Affirmative action in the form of reservation/quota has acquired significant ... of social inequalities that persist in our society, other forms of affirmative action have.
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Niranjan Sahoo, Reservation Policy and Its Implementation across Domains in India: An Analytical Review, Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 111, Rs. 599. Affirmative action in the form of reservation/quota has acquired significant attention in public policy discourse right since India achieved Independence. Despite the existence of genuine limitations of the reservation system in terms of its application to the kind of social inequalities that persist in our society, other forms of affirmative action have received very little attention in India. Evidently, more and more research studies have been carried out to focus on the implementation of the quota system in different domains. Aikara’s empirical work on the implementation of reservation among medical schools in Gujarat in the 1970s, and Marc Galanter’s seminal work, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India (1984) are some of the notable studies that focus upon the issues related to law and reservation for the backward classes. In the twenty-first century, numerous scholars have started working both from India and abroad on the issues pertaining to the reservation policy as its Constitutional application to different domains. (Jaffrelot, 2003; Weisskopf, 2004; Sowell, 2004; McMillan, 2005). The book under review is a work in the same direction. It deals with the trends and patterns in terms of the participation of social and gender groups as also the implementation of the reservation policy in three domains, viz. the political, employment, and educational arenas during both the pre- and post-Independence periods. In its initial chapter, the book presents an appreciable analysis of the Constituent Assembly discourses pertaining to the policies propagating equity and social justice for both minorities and backward classes in India. The book is divided into five different chapters, each of which deals with the issues of reservation in the respective domains. Chapter two summarizes the origin and evolution of the reservation debate during the pre- and post-Independence periods. Chapters three, four and five document the trends and patterns related to employment in the public sector, and the education sector, and political reservation, respectively. The final chapter of the study summarizes the key findings and identifies the areas for further research. In order to capture the trends and patterns in the social and gender groups and their participation in the implementation of the reservation policy, the study relies primarily on data culled from published government documents and surveys, including Census Reports, National Development Reports, Reports of the various Ministries such as those of Social Justice and Empowerment and Human Resource Development, National Commissions for SCs and STs, and the University Grant Commissions, among others. The proceedings of the Constituent Assembly debates and archives on the reservation issue have also been used, apart from the data gathered from relevant books, journals, newspapers, and press notes. The study reveals some interesting results regarding the implementation of the reservation policy in different domains in India. The overwhelming representation of SCs in Group D services reveals the prevalence of caste–occupation linkages, which has been a perennial feature of the Indian caste system. The classification of Indian
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public sector jobs into four categories is reflected in terms of the hierarchy ranging from the most respected positions in Group A to the most socially degenerative jobs in the category of Group D. Another significant finding is the alarmingly low proportion of SC/ST students in professional courses at the level of higher education, and the correspondingly high proportion of these students in arts and humanities courses. The study points out that the absence of SC/ST candidates in professional jobs is also due to their minimal participation in professional courses at the higher education level. In fact, a comprehensive comparison of the participation of social groups in higher education must take into account the relevant age group as well as the enrolment ratio of candidates, which is beyond the scope of this study. This would facilitate a clear analysis of the reasons for the under-representation of each social group in higher education on the basis of the age and enrolment parameters. Further, the study reveals that the drop-out rate of SCs, STs and OBCs is higher at the level of graduation and still higher level of education (covering the age group of 20-24 years). This result contrasts with the findings of Sundaram (2006; 2009), who concludes that the proportion of the poor between the OBCs and the residual category of ‘Others’, who are able to access higher education, is only 2.5 per cent or less, which, in turn, indicates that the creamy layers among the OBCs are the frequent beneficiaries of the reservation policy in India. The implementation of the quota regime has been most successful in the political domain as compared to any other domain. This is partly due to the fact that the quota system initially aimed at achieving proportional representation of the underrepresented sections of society in the political arenas. While the SCs/STs and OBCs have acquired reasonable representation at the regional and local levels, their representation at the Central/federal levels is alarmingly low. However, the influence of the Mandal regime throughout India is revealed in terms of the representation of OBCs at not only the local levels but also several state levels. The book provides succinctly captures the successes and failures of the reservation policy as a part of the larger national goal to achieve equity and social justice. Although the book is based on several secondary sources of data and information, it, however, manages to critically engage with the issue by comparing as well as contrasting it among different sources of data and information. References Aikara, J. (1980). Scheduled Castes and Higher Education: A Study of College Students in Mumbai, Distance, Pune. Galanter, Marc (1984). Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Jaffrelot, Christophe (2003). India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North Indian Politics, Permanent Black, New Delhi. McMillan, Alistair (2005). Standing at the Margins: Representation and the Electoral Reservation in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
Book Reviews 453 Sowell, Thomas (2004). Affirmative Action around the World: An Empirical Study, Yale University Press, New Haven and London. Sundaram, K. (2006). “On Backwardness and Fair Access to Higher Education”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 50, pp. 5173-82. —— (2009). “Fair Access to Higher Education Re-Visited: Some Results for Social and Religious Groups from NSS 61st Round Employment–Unemployment Survey, 2004–05”, Journal of Educational Planning and Administration, Vol. XXIII, No. 2. pp. 111-23 Weisskopf, Thomas (2004). “The Impact of Reservation on Admissions to Higher Education in India”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 39. pp. 4339-49.
Bharat Chandra Rout Research Scholar, PhD. National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi.
