In what could be a defining moment for political parties, the BJP has set the agenda for 2019 by proposing 10% quota for the economically weaker sections among the upper castes. The BJP hopes to reap a rich harvest by laying for the Opposition the classic political bait – As any opposition party which opposes the Bill will be perceived as anti-poor by the electorate.In a masterstroke, aimed at circumventing the 1992 Supreme Court judgment capping reservations at 50 per cent, the Narendra Modi government will introduce a Bill to reserve a further 10 per cent of the quota pie for the poor among the upper castes in government jobs and educational institutions.
The reservation will be caste- and religion-neutral and achieved by amending Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution. So, it will be available to the poor among upper castes like Brahmins, Baniyas, Rajputs and Jats, which have never enjoyed reservation hitherto available only to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes.
Currently, Articles 15 and 16 deal with social and not economic backwardness of the people, just as articles 330 to 340 make provisions for uplift of the scheduled castes and tribes without any mention of economic backwardness. The BJP issued a whip to all its MPs on Monday, asking them to remain present on the last day of Parliament’s winter session on Tuesday; it has also extended the Rajya Sabha session by just one day to pass the Bill, though it does not have the requisite numbers in the upper house.
This Bill is seen as a classic political bait as any opposition party which opposes the Bill will be perceived as anti-poor by the electorate. This is why the left parties have welcomed the Bill while others have given conditional support, if it is “constitutionally feasible.” But the Bill appears at first sight to be constitutionally untenable because a 11-judge bench of the Supreme Court had struck down in 1992 a similar bill passed by the Narasimha Rao government one year earlier reserving seats for the economically backward in government jobs and in schools and colleges.
In 1992, the 11-judge bench had stated that economic backwardness can only be a basis together with social backwardness, which implied that the two could not be delinked. In fact, there is no clear cut mention of economic backwardness in the constitutional amendment debates which is why this Bill is being hailed as “historic” although this may not be true.
The new bill stipulates that if the aggregate household income is over Rs 800,000/- per annum or the family owns five acres of agricultural land or a house of 1000 square feet, they will be ineligible to fall within the ambit of the 10 per cent quota. Hence a new parameter for economic backwardness has been carved out, so that those upper castes which are ineligible for reservations in education or public jobs because they do not come under the umbrella of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes, can now apply under the new category of economic backwardness, although they belong to the upper castes.
The fact that the Modi government has introduced this Bill four years and eight months after it has ruled the country and just three months before the general elections to shrink the open merit category to 40.5 per cent in top educational institutes like the IITs, IIMs or medical colleges has escaped attention. Neither has the Modi government been able to create the jobs it promised.
Hence, politics overrides law, because although the Constitution dictates there will be no discrimination on ground of caste, creed, race, religion, language, or place of birth, votes dictate Cabinet policies on reservations which, if struck down by the apex court, can be nullified by an Ordinance or a Bill passed by popular demand.