्षण दिया जा रहा है, जबकि राज्य में इनकी आबादी करीब 46 प्रतिशत है। अनुसूचित जातियों को उनकी आबादी के हिसाब से 10 प्रतिशत आरक्षण दिया जा रहा है। अनुसूचित जनजातियों को राज्य में 26 प्रतिशत आरक्षण हासिल है।

मंडल आयोग की सिफारिशें लागू होने के बाद से केंद्र सरकार ओबीसी वर्ग को 27 प्रतिशत आरक्षण देती है, लेकिन राज्यों में सरकारें अलग-अलग प्रतिशत तय किए हैं।

अब देखना है कि झारखंड की भाजपा सरकार और मुख्यमंत्री रघुवरदास अपने सहयोगी दल आजसू की इस माँग से कैसे निपटते हैं। वैसे खुद भी ओबीसी समाज से आने वाले रघुवार दास मार्च के महीने में विधानसभा में कह चुके हैं कि राज्य में एससी, एसटी और ओबीसी के मौजूदा 50 फीसदी आरक्षण के कोटे को बढ़ाने की उनकी कोई योजना नहीं है। तब झारखंड विकास मोर्चा-प्रजातांत्रिक के विधायक प्रदीप यादव ने विधानसभा में आरक्षण कोटे को 50 प्रतिशत से बढ़ाकर 73 प्रतिशत करने की माँग की थी।

 इसके जवाब में रघुवर दास विधानसभा में कहा था कि राज्य आरक्षण कोटा बढ़ाने की सरकार की कोई योजना नहीं है।

सुदेश महतो और अन्य वक्ताओं ने पिछड़ा वर्ग महासम्मेलन में कहा कि कोर्ट के आदेश के बाद कई राज्यों में आरक्षण की सीमा 60 से 73 प्रतिशत तक हो गई है, इसलिए अब 50 फीसदी की सीमा का बहाना नहीं दिया जा सकता। आजसू नेताओं ने यह भी कहा कि राज्य में कुल 193 जाति उपजातियाँ ओबीसी की श्रेणी में आती हैं, और अगर एक बार नियुक्त प्रक्रिया शुरू हो गई तो दस वर्ष तक नियुक्ति के द्वार बंद हो जाएँगे और ओबीसी का हक मारा जाएगा।

झारखंड में 82 सदस्यों की विधानसभा में भाजपा का मामूली बहुमत है और उसके 43 विधायक हैं। आजसू के 4 विधायक हैं।
 

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As many as 26% male and 35% female students from India’s most disadvantaged castes and tribes in 245 engineering colleges would not be there without reservation, according to a new study that says affirmative action policy in higher education works largely as intended.
 
However, reservations do place those who do not qualify for affirmative action at a disadvantage, said the study of 53,374 scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), other backward caste (OBC) and general students by researchers from the US’ Carnegie Mellon University, published in the American Economic Review.
 
In this, the first part of a three-part IndiaSpend series exploring disadvantaged Indian communities in higher education, a review of education data confirmed a growing tide of SC/ST students in higher education, but their numbers still lag their proportion in the general population.

 
The second part will explain why the government must consider restructuring OBC reservation to benefit OBC students from deprived backgrounds, as the Supreme Court hasadvised, with their proportion in higher-education institutes nearing their proportion in the general population. The third part will explain how Muslims lag every disadvantaged group in higher education, even SCs and STs.
 
 

Source: American Economic Review
 
Naveen Gurappu’s story: From diffidence to confidence
 
Naveen Gurappu, 25, an electrical engineer and doctoral student at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, is an embodiment of India’s 34-year-old system of reservation for the most disadvantaged groups.
 
“I would never have come so far if it had not been for the scheduled caste quota and my dad,” said Gurappu, a native of Hyderabad, son of a bank clerk who himself got his job through reservation.
 
“My dad enrolled me in St Martin’s High School in Hyderabad, a good school, because he wanted me to study well,” said Gurappu, from a scheduled caste called the Malas. “SBI (State Bank of India) pitched in with a yearly fellowship of Rs 500 for stationary, etc. We could not afford extra tuition or the internet at home, even though I badly needed help. Dad paid for my college, coaching and books, he treated me to my first movie—I was in class 11.” The family took a bank loan, which they are repaying, to finance Gurappu’s studies at IIT, which charges SC/ST students about Rs 60,000 per annum for the engineering programme and PhD.

In his first year at IIT, Gurappu struggled to grasp lessons, unlike his upper-caste peers. “Still, I was better off than other disadvantaged caste students because I came from a city,” he said.
 
Reservation helps and motivates the disadvantaged
 
Affirmative action spurred students from disadvantaged castes–who still lagged upper castes–to perform better in college than in school, said the Carnegie Mellon study which compared the first-year college scores of 42,914 students with their high-school scores.
 
Gurappu–who struggled to cope initially at IIT Gandhinagar, where he pursued a graduate degree–agreed with that assessment. “In time, I adjusted to the IIT system and standards, and even caught up with toppers in some subjects,” he said. “With the right mindset and opportunity, any socially disadvantaged student can excel in higher education.”
 
Disadvantaged-caste students were more likely to choose competitive majors, such as electronics, communication and computer science, than other students.
 
Reservation is an equaliser, but it does not get enough SC/ST/OBC students into higher education.
 
“Even with the attendance gains from affirmative action, the most disadvantaged castes still attend in smaller proportions than their population shares,” Dennis Epple, co-author of theAmerican Economic Review study and Thomas Lord University Professor of Economics at the Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, told IndiaSpend.
 
“Our work also indicates why affirmative action policies generate debate,” said Epple. “We find that improved educational outcomes for disadvantaged students come at a cost to those who do not receive affirmative action.”
 
The bottom line: SCs/STs/OBCs benefit from reservation in higher education, but affirmative action should be carefully implemented, periodically reviewed and adjusted to deliver the best outcomes.
 
IndiaSpend dissected higher-education enrolment data to determine what reservation is still justified in India.
 
Reservation and higher education expansion boost SC, ST enrolments, but not enough
 
India introduced 15% and 7.5% reservations for SC and ST candidates respectively in government-aided educational institutions in 1982. Some states tweaked those percentages to factor in local demographics, which the Constitution allows. So in Tamil Nadu, 18% of higher-education is reserved for SCs, 1% for STs. In some central universities in the tribal-dominated northeast, 60% of seats are reserved for ST students.
 
Between 2000 and 2014, the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) of SCs–a measure of the percentage of actual enrolments in higher education, regardless of age, in a given academic year, to the 18- to 23-year-old population eligible for higher education in that year–more than doubled while that of STs doubled.
 
 

Source: SAGE Publications, All India Survey on Higher Education, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Sikh Institute, UNESCO, National Sample Survey Office
 
Notes:
1. Gross Enrolment Ratio for Other Backward Castes and Muslims shown for 2000-01 is from 1999-2000.
2. Gross Enrolment Ratio for Other Backward Castes and Muslims shown for 2014-15 is from 2009-10.
3. OBC share of population: Kaka Kalelkar Commission estimate. OBC share in population has been variously reported since Independence, with no definite assessment as the last caste census in India was done in 1931.
4. SC and ST literacy rates for 2014-2015 are from NSS 55th Round.
5. OBC Literacy Rate: 54.8% rural, 75.3% urban
6. Muslim Literacy rate: rural male 69.1%, urban male 81%, rural female 47.4%, rural male 65.5%
 
Reservations have had a domino effect, spurring new generations to educate themselves.
 
“Reservations in past decades have increased the numbers of SC/ST families with highly-educated members, who can encourage–and provide support for–younger family members to continue their education,” said professor emeritus of economics at the University of Michigan, Thomas E Weisskopf, who has argued in favour of reservations for marginalised Indian social groups in higher education.
 
If parity existed between the share of SCs and STs in the general population and participation in higher education, SCs would occupy a third more seats than they do now, while STs would occupy close to double the seats.

5 ways to increase SC, ST higher-education enrolments
 
1. Create more infrastructure: Investing in higher education by creating more colleges and universities would help drive SC and ST enrolments, said Sachidanand Sinha of the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
 
SC and ST higher-education enrolments were higher in districts with a higher College-Population Index (C-PI), a measure of the number of colleges in a district for every 100,000 people aged 18 to 23, according to Identification of Educationally Backward Districts, a 2007 study Sinha led for the University Grants Commission.
 
“Since disadvantaged youth tend to gravitate to government-run and missionary/CSR (corporate social responsibility)-driven institutes, India needs more of those,” he said.
 
Although the number of colleges and universities has expanded 248% since 2000, from 11,146to 38,813, most new institutes are privately run, which means they are not obliged to reserve seats for SC and ST candidates.
 
2. Extend affirmative action to private-sector institutions: To drive SC and ST enrolments in private sector institutes, they could be asked to reserve seats for applicants from economically disadvantaged families and offer scholarships, said Bhushan Patwardhan, former vice chancellor, Symbiosis International University, and professor at the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, Savitribai Phule University in Pune.
 

Naveen Gurappu, 25, electrical engineer and doctoral student at IIT Bombay, would not have made it to the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, for a graduate engineering degree had it not been for affirmative action. As many as 26% male and 35% female scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other backward caste students in 245 engineering colleges benefited from reservation in higher education, according to a new study of 53,374 students.

 
3. Support students at the intermediate level: “ST and SC candidates need more support at the intermediate level. Scholarships exist for study up to class X and for graduate study but financial assistance for the intermediary expensive preparatory time is missing,” said Gurrapu.
 
Post-matriculation scholarships start after higher-education admission, pointed out Yagati Chinna Rao, chairperson of the Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. “Between school-leaving and admission, students are on their own. Accommodation expenses, travel to a preparatory centre, etc. fall on the family, which most can ill afford. This is when most dalit children who manage to complete school drop out.”
 
4. Counsel students about opportunities: Most children from SC and ST families are unaware of many higher-education opportunities, especially where there is no one who has acquired a graduate degree or more, said Rao.
 
So, students need counselling to understand it benefits them to study instead of working as soon as possible and to learn about opportunities, said Gurrapu. “Students in cities hear about competitive exams very early, but those from rural backgrounds often get to know about competitive exams only when they are in +2 (10th and 11th standard, or pre-university), when it is too late to start preparing,” he said.
 
5. Encourage CSR initiatives in education for disadvantaged students: “Primary education for all is an objective of many NGOs, higher education for the disadvantaged is not, whereas the latter would help boost primary education too when its beneficiaries raise the next generation,” said Gurappu.
 
Certainly, education begets education, said Sheldon Danziger of the University of Michigan and Jane Waldfogel of the London School of Economics in Securing the Future: Investing in Children from Birth to College.
 
“Those who complete more education initially are more likely to seek additional education and additional training,” wrote Danziger and Waldfogel. “Education begins at home; the educational level of a child’s parents is a primary determinant of how much education that child will get and how well she and he will do in school.”
 
This is the first of a three-part series. Next: 1931 Data Muddies Issue Of Backward-Caste Higher-Education Quotas
 
(Bahri is a freelance writer and editor based in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.)

Courtesy: IndiaSpend.com

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The Modi Government is trying to scuttle reservation of OBC students in admissions at various centrally funded institutes. While trying to capitalise on the issue of the OBC identity electorally (2014 Lok Sabha Elections and 2016 state elections) it is, when it comes to representation of OBCs within universities, clearly indulging in doublespeak.

Besides the Modi government and the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), have also notified draconian unjustifiable office order of the University Grants Commission (UGC)- bearing F.No.59-6/2012 (CU)– dated June 3, 2016 — which stipulates central universities in India to implement OBC reservations in the recruitment of teachers only at the level of Assistant Professor. Interestingly, for the same faculty recruitment in IIT, OBC reservation is applicable for all the three levels: Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor.

The Social Justice March scheduled to be held during the current session of Parliament has demanded a rollback of this unjustified office order issued by UGC.The Other Backward Classes (OBCs) have been subjected to multiple forms of marginalities, not least of being adequate representation in academic institutions. The United OBC Forum that has been constituted, is a socio-cultural platform of young students and aims to resolve the issue of non-representation/non-implementation of OBC reservation by various government educational institutions.

Parliament Debates on OBC Representation in Academia
On the crucial issue of vacancies in the OBC quota within educational institutions, Samajwadi Party(SP) member of Parliament, Dharmendra Yadav had squarely put the Modi government in the dock earlier this year.
 [First Published on Mar 14, 2016: Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav commenting on HRD Minister Smriti Irani’s reply over reservation to OBCs  in Central Universities]
 
 In reply to his question, the government of India had provided figures to him that related to the number of OBCs within academia in the Central Universities. These are:
 
In the Central Universities of the 2371 positions for the post of ‘Professors’ there is only one OBC
In the Central Universities, of the 4708 positions for associate professors only 6 belong to the OBCs
In the Central Universities, of the 9521 positions for assistant professors, only 1745 belong to the OBCs
 
The Mandal Recommendations are clearly not being followed. They said that 27 per cent reservations should be applied within the Central Universities as well.
 

It is within this backdrop that the United OBC Forum has organized Social Justice March to Parliament. Mobilization of people from different parts of India has taken place. This movement has got participation by the people from Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

In the wake of preparation of the march, members of United OBC Forum have met leaders from different political parties and affiliations: Leaders like Mr. Sharad Yadav, Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mr. Upendra Kushwaha, Mr. Tejasvi Yadav, Mr. V Hanumantha Rao have been lending support on this issue.
 

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CASTE DISCRIMINATION

BJP suspends UP women's wing leader for saying 'those who are ruling us used to clean our shoes'

Madhu Mishra had also asked for a war against the upliftment of backward classes such as the Dalits.

Image credit:  Twitter/ABP News

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday expelled its Uttar Pradesh women’s wing leader Madhu Mishra for six years after she made casteist remarks at a rally. The state Mahila Morcha president had said on
Sunday, "Aaj tumhare sar par baith kar samvidhan ke sahare jo log raaj kar rahe hain, yaad karo woh kabhi tumhare joote saaf kiya karte they (Remember that those who are ruling us with the help of the
Constitution today used to clean our shoes in the past)."

The Times of India reported that she also asked for a war against the upliftment of backward classes such as the Dalits. "There was a time when we didn't like to even sit close to them. Soon, our children
might be calling these people huzoor," she added. Uttar Pradesh BJP president Laxmi Kant Bajpai dismissed Mishra from the party on Monday,

PTI reported. The Uttar Pradesh polls are scheduled to be held in 2017. The state has 403 Assembly seats.

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Brahmin-Savarnas occupy Strategic Posts
In JNU, teachers and students have come together to stage a united fight against organised Hindutva forces and militarization of the campus. As per one of the speakers, their fight aims at saving the soul of ‘India’ by defending its ‘universities’. One may agree or disagree with them. However, one cannot fail to notice the caste and class differences between the teachers and the students.

While students form a relatively heterogeneous group, thanks to affirmative action; teachers continue to be dominated by Brahmins and other Savarnas (hereafter Brahmin-Savarnas). Is this difference a problem?

Well, such ‘differences’ are part of all campuses in India.

The statistics of All India Survey in Higher Education is quite instructive. Though the survey doesn’t ‘count’ upper-castes separately, one can safely say that 66% of all teaching positions are occupied by ‘Non-SC, ST, OBC, Muslim, Other religious Minority and PwD’ teachers.  Who form ‘Non-SC, ST, OBC, Muslim, Other religious Minority and PwD’ teachers, is anybody’s guess! If 66% of all teachers come from Brahmin-Savarna backgrounds, it effectively means that all important decision-making bodies in higher education are dominated by privileged social groups, who are historically part of the ruling social class.

This being the case, it is hard to believe that teachers and students would have the ‘same’ or ‘similar’ intentions behind saving public-funded universities. The powerful groups dominating powerful posts would want to save the university to maintain their power and control over resources, irrespective of their progressive lip service. We do not have many reasons to think otherwise. For example, have we witnessed Brahmin-Savarna teachers forming human chains or organising hunger strikes to fill SC/ST/OBC backlog positions in Universities?

On the other hand, Dalit-Bahujan and other minority students would want to save universities (or any other pubic-funded institution) to essentially dismantle its status-quo and claim their rightful share.

This contradiction in interests should be historicised and analyzed carefully. We can build meaningful solidarities only if we show the courage to face conflicting histories and interests.

The formation of the Independent Indian State consolidated the Brahmin-Savarna supremacy in no simple ways. We can go through the community and genealogical histories of several groups to understand the ways in which they ensured their inclusion (and over-representation) by denying equal opportunities to others and maintaining the status quo.  

Let us briefly look at one example. This example or rather a case study appears in an essay written by C. J. Fuller and Haripriya Narasimhan titled ‘From landlords to software engineers: migration and urbanisation among Tamil Brahmans.’ They collected eighteen such genealogical accounts to understand the generational movement of Tamil Brahmins –

 Nagalingam, born in 1927, belongs to one of Tippirajapuram’s leading landed families. Both his grandfathers were landlords there; his father qualified as an accountant, but did not practice and instead looked after his land, which Nagalingam has retained. Nagalingam is also an auditor still working in the City Union Bank (CUB), which is largely controlled by Vattimas. He went to college in Madras and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1953. He first worked for a central government department in Jaipur and Calcutta, and later joined a leading private-sector company, but he fell ill and returned to Tippirajapuram in 1963, where he practiced accountancy….Nagalingam and his wife have two sons in their forties, both auditors in Chennai, and one daughter in her fifties who is a housewife married to a doctor living in Ohio and has three children, all trainee doctors. Nagalingam’s father had one brother, whose only daughter, Rajalakshmi, also born in 1927, married a landlord, and they have four children, now in their fifties. Rajalakshmi’s elder son works for the CUB in Coimbatore and the younger son works in Bangalore for a financial advice and services company started in Chennai in 1974 by Vasudevan, Rajalakshmi’s younger daughter’s husband, who is also a chartered accountant. Vasudevan’s elder daughter is an IT professional living in the United States, his younger daughter is married to CUB manager in Kumbakonam, and his son works for his father’s company in Chennai. Rajalakshmi’s elder daughter is married to her cross-cousin (once removed), a landlord in another Vattima village, and they have three sons, one working for the same financial company in Mumbai (Bombay) and the other two for software companies in Chennai. Nagalingam’s father also had one sister, whose four sons, all born in the 1930s, are respectively two retired lawyers, who practiced in nearby Kumbakonam and Mayuvaram, and two landlords (one just mentioned as married to his cross-cousin). Each lawyer had two sons: one works for the CUB in Tirucchirappalli, and three are in Chennai, one in a large private-sector company, one in business, and one an accountant.

 In Nagalingam’s family, banking and accountancy have been common occupations, mostly practiced in Chennai and other Tamilnadu towns.

Fuller and Haripriya’s essay try to make sense of the ‘over-representation’ of Tamil Brahmins in IT professions. They contextualise it in the history-induced migration of this group. The essay is not political in any measure but it captures the objective realities which led to Tamil Brahmin expansion in strategic sectors.

In the above example, we would find that quite a few individuals from Nagalingam’s family are chartered accountants. There are historical reasons for the same. During the British rule, land settlements were administered through the village accountants and headmen. Most of the accountants were Brahmins.

These ‘revenue Brahmins’ (as Conlon refers to them, quoted in Fuller) started migrating to towns and cities to man several state jobs. One also needs to note that most of the Tamil Brahmin landlords received proprietary rights under the ryotwari system and were exempted from tax payments as they owned ‘inam’ land or ‘gifted’ land. Their preferred ‘life’ of wealth and ‘education’ was made possible by their total non-involvement with any labour in the field. All the labour was outsourced to the Dalit-Bahujan communities.

In 1891, the only group to draw salaries above Rs.500/month in Travancore Services was the Foreign Brahmin (mostly Tamil Brahmins)[1]. Kannadiga Brahmins sought affirmative action against Tamil Brahmins in the Mysore Presidency, owing to the latter’s ‘over-representation’ in services. The ‘Malayali Memorial’ submitted in 1891 was a concerted effort mostly by Nairs, Syrian Christians and marginally by Ezhavas against the supremacy of Tamil Brahmins.

It should be noted that Dalits were not included in this endeavor. More than 10,000 Nairs, Syrian Christians and Ezhavas gave a written petition to the Travancore State, asking for representation in state jobs. While the state considered the demands of the Nairs and Syrian Christians, the Ezhavas were denied any opportunity and nobody really bothered about the Dalits. 

The formation of ‘Indian State’ does not weaken the position of the Tamil Brahmin. In fact you would find an explosion of opportunities and choices for them in public and private sectors. This is the case with most of the Brahmin-Savarna groups.

We need to bear in our minds that Universities, like other state-supported public institutions, have been the meeting place of the ruling social classes or the Brahmin-Savarnas. Educational Institutions of National Importance have always witnessed an alarming presence of these groups. JNU or any other university is no exception. If one goes through the surnames of teachers in the JNU faculty directory, one would find an alarming diversity of Brahmin-Savarna surnames cutting across religion and region. I could list almost seventy such surnames, many of them often appeared more than five times in the list. Let us be assured that the situation would be no different in other universities. What does this supremacy indicate? It tells us about the nature of public institutions – its composition, its beneficiaries and decision-makers.

In his message to the Maratha Community (dated March 23, 1947) Dr. B.R. Ambedkar writes- 
“The Brahmin Community is able to maintain itself against all odds, against all oppositions; it is due to the fact that strategic posts are held by Brahmins”

Babasaheb points out that Brahmins, a numerical minority, continue to maintain their supremacy by ‘having a controlling influence on the State’. Such an influence is assured through the ‘capture’ of strategic posts. Even during the Muslim rule in India, key ministerial berths were captured by Brahmins[2]. Such capture over finite resources and positions has meant exclusion and betrayal of the majority.

In the light of the above discussion, let us reflect on a few statistics provided by the Deputy Registrar of JNU to the Parliament in 2013 and 2014[3].
As per 2013 data, number of SC/ST/OBC vacant teaching posts is as follows –
 
(a) SC
Professor: 23
Associate Professor: 34
Assistant Professor: 11
 (b) ST
Professor: 10
Associate Professor: 15
Assistant Professor: 03
 (c) OBC
Professor: Not applicable
Associate Professor: Not applicable
Assistant Professor: 10
 
SC/ST reservation in Associate professor and Professor levels were adopted in 2007 by the JNU Executive Council. OBC reservations (27%) have not been adopted at the level of Associate professor and Professor. In 2014 more than half the sanctioned OBC positions at the Assistant Professor level remained vacant, even after seven years of adopting the implementation of 27% OBC reservation. According to replies to an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act filed in 2015, there are 29 OBC assistant professors, which is again less than the sanctioned positions. 
 Let us take a look at the non-teaching Group C and D positions at JNU. As per the Deputy Registrar, between 2009 and 2013, JNU has not appointed a single SC cook. In spite of 10 sanctioned positions. 141 Safai Karamchari positions were exclusively 'chalked out' only for SCs. During the same period the appointments of Vice-Chancellor, Registrar, Finance Officer and Librarian were made under the 'Unreserved categories'.

None of these statistics should come to us as a surprise. It simply reaffirms that universities are like any other place within a Brahmin-supremacist, patriarchal caste order.

Dalit-Bahujan diversity cannot be achieved by ‘reserving’ 141 sanitation worker posts for SCs, nor can it be achieved only through implementation of affirmative action in enrolling students. Heterogeneity can be meaningful only when it is achieved at the higher echelons of power and decision-making. 

We also need to acknowledge that increasing student heterogeneity of certain universities is simply a faint reflection of the real heterogeneity of our geography. We are more than 5000 castes and tribes with several sub-groups, genders, speaking distinct languages, residing in varied geographies, involved in diverse occupations.

To my mind, ‘heterogenising’ universities would ideally mean
(a) Establishment of fully state-supported universities in accessible physical and cultural locations
(b) Universalization of University education: Where everybody has a right to University Education
(c) Active participation and agency of all castes and tribes in accessing and shaping Higher Education
(d) Meaningful affirmative action in teaching, non-teaching/administrative positions. However, all these conditions go against the grain of the established Brahmanic and neo-liberal order. Implementing these conditions would also mean decentralizing Higher Education and dismantling the false hierarchies of state and central universities. Most importantly, the ruling social class (read as Brahmin-Savarnas) doesn’t and wouldn’t support such propositions aimed at heavily undoing their hegemony.

Who has laboured for heterogeneity in Universities?
Having said that, let me also acknowledge that the faint reflection of heterogeneity in certain universities is not the generosity of the ‘university’ or its predominantly Brahmin-Savarna faculty. It is a consequence of the politics, labour, time and energy put in by communities, especially Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi women and men.

The reiteration of these collective struggles is important to ward off ‘heroic individualism’ of any kind. Angela Davis uses the term ‘heroic individualism’ to express how people reduce collective struggles to the heroic individuality of a place or a person in the context of the Civil Rights Movement in U.S.A.

It is their ability to creatively organise meagre resources to ensure that their children reach the examination hall to write JNU’s (or any other university’s) entrance test. It is often a result of generations of out-migrations from places of origin to ensure dignity, social security, education and access to modern institutions in the face of great social hostility. It is a result of political mobilisations to enter schools, colleges, hospitals and public offices. Such political mobilidations have meant creation of hostels, schools, colleges and hospitals. For example, the creation of Ambedkar student’s hostels, social welfare hostels has been a watershed in the history of access to higher education.

Neither JNU nor any other university can explain its student heterogeneity by only looking for the reasons in its rulebooks or protests within its executive councils or physical boundaries. Most of the reasons lie clearly outside its territory and purview. The image of the ‘university’ as a modern space with emancipatory potentials is cultivated and nurtured through social movements and community mobilisations outside of universities. These social meanings emerge from the modernist visions of anti-caste movements which always placed ‘education’ as their central focus (of mobilization).
It is extremely important for all of us to constantly reiterate the significance of anti-caste community mobilisations which fought to access ‘public institutions.’ Why is this reiteration important?

Sunny Kapicadu underlines that public places and institutions were made ‘public’ by Anti-caste mobilisations. It is only with the entry of historically excluded groups that places and institutions achieve a ‘modern’ character. He recalls the market-entry and school-entry movements led by Ayyankali in early 20^th century Kerala to substantiate this observation. The Entry of Dalits has historically meant ‘entry for all’. The idea that places and institutions can be ‘accessible to all’ emerges from anti-caste movements in the Indian sub-continent.

This contribution was not an unexpected by-product. It was/is the central plank of anti-caste struggles- imagining and politically articulating dignified and accessible places and institutions for everyone. The fact that Jotiba and Savitribai Phule opened schools ‘for everyone’ is another example of how the idea of ‘public’ was made meaningful in our geography. Drawing from the first reason, one can argue that making places and institutions ‘public’ was the first step towards making them democratic and representative. Anti-caste mobilisations for representation in public office, jobs and universities continue to be very important for democracy.

Warding off the ‘Heroic Individualism’ of Universities
The reiteration of these collective struggles is important to ward off ‘heroic individualism’ of any kind. Angela Davis uses the term ‘heroic individualism’ to express how people reduce collective struggles to the heroic individuality of a place or a person in the context of the Civil Rights Movement in U.S.A. She underlines that a series of ‘non-heroic’ everyday tasks are involved in making a movement. She remembers the Black women who mimeographed pamphlets all night to execute the bus strike in 1955 America. However, nobody remembers the names of these women.

In India millions of unsung, unknown poor, Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi women and men are toiling, migrating, mobilising, fighting to make certain ‘spectacles’ of heterogeneity possible in Universities. The four decade old struggle of Tamil Nadu’s Narikuravar community to get enlisted in the Scheduled Tribe List is one such fight. They are single-mindedly continuing this struggle to ensure meaningful access to Hostels, Higher Education and jobs.  The idea of meaningful representation is a product of collective struggles; it flows from collective struggles to the university and not the other way round.

However, it is interesting to note that Nivedita Menon (in her speech delivered at JNU administrative block) remembers the ‘white bearded’ men who ‘worked out the deprivation points’ in the 1970s which, according to her, ‘ensured the heterogeneity of JNU’. Her recollections of JNU’s struggle for ensuring representation is significant but is not rounded or complete, to say the least.

Without active community mobilisations among Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi communities to access education in the face of a hostile Brahmanical order, none of the ‘deprivation points’ or by-rules would have been of any use.

Selective recollections, which single-mindedly argue that heterogeneity is a consequence of a few men’s ability to chalk out ‘deprivation points’ makes any keen listener feel that there is something ‘very special’ about JNU. Something very unique about the place which makes it naturally intelligent and sensitive! 

It is important to understand Indian Universities as historical products of a caste society. In recent times we are also witnessing its intimate collusions with neo-liberalism. They mirror the larger structural realities of an unequal society.  Its everyday life is based on gendered and caste-based labour, like any other historical product.

This being the case, how do we understand glorious slogans such as JNU is ‘Tarq ka Gadh and Nyan ka Jad’ or a place where everyone questions, discusses everything under the sun and imagines a new world?

Well, such claims and dreams operationalise only when large portions of reproductive labour are outsourced to women and men who are not part of these discussions and deliberations.  In other words, a ‘non-participant’ is effectively cooking, cleaning, mopping, washing, or sweeping for every participant. As mentioned above, if 141 seats are reserved for SC sanitation workers, we know who are the ‘non-participants’!

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in the constitution of the Republican Party of India highlights the importance of ‘education’ over ‘propaganda’ in the functioning of a government. This is true in the case of universities as well. Universities, their history and composition should be subjected to a detailed critique. This critique should be linked to the society and its realities and not as stand-alone islands. Such an exercise would be educational.

While the current struggle against criminalising students is important, one does not require fighting in binaries or in other words, hail universities as ‘heaven on earth’. Dalit-Bahujan struggles for public-institutions include destruction of Brahmin-Savarna hegemony and reclaiming democracy for everyone. Heroic individualism of certain universities would simply help in reinstating Brahmin-Savarna supremacy, as they ‘embody’ these spaces more than any other group. Glorious accounts of universities (any university) in a Brahmin-supremacist, patriarchal caste order would essentially invisiblise the majority. Universities should be understood as part of larger social realities which need radical reconstruction.

[1] George Mathew, ‘Communal Road to a Secular Kerala’, p.52
[2] P. Laxmi Narasu in his book ‘A Study of Caste’ re-published in 2009, Samyak Prakashan , p. 105
[3]Based on the response filed to the Parliament by JNU deputy registrar on the status of new sanctioned appointments, dated 8th August 2013 and the reply filed by deputy registrar to MHRD, dated July 25th 2014; Material for reply to Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1136 for 16.12.2013 asked by Shri Ali Anwar Ansari regarding “Reservation policy in Central Universities”. 
 
Illustration by Nidhin Shobhana
 
(The writer is an artist and writer. He is a Programme Associate with NCDHR, the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights)
 
Courtesy: roundtableindia.co.in
 
 

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