As the reservation debate shifts from the streets to the standing committee, the issue of the creamy layer should get the calm attention it deserves. The creamy layer may be a sign of the success of the first rounds of reservations, but it can now corner the benefits of reservation.
Extending the benefits of reservation to the most needy would then require that the creamy layer is kept out. The trouble is one man’s creamy layer is another’s skimmed milk. The creamy layer could easily be defined in a way that keeps out those who are still in need of reservations.
We must ideally have a system that provides reservations for all who need it while automatically weeding out those who can do without it. One step in this direction would be to move from our current system of reservations to one of guaranteed places in educational institutions or jobs.
The two systems would be identical when the sections entitled to reservations cannot hope to get seats in educational institutions or jobs on the basis of merit criteria alone. All the places that are guaranteed can then only be ensured through reservations.
Even today the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes rarely make their presence felt in merit lists. But once we move up the social hierarchy to the backward castes we can no longer be sure that this will be the case. Some of the castes that have been traditionally dominant in their rural communities may well find a greater presence in the merit lists.
If these castes have seats reserved for them as well as a significant portion of the general merit seats, they could use reservations to emerge as the new elite dominating educational institutions and jobs.
The instinctive reaction to this possibility is to seek out criteria that would identify the creamy layer of these communities and keep them out of reservations. But finding the perfect, or even broadly adequate, criteria is not easy. The most popular criteria are purely economic.
But if the problem was an economic one alone, the better-off Dalits should by now be well represented in the merit lists, something that has not quite happened.
We may do better by expanding the criteria for backwardness. Bringing in criteria like regional backwardness will also provide some room for the really backward among the upper castes. But as more factors are brought into consideration a lot depends on the weight given to each criterion.
Source : ET
Extending the benefits of reservation to the most needy would then require that the creamy layer is kept out. The trouble is one man’s creamy layer is another’s skimmed milk. The creamy layer could easily be defined in a way that keeps out those who are still in need of reservations.
We must ideally have a system that provides reservations for all who need it while automatically weeding out those who can do without it. One step in this direction would be to move from our current system of reservations to one of guaranteed places in educational institutions or jobs.
The two systems would be identical when the sections entitled to reservations cannot hope to get seats in educational institutions or jobs on the basis of merit criteria alone. All the places that are guaranteed can then only be ensured through reservations.
Even today the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes rarely make their presence felt in merit lists. But once we move up the social hierarchy to the backward castes we can no longer be sure that this will be the case. Some of the castes that have been traditionally dominant in their rural communities may well find a greater presence in the merit lists.
If these castes have seats reserved for them as well as a significant portion of the general merit seats, they could use reservations to emerge as the new elite dominating educational institutions and jobs.
The instinctive reaction to this possibility is to seek out criteria that would identify the creamy layer of these communities and keep them out of reservations. But finding the perfect, or even broadly adequate, criteria is not easy. The most popular criteria are purely economic.
But if the problem was an economic one alone, the better-off Dalits should by now be well represented in the merit lists, something that has not quite happened.
We may do better by expanding the criteria for backwardness. Bringing in criteria like regional backwardness will also provide some room for the really backward among the upper castes. But as more factors are brought into consideration a lot depends on the weight given to each criterion.
Source : ET