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EWS: The Quota To End All Quotas
Reservations for the excluded majority in India began with SC/STs and followed by OBCs. They enabled increasing numbers of Bahujans to enter public institutions, despite strident abusive opposition.
Now EWS, the counter-revolution is here. Will it end all other quotas?
This book is a powerful collection of views and analyses of Bahujan political leaders, lawyers, researchers, writers, activists like: Dr. Suresh Mane, Dr. Thol. Thirumavalavan, Prof N Sukumar, Dr. Sthabir Khora, Dr. Ayaz Ahmad, Dr. Yogesh Pratap Singh, James Michael, Bobby Kunhu, Nidhin Donald, Rajanikanta Gochhayat, Omprakash Mahato, Jitendra Suna, Sundeep Pattem, Naaz Khair, Pradeep Dhobley, Abhishek Juneja, Naren Bedide (Kuffir): the book has their articulations, in the form of articles, papers, interviews, art etc.
Now EWS, the counter-revolution is here. Will it end all other quotas?
This book is a powerful collection of views and analyses of Bahujan political leaders, lawyers, researchers, writers, activists like: Dr. Suresh Mane, Dr. Thol. Thirumavalavan, Prof N Sukumar, Dr. Sthabir Khora, Dr. Ayaz Ahmad, Dr. Yogesh Pratap Singh, James Michael, Bobby Kunhu, Nidhin Donald, Rajanikanta Gochhayat, Omprakash Mahato, Jitendra Suna, Sundeep Pattem, Naaz Khair, Pradeep Dhobley, Abhishek Juneja, Naren Bedide (Kuffir): the book has their articulations, in the form of articles, papers, interviews, art etc.
144 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2021
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November 21, 2022
In 2019, the EWS bill was rushed through the two floors of parliament and implemented in no time. The urgency exhibited and the overall consensus achieved in promulgating economic criteria as a factor for affirmative action is a product of seventy years of narrative that set forth several other attempts in the past to dilute the very concept of affirmative action. By ceaselessly reiterating the anecdote describing a “poor upper caste” and a “rich car-owning lower caste”, the narrative that reservation is only a poverty alleviation program got deeply ingrained in the generation that followed. Post Mandal, with the inception of new criteria called the “creamy layer”, the very fate of reservation was sealed. With the EWS judgment, it is only a matter of time before the income ceiling would be added to the entire scheme of reservation.
Since the act has been upheld by the 5-judge bench, keeping aside the legalities and constitutional side, it is worthwhile to reflect on the logical aspects and technical fallacies in the EWS, which this book has explored.
1. Reservation, as a policy to “include the left out” into institutional, educational, and political spheres, was entirely based on the premise that people who had undergone generational hurdles must be provided with appropriate equality of opportunity by positive discrimination as a form of reparation. Gail Omvedt argued that the objective of caste-based reservations is to remove caste monopoly in access to social resources. Hence, a static and permanent marker of caste formed the basis of affirmative action.
2. Family income is a fluid and transitory marker that varies across the spectrum ranging from people belonging to the urban-rural, organized sector-unorganized sector, agriculture-industries, business-permanent employment, the start of career-peak of career, sole breadwinner-working parents, etc.
3. While the representation of OBCs as professor, assistant professor, and other Group A and Group B positions in the central universities is nil (zero), it is nothing less than a fraud to slide in a disproportionate additional 10% in the name of EWS, thereby ensuring the free inflow of a selected dominant class that is already over-represented.
4. One of the primary criticisms that caste-based reservations faced, even from liberal quarters, was that it would lead to inefficiency. Throughout the time when the reservation policy was in place and even when it was not fully followed citing the reason of “merit” or “lack of deserving candidate”, people welcoming EWS have no utterance about the lack of merit or efficiency, whereby instances of EWS scoring lesser then OBC/SC/ST and PH are on the rise.
5. In a country wherein if a person earns more than 25,000 a month, he/she would fall in the top 10%, the term economically weaker is defined here as someone with a monthly income of less than 66,000 and 1000 square feet of housing. Moreover, the deliberate exclusion of other categories from this 10% is fraudulence at its peak.
6. Whenever other communities seeking representation knocked on the doors of the apex courts to provide reservation, the court slashed the laws citing a lack of data. In this case, the court had no questions on ‘quantifiable data'.
7. The criteria for determining the OBCs who fall under 'non-creamy layer' and EWS in general category are almost the same.
8. With the introduction of this 10%, the overall chunk of 50% belonging to the general category is now reduced to 40%, thereby reducing the overall competing quota of OBCs to 67% (40+27) and SC/ST to 62% (40+22.5). This will further lead to an increase in qualifying marks for the general as a whole.
Tamil Nadu, which decisively rejected the idea of a creamy layer and as the first state to provide 69% reservation breaking the 50% ceiling, has a long history of a social justice movement and demand for proportional representation, federal autonomy, and caste census. In these demands, the doctrine that “reservation is a tool and representation is a goal” was always at the forefront. Unless we learn to view reservation from this perspective of affirmative action and not as a handout or freebie, the idea of social justice will cease to exist.
Since the act has been upheld by the 5-judge bench, keeping aside the legalities and constitutional side, it is worthwhile to reflect on the logical aspects and technical fallacies in the EWS, which this book has explored.
1. Reservation, as a policy to “include the left out” into institutional, educational, and political spheres, was entirely based on the premise that people who had undergone generational hurdles must be provided with appropriate equality of opportunity by positive discrimination as a form of reparation. Gail Omvedt argued that the objective of caste-based reservations is to remove caste monopoly in access to social resources. Hence, a static and permanent marker of caste formed the basis of affirmative action.
2. Family income is a fluid and transitory marker that varies across the spectrum ranging from people belonging to the urban-rural, organized sector-unorganized sector, agriculture-industries, business-permanent employment, the start of career-peak of career, sole breadwinner-working parents, etc.
3. While the representation of OBCs as professor, assistant professor, and other Group A and Group B positions in the central universities is nil (zero), it is nothing less than a fraud to slide in a disproportionate additional 10% in the name of EWS, thereby ensuring the free inflow of a selected dominant class that is already over-represented.
4. One of the primary criticisms that caste-based reservations faced, even from liberal quarters, was that it would lead to inefficiency. Throughout the time when the reservation policy was in place and even when it was not fully followed citing the reason of “merit” or “lack of deserving candidate”, people welcoming EWS have no utterance about the lack of merit or efficiency, whereby instances of EWS scoring lesser then OBC/SC/ST and PH are on the rise.
5. In a country wherein if a person earns more than 25,000 a month, he/she would fall in the top 10%, the term economically weaker is defined here as someone with a monthly income of less than 66,000 and 1000 square feet of housing. Moreover, the deliberate exclusion of other categories from this 10% is fraudulence at its peak.
6. Whenever other communities seeking representation knocked on the doors of the apex courts to provide reservation, the court slashed the laws citing a lack of data. In this case, the court had no questions on ‘quantifiable data'.
7. The criteria for determining the OBCs who fall under 'non-creamy layer' and EWS in general category are almost the same.
8. With the introduction of this 10%, the overall chunk of 50% belonging to the general category is now reduced to 40%, thereby reducing the overall competing quota of OBCs to 67% (40+27) and SC/ST to 62% (40+22.5). This will further lead to an increase in qualifying marks for the general as a whole.
Tamil Nadu, which decisively rejected the idea of a creamy layer and as the first state to provide 69% reservation breaking the 50% ceiling, has a long history of a social justice movement and demand for proportional representation, federal autonomy, and caste census. In these demands, the doctrine that “reservation is a tool and representation is a goal” was always at the forefront. Unless we learn to view reservation from this perspective of affirmative action and not as a handout or freebie, the idea of social justice will cease to exist.
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