Question: Who are the scheduled castes and tribes? Why the need for job quotas for them?
Answer: Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes are communities that are accorded special status by the Constitution of India. These communities were considered ‘outcastes’ and were excluded from the Chaturvarna system that was the social superstructure of Hindu society in the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years. These castes and tribes have traditionally been relegated to the most menial labour with no possibility of upward mobility, and are subject to extensive economic and social disadvantage and discrimination, in comparison to the wider community. Caste Hindus can be ejected from their jâtis (castes) and become outcastes and various tribal or formerly tribal people in India may never have been properly integrated into the social system. When Mahâtmâ Gandhi’s subcaste refused him permission to go to England, he went anyway and was ejected from the caste. After he returned, his family got him back in, but while in England he was technically an outcaste.
Question: What is the scheduled castes and tribes population?
Answer: According to the 2001 census,
Scheduled Castes : 138,223,277 about 16.48% of total population
Scheduled Tribes : 67,758,380 about 8.08% of total population
Question: Does giving job quotas work?
Answer: Yes. If it had not worked, the social system in India would’ve ensured that there were no people of backward caste and tribes in our Parliament, School and University teaching staffs,…or any other place except doing menial labour like cleaning human waste and animal, dealing with bodies of dead animals, working as bonded labourers for life and hoping to get food once daily, among other humiliating work.
Question: Isn’t quotas in studies enough?
Answer: If the social conditions were unprejudiced, it would’ve been enough. Higher castes won’t always give jobs to deserving depressed castes.
Question: Wouldn’t giving quotas in private sector be dangerous for the Indian economy, as what the government is thinking of doing?
Answer: It will be much more dangerous if the depressed classses are left out of the earning loop. If the earnings gap widens steeply, the social conditions will only worsen. The private sector will not be able to work in such conditions either. Better take a pound now then carry a ton later.
Question: But why legislate to do this? Why force people?
Answer: The private sector didn’t make the call itself, even after more than a decade of opening up the economy and giving it time and environment to make heavier profits.
Question: What about the Right of Equality enshrined in the Indian constitution?
Answer: The Right of equality cannot be just one sided. If the social conditions and prejudices cannot give an oppressed person the right to equality, the government has a duty to step-up.
Question: Does any other country in the world also have such positive-discriminatory policies?
Answer: USA, South Africa, Brazil, Japan, UK (actively considering), among many others. Besides women and disabled are almost always in this category in majority of nations.
Question: But still, India is a growing economy.
Answer: Leaving a large portions of population below or around poverty line while the rest of the country moves ahead invites social unrest and may lead to terrorism and militancy. Motivated enemies can easily make good use of such opportunities to their advantage in a diverse nation such as India. Besides, a united nation and synergies of all the populations can only lead it to better economy and cohesion.
Bringing in downtrodden classes into the higher level workforce will ensure cheap supply of labour for the Indian companies, giving it the cost competetive edge for much longer. Indian salaries are already rocketing raising a fear that it might leave this major edge.
Question: What about merit and quality of service?
Answer: Private companies are expected to be more cautious in recruitment compared to government departments. Job quota will merely ensure that capable candidates from the depressed classes fill those positions. To a foreign consumer of backend services, a higher caste’s English accent is as different as a lower caste’s. The quality of services given is not exected to make much difference.
Question: Wouldn’t the higher castes retaliate?
Answer: Retaliation and insults are not going to be much of a deterrent to a lower caste used to daily doses of similar attroticities. Huge magnitude of retaliation (strikes, voilence and riots) will only lead to more companies going away from the effected areas and thus fewer jobs for everyone. The depressed classes are expected to be much more mentally tougher to the abuses from foriegn clients, and much more inclined towards hard work, due to their past experiences.
Question: But why the injustice against the higher castes?
Answer: Higher castes are rich enough and connected enough (if not rich) to people with resources to get them out of the hole they might find themselves in from time to time. Depressed classes are not. Higher castes do not have to face almost daily persecution, segregation and humiliation at schools and work. Their children and women don’t face insults and taunts almost daily. They do not always have to work in dangerous, unhealthy and unhieginic places and conditions. Children of depressed classes have to be doubly motivated to even come to school in such conditions. Imagine getting up daily to work the whole day in dusty mines and fields as a child, and still going to school in the evening, and pass the grade. All this when someone is always insulting you and your forefathers, and taking away your books. How many of us can do that? Indians get agitated when a tech worker faces discrimination at work in US, but that same tech worker goes back home to India and gives out similar or worse treatment to his naukar (servant or helper). What would you call that if not utter hypocracy?
Job quotas will ensure that the oppressed classes will be encouraged to apply for higher end jobs. It will lead to them concentrating on improving themselves and making themselves competetive and comparable to international standards. Personally, I will be worried if the government talked of giving more quota in their own departments, going by their recruitment methods, but private sector can take care of itself. Many will find ways to circumvent this policy anyway, but it will atleast give a fillip to the aspirations of many from the downtrodden to have a better future.
Besides hindus believe in Karma. India being a majority hindu nation, may be its time that its higher castes pay back its dues to the lower castes for the treatment it has meted out to them over thousands of years. A bad Karma nullified can only be good for everyone, not just for some character in a TV show.
Updated: A discussion was underway on this topic at The Acorn. Other blogs too have parallel discussions ging, but many of them keep contradicting themselves to keep the argument going.
Many of my views are at The Acorn which have not been posted here due to lack of space and, frankly, time. Some of you may not be able to see the later parts of the discussion there properly (as I) due to bad formatting or something. I’ll try to summarise that discussion here sometime soon.
Again, any prejudiced caste or class deserves a little push from all of us. Be it women, disabled, people from the depressed classes who need it (some don’t), and if India doesn’t wants to end up being another Latin America or South Africa, it has to get rid of discrimination from society, but foremost from the minds. Many might be OK with India turning into another Latin Am or S.A., I’m Not.
