A case of great constitutional significance is being argued before a bench of five justices of the Supreme Court, presided over by the chief justice of India. A few years ago both houses of Parliament added sub-clauses (4A) and (4B) to Article 16 of our Constitution by a rare unanimous vote, but with hardly any discussion. The question presently engaging the court’s attention is: do these sub-clauses violate the “basic structure” of the Constitution?

I had always thought they did. But after reading a perceptive newspaper article by a sociology professor of JNU recently, I have some doubt. The professor goes for the jugular: “Dalits can ask Brahmins that if they were so meritorious, why is half of our country’s population still illiterate?” If meritorious economists and administrators manage the affairs of our country without any reservation how and why are we still so economically backward?”

In the realm of super-speciality education where (at present) there are no ‘reservations’, only three Indian institutes of higher learning figure in the top 500 of world universities — Indian Institute of Science (at No 260), and the Indian Institutes of Technology at Kharagpur and Delhi (at No 459 and 460, respectively). The IITs in Madras, Kanpur, Mumbai and Roorkee don’t figure at all, despite the fact that there are no reservations for OBCs in these centres of learning. And, the professor goes on to say, why do we have hundreds of thousands of cases pending at all levels despite our ‘meritorious’ judiciary? The professor is quite indignant and he won’t wait for answers, but what he says must be put in the ultimate reckoning — without rant or recrimination.

... contd.