If some of this description fits you, do read on. Here are some of your questions. The answers may not suit your own interest. As a sensitive Indian, you are not into promoting your self-interest. You want a fair and just society. The answers may not be to your liking. As a thinking Indian you do not want affirmation of whatever you may have believed. You are open to new facts and perspectives.

Why do we need to discuss something as clear as this? Isn’t it obvious that OBC reservation is all about vote bank politics?

Of course it is. The motives of the politicians in this game have been consistently unholy and motivated by a calculus of votes. But to blame politicians for it is like blaming a shopkeeper for wanting to make profit. This is the logic of market/electoral democracy: the fear of losing customers/voters makes a shopkeeper/politician serve the customers/citizens.

The politicians who led the abolition of slavery or the end of Apartheid or the Indian nationalist struggle were not always motivated by lofty ideals. Like in market, in politics too, individual venality can contribute to collective good. In any case, whether something is right or wrong should be evaluated independent of who said it and why.

Okay, let us evaluate it independently. The Scheduled Castes may have suffered from caste oppression and untouchability. What could possibly justify reservations for the OBCs?

Sure, the OBCs did not face untouchability and most of them did not suffer from the worst oppression of the caste system. But they have suffered from systematic disadvantage in accessing education and middle-class jobs. Look at its effect today: according to the National Sample Survey, out of 1,000 upper-caste Hindus in urban India, 253 were graduates. Among the Hindu OBCs, this figure was only 86 per 1,000. The picture gets worse if we look at post-graduate and professional degrees. Caste-wise break up from another study shows that access to higher education still reflects the traditional caste hierarchy: the rate of highly educated is 78 per 1,000 among the Hindu Brahmins, around 50 or plus for other ‘twice born’ caste Hindus, Christians and Sikhs (with the exception of Rajputs who now include many upwardly mobile non-dwijas), but only 18 for the OBC and even less for SC and ST. The inequalities in the level of educational attainment of different caste groups are still unacceptably large. This situation is not an outcome of any natural differences in IQ of different caste groups or uneven desire to pursue higher education. These differences are principally an outcome of unequal opportunities. That is why the government needs to step into this.

Before we get into this, tell me who are these OBCs? Who decides who is an OBC and who is not?

OBC or Other Backward Classes are backward communities other than the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. These are mostly ‘shudras’ in the traditional varna hierarchy: below the ‘dwija’ or the twice born but above the ‘untouchable’ communities. But not all ‘shudras’ are recognised as OBCs by the government. The Mandal Commission used a survey to shortlist those ‘shudra’ communities that were ‘backward’ in economic and educational terms. Since then the National Commission for Backward Classes, a statutory body set up on the orders of the Supreme Court, takes the decision about which caste or community and in which state (or sometimes region within a state) should by given the legal status of an OBC. The system is not perfect—the NCBC has been too lenient about including new castes in the OBC list and reluctant to exclude any—but it is not arbitrary. The government can start with this ready-made list.

And why do they get 27 per cent reservation? What is their share in population? Isn’t that a disputed figure?

The Mandal Commission claimed that the OBCs were 52 per cent of India’s population. This figure was based on back-of-the-envelope calculation by remainder method and has not been backed by any social scientific evidence.

The NSS has put the figure at 36 per cent, but this is based on ‘self-reporting’ and likely to underestimate the OBC population. The most robust estimate is anywhere between 40 to 44 per cent. We can’t have more precise information because the Census does not collect information about the OBC population.

But this entire debate about their population size is irrelevant to the current reservation scheme. The figure of 27 per cent has nothing to do with their population estimate. This figure is dictated by the Supreme Court judgment that prohibited more than 50 per cent reservations. Since the SC and ST reservation already accounted for 22.5 per cent, the maximum permissible for any additional group was 27 per cent. As long as everyone agrees, which they do, that the OBCs are more than 27 per cent of the population, the dispute about their share of population has no relevance for their reservation quota.

Doesn’t this quota deprive the upper caste of their legitimate share?

All the upper castes (all those from any religion who do not qualify currently for SC, ST or OBC quota) are about 33 per cent of population. Even after the OBC reservation is introduced, at least 50 per cent of the seats in higher education will still be open to them. So, strictly in the narrow caste-share calculations, it is not clear how the upper caste are being deprived of ‘their’ due. The problem is not that of their share of the cake; the real problem is that of the very small size of the cake. The number of seats available

in higher education is just too small compared to the pool of eligible and deserving candidates.

Let us get back. That the OBCs are disadvantaged does not mean that they should get reservations. Does it?

You are right. This only means that something needs to be done. Whether that something should be reservations is not self-evident. We need to ask two basic questions here: what kind of instrument of affirmative action is most suited in this situation? And what should be the criterion for identifying the beneficiaries?

Yes, that is the whole point. Why should caste be used as the only criterion of ‘backwardness’?

Caste is a very useful criterion for several reasons. One, the original discrimination in access to education took place on the basis of caste; the same criterion needs to used for reversing that discrimination. Two, caste is still a very good proxy for various kinds of social and educational disadvantages and the single best predictor of educational opportunities. Three, caste and economic hierarchy tend to fuse at the upper and the lower end: the poor are likely to be ‘lower’ caste and the upper caste likely to be well-to-do. And finally, caste certificates tend to be more reliable than other proofs of disadvantage, especially the notoriously unreliable certificates of income.

Yet all these are not good reasons to treat caste as the only criterion. Sociological evidence shows that we have multi-dimensional inequalities that cannot be reduced to a single factor. Any good scheme to create level playing field in higher education must take into count gender, regional backwardness, urban-rural divide and economic resources, besides caste.

And why do we need ‘reservation’ or mandatory numeric quotas for the OBCs?

Actually, we don’t. Reservation should be used as a mechanism of last resort, when every other mechanism fails to deliver desired results. While there is good reason to use reservations for the SC and ST (anything else will be sabotaged and be ineffective), this is not so in the case of the OBCs. The government could have used a system of ‘disadvantaged points’ based on group and individual handicaps faced during education. These points could be added to the ‘merit points’ for the purpose of admission to educational institutions. Professor Satish Deshpande and I had suggested an alternative along these lines.

So, the government’s decision is a disaster, isn’t it?

Not quite. It is obvious that the government’s decision is not the best possible decision, that the government could have taken a more fine-tuned approach. But the government’s decision to introduce a simple caste-bloc based quota is better than nothing. It is better than the existing situation that did not provide for any special opportunity for groups other than SC and ST in higher education. If some safeguards are introduced, then even this imperfect scheme can reduce the inequalities in access to higher education.

How can the existing scheme be improved?

One, the government should exclude the ‘creamy layer’ within the OBCs from the benefits of the new reservation. The exclusion of ‘creamy layer’ is already in operation for job reservations and the government has to simply apply it to the present scheme. Two, the 27 per cent quota should be sub-divided among ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ OBCs. Such sub-divisions already exist in many states and the government can request the National Commission for Backward Classes to prepare the lists of upper and lower OBC for each state. Third, the government can make some special provision to ensure that women have a special opportunity to access the OBC quota.

If all this is accepted, will this solve the educational disadvantages of the OBCs?

No, obviously not. The principal problem of the OBCs and other disadvantaged groups is that of lack of access to quality school education. Reservation in jobs or higher education tackled the problem at the higher end. It needs to be supplemented by measures to improve the quality of teaching in government schools. This is where the real focus of government policy should be.

The writer, a noted psephologist, is Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies