On November 7, the Supreme Court upheld the law on quota for economically weaker sections (EWS) saying it did not violate constitutional provisions.
Affirmative action — aka reservations, is a polarising topic in India. The policy, originally introduced for assisting upward mobility of the marginalised communities has been subject to several controversies over the decades. Its proponents argue that it helps in ensuring equitable access to opportunities; its detractors point at its adverse effects on merits.
At the heart of this debate is also a question about how to organise a modern society. Surely, the idea of winner takes all — survival of the fittest — type of system has its own intellectual appeal. However, a modern society must also embrace systems that ensure everyone has a level playing field, that those who were economically deprived get a chance to move out of the shackles of poverty, and that there is no discrimination either on the basis of caste, class, or religion.
While affirmative action took care of ensuring that there were adequate opportunities to marginalised castes, it remained an open question whether the policy was benefiting the community overall, or just the elites who have benefitted from the policy over generations. Equally important was to ask whether we had a new class of citizens who were being discriminated against. For the religious minorities, special acts allow for creation of minority institutions. But what about those who were deprived and discriminated because of their economic status?
It is precisely this class that the new EWS quota was intended for. Economic deprivation is a modern form of discrimination. For instance, deprivation of modern education leads to discrimination in several areas of later life, including access to formal credit, participation in labour markets and/or at times even in access to rental housing. These further have the potential to lead to generational poverty that is challenging and over decades can create a rigid economic class that is discriminated against by the modern economy.
It is, therefore, timely that we recognise the need for a new category of people across caste and religion that need affirmative action to get equitable access to opportunities. Research has shown that the poor, irrespective of their caste, suffer and, those who come from marginalised castes tend to be discriminated against even more when they are economically backwards. Therefore, this policy will pave way to ensure that even those from existing affirmative action policies will benefit and can avail either the quota from the existing affirmative action or from the newly-carved EWS quota.
But what about merit? Indeed, there must be competition, and we must ensure the highest of standards for our labour force, be it engineers or doctors. It is, however, interesting that this new quota has been carved out without reducing the existing reservation for backward castes or reduce the seats for the general category. This has been done by augmenting the existing supply of seats, thereby ensuring no adverse effect for any of the categories that are excluded from the EWS quota.
Ultimately, this is the way to go, and unfortunately previous governments have ignored this aspect which has led to a lot of debate and possibly some resentment against affirmative action policies by some sections of society. As it is, it is easier to announce quotas rather than create new education institutions or expand their capacities just as it is easy to redistribute wealth rather than generate economic wealth.
It is also important to recognise that a diverse education and labour market is a desired objective in itself given that both lead to a more cohesive society. The full impact of this decision would, therefore, not be limited to greater upward mobility in the Indian economy, but will extend to unexpected areas such as innovation — this in turn benefiting the entire economy.
However, even as we welcome the decision by the Supreme Court, we must allow those who have benefitted from the existing affirmative action policies to opt out, should they so desire to allow those who are still marginalised to benefit from them going forward. By making it voluntary to opt out, we leave it up to the marginalised communities to explore how best to proceed further, and assist those in their community that continue.
The hope is that future governments, both state and the Union, will take a cue from the implementation of the EWS quota and focus on augmenting capacity going forward rather than looking to create fresh quotas for different groups. Doing the latter will dilute the benefits from these policies and potentially can lead to further resentment by those excluded from such policies. Moreover, we must consider the prospects of creating newer sections of marginalised communities due to prolonged exclusion from education or labour market opportunities due to affirmative action policies.
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