One of the more insidious effects of quota politics is that identity has colonised reason. We assume that positions on issues are determined by who people are. On this view the upper caste will oppose quotas, because it is in their caste interests, and the so-called lower castes will demand them because it is in their interest. There is no doubt much self-interested calculation at work in our positions, and there is gratuitous name-calling. Protesters against the quota sometimes used images that could be construed as demeaning; just as defenders of quota level the charge manuwadi or draw analogies of upper castes with the Ku-Klux clan, as if such moral charges should be bandied about easily. There is little doubt that different groups are often not as well represented in different walks of life as they should be. But from this premise we have gone to the insidious conclusion that identity determines the validity of arguments. Show me your identity and I can impugn you, the logic of the argument be damned. This is the profound sense in which caste based politics has diminished us. All there is, is a clash of interests and wills. No leader or thinker can speak on behalf of the whole, the authority of each will remain confined to the groups they come from. What a corrosion of democracy and subversion of public reason! The whole idea of citizenship and reciprocity is effaced if caste is equated with reason, which many protagonists in the debate are doing.

... contd.