Affirmative Action: will it deliver the right results?

By
Randeep Wadehra

One of the tragedies of modern India is that most of the well-intentioned measures taken for the public good either fail to take off or somehow get distorted and misused, as tellingly illustrated by the reservation policy.

The founders of our Constitution were aware that there is a huge under-representation of significant sections of the society in not just the local, state and central legislative bodies but also in the fields of education and employment – rightly considered as the legacy of our caste system. These sections were listed in the Constitution of India as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes, considered to be the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable to all sorts of exploitations. However, over a period of time, what was meant for the upliftment of the downtrodden turned into a powerful instrument of wanton vote bank politics. As a result all sorts of reservation quotas were created and given to the comparatively better off sections under various pretexts. Today, things have come to such a pass that even upper castes in various states have started agitating for reservation quotas. Worse, now religion and gender based reservations too are looming large on the nation’s politico-economic horizons.

This deterioration in the originally idealistic concept has led to rethinking on the entire reservation system. Moreover, over the past decade, the job market has expanded exponentially in the private sector which is, constitutionally, not within the purview of the extant reservation policy. It is being felt that, in order to promote fair and equitable socio-economic system, the private industry should resort to Affirmative Action (hitherto, AA in this article). In fact, more and more people among the thinking classes are advocating AA as a more just solution to the problems relating to unemployment, poverty alleviation and social inequity. But, what would happen if the Constitutional provisions relating to reservation quotas are scrapped, and a system of AA put into place? Would it put a stop to the cynical caste-based vote bank politics, which is actually a direct result of the caste-based reservation policy? How would AA empower the really deserving but downtrodden persons? Would it be caste-blind and sensitive to economic status? Would the physically challenged get a fairer deal?

There really are no answers for the simple reason that the concept has not yet been defined comprehensively in the Indian context, which is a mind-bogglingly complicated phenomenon given the skein of stratifications based on language, caste, creed etc, etc and etc. True, AA for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has been defined as a voluntary commitment by Indian companies to facilitate equal opportunity to members of SCs and STs. Welcome though it is, in as far as it takes an inclusive approach towards SCs and STs, it does not cover the other economically weaker sections that may be equally handicapped in terms of social status etc. Nor does it state anything on the treatment of creamy layers among SC/ST communities.

Nonetheless, in 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a call to the India Inc to take Affirmative Action for creating education and employment opportunities for the weaker sections of society. In response, the CII formed a task force which proposed concrete steps to be taken by Indian Industry for creating education and employment opportunities for people belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. The progress would be monitored on the basis of 4 Es i.e., (i) Entrepreneurship Development; (ii) Employability; (iii) Education; and (iv) Employment for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. In addition, CII has developed a “Code of Conduct on Affirmative Action” (One of these, downloaded from the internet, is being given in the accompanying box as an example).

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 Dear Wadhera, Thanks for this article with useful information. I was not aware that some action is being taken by Indian corporates in this direction. It might be inchoate at the moment, but let's hope it will grow in the future. I agree with you, it needs to be monitored closely. Also, greed is the guiding force behind capitalism. Unless their hands are forced by the government, I doubt if the companies will do much on their own, barring exceptions.

Santanu Sinha Chaudhuri | October 4, 2010