Recently, the outgoing Chief Justice of India, Justice B R Gavai, suggested that there was a need for introducing the concept of a “creamy layer” in reservations for the Scheduled Castes. Thankfully, Justice Gavai himself comes from the SC community. Otherwise, this would have been attributed to the much-maligned “Brahminical mindset”, as is often done. Justice Gavai quoted examples of how the children of underprivileged SCs compete with those highly privileged.
Reform in reservation policy is the dire need of the hour. While there have also been suggestions that the reservations should be based on economic criteria, as it is the economy that matters at the end of the day, this is being strongly resisted by the stakeholders. This is again attributed to the “Brahminical conspiracies” to make the upper castes get the benefit of reservations through the backdoor.
However, there is a different opinion about introducing the “creamy layer” concept in SC reservations, similar to what is already prevailing in OBC reservations. When the issue of reservation based on economic criteria is raised, there is collective resistance from the entire SC community. But once it is about excluding the “creamy layer” only, there is resonance from the less privileged members of the SC community who have already lost the race. But even the “left-out” SCs eventually end up opposing the idea of creamy layer, fearing it to be an “upper-caste conspiracy”.
It has been 75 years already since the “caste-based” reservations were introduced in the country when the Constitution of India was adopted. Since then, now it is the third and fourth generation of the SCs who started having benefits under the reservation policy. During these 75 years, a distinct and privileged class from the SCs has emerged which has manipulated the reservation policy exclusively to their own advantage.
There are roughly about 17 percent SCs in India. The percentage varies in different states. Only a negligible percentage of this population has benefitted from the policy because those who benefitted in the beginning reached a position where they were able to use this policy to their advantage.
For example, take political reservation. There are umpteen examples where the grandfather, his son/daughter and the grandson/granddaughter have been elected to various legislative bodies across the country, whether the state legislatures or the Parliament, from reserved constituencies. While there is no exact data available, given the culture of “family promotion” that has dominated politics in India among all the castes and categories, whether general or reserved, majority of those getting the benefit of reservations have inherited it for generations together.
All of us come across all sorts of people including those who are “third-generation” beneficiaries of the reservations and also those who have not got the benefit even for the first generation. If the policy continues like it is now, the number of beneficiaries will shrink further and it will be exploited by those who have been getting benefitted for generations since 1950 and exploiting their privilege to their own advantage, and conversely to the disadvantage of others.
In a large number of cases, a person gets the benefit of reservation multiple times. It is not about promotions in services only. For example, someone gets into a professional educational institution on the basis of reservation. Then s/he gets into the civil services again taking the benefit of reservation. After retirement, if the same person decides to join politics, s/he again opts for constituencies reserved for the SCs. After getting elected, s/he passes on the benefit to the next generation and this keeps going on. This is not an imaginary example but a practical one.
This “privileged class” that has emerged from the reservation policy is so powerful and so influential that it does not let this privilege go or get saturated. There are very few conscientious people like Justice Gavai or his SC law clerk, who feel and realise that they might be denying the right to someone more deserving. Otherwise, an overwhelming majority of the beneficiaries does not want to let the benefits pass on to others.
This is what was described by another Supreme Court judge, Justice Surya Kant, who has now become the Chief Justice of India, as a “train compartment” mindset, suggesting it was like a train compartment where those already having got seats do not let others get into the compartment.
It will require a strong political will to reform the “reservation policy” in the country. There will, of course, be a strong resistance from those who are already getting the benefits and sitting in the “train compartment”. They will, as they always have been, project any such move as a “Brahminical attempt” to deny Dalits reservation benefits. Actually, it is the less privileged Dalits who are being denied the benefits by those who are already more privileged than the “Brahmins” (if the Brahmins are really privileged).
Ironically it is those people only who would get benefitted, if the reforms like the “creamy layer” concept are introduced, who are made to oppose them (the reforms). These people are told that eventually the purpose is to do away with the reservations completely and they readily buy such conspiracy theories and oppose any such reforms.
That is why it is easier said than done, as Justice Gavai himself observed, “at times, politics plays a more important role than logic”. No politician worth his salt in India can dare to make any such move, lest he is prepared for his political doom, and that too when the polity in India is completely polarised and issues like “caste census” have started dominating the political landscape once again.
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