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.

... contd.