why-not-exclude-sc-st-creamy-layer-from-reservations

Political parties across the board whether from the ruling National Democratic Alliance or the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) have opposed the Supreme Court judgement of July 31, which suggested that the “creamy layer” must be excluded from among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes reservation benefits.

Although identifying and excluding the “creamy layer” from among the SC and STs is the need of the hour, the response of various political parties, including the ruling BJP was not unexpected. No political party in the country can bell the cat and afford to alienate a strong section of voters.

 

This section is so well entrenched in the political and bureaucratic system that it will never allow the “monopoly” it has over reservation benefits over the years. This section is an influential opinion maker having an influential say in every political party.

 

It is now over seven decades since the benefit of reservations was started for the downtrodden and exploited communities, which had suffered social segregation and repression for centuries together. These communities were categorised as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes by the Constitution and provided the special benefit of reservations in education, jobs and also political power. 

 

Over the seven long decades, the benefit of reservation has become restricted to a select group of people among the SCs and the STs, who are now using it to their advantage and correspondingly to the disadvantage of other members of the SC and ST communities only. 

 

During these seven decades, a large section of the downtrodden and the exploited classes of SCs and STs has been left out of the benefit of reservation. 

 

Certain sections of SCs and STs are enjoying the benefit of reservation for the third generation, while several others have not got the benefit even for a single time. 

 

Take the example of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, a vigorously vocal opponent of the Supreme Court judgement to exclude the “creamy layer” among the SCs and STs. He was the first person to get the benefit of reservation in his family. And it was well deserved.

 

His son Priyank Kharge is a minister in the Karnataka government. He has also been elected from a reserved assembly segment, Chittapur. 

 

His son-in-law, Radhakrishna is an MP from Gulbarga reserved constituency in Karnataka. Isn’t it the right time for people like Kharge and their family members to surrender the privilege of reservation so that other people from the SC community can get the benefits? Kharge family is now in a position that it can compete, politically along with the “unreserved” people. 

 

Kharge family is not an exception, but just an example. In Punjab or for that matter in any other state across India, political leaders have enjoyed the benefit of reservation for generations. Like the family of Master Gurbanta Singh. He was a towering Congress leader and a freedom fighter. He rose to become a minister in Punjab. 

 

Then his two sons, Chaudhary Jagjit and Chaudhary Santokh also became ministers and MP. Both Jagjit’s and Sanotkh’s sons have become MLAs from the reserved constituencies, getting the benefit for three generations. 

 

It is not just the “three generations” getting the benefit of reservation alone, during this time they have risen to a level where they are in a position to compete with anyone without the benefit of reservations. 

There are other similar examples of people taking benefits for generations particularly those in bureaucracy. 

 

There is an MP from Punjab, who did his MBBS under a reserved quota, cleared civil services on a reserved quota, then unsuccessfully contested assembly elections under a reserved quota and now is an MP from a reserved constituency. Earlier his brother also got elected from a reserved constituency. 

 

Compared to these people, there are lakhs of SCs and STs, neither they nor their ancestors since independence have got any benefit of the reservations. Even if they try now, they are not able to get the benefit. These people are now placed in a highly uneven and unfair competition with the “privileged” people who should come under the “creamy layer”. 

 

There is no level playing field for such underprivileged people amongst the SC and the ST communities. 

 

It was best summed up by Justice BR Gavai, a Dalit himself, saying,  “Can a child of IAS/IPS or Civil Service Officers be equated with a child of a disadvantaged member belonging to Scheduled Castes, studying in a Gram Panchayat/Zilla Parishad school in a village?”

 

He further said, “Putting a child studying in St Paul’s High School and St Stephen’s College and a child studying in a small village in the backward and remote area of the country in the same bracket would obliviate the equality principle enshrined in the Constitution.”

 

While the government of India suggested that identifying and excluding the “creamy layer” was not mandated by the constitution, Justice Gavai addressed this issue already, observing, “…to achieve real equality as envisaged by this Court in various judicial pronouncements, sub-classification amongst the Scheduled Castes for giving more beneficial treatment is wholly permissible under the Constitution.”

 

Those opposed to the provision of introducing a “creamy layer” argue that economic upliftment does not necessarily guarantee social equality. Hence they say, the benefit of reservations must continue. 

 

But, why let a limited section of people from the reserved categories manipulate and exploit the existing system exclusively to their own advantage while denying the same advantage to the people belonging to their castes?

 

If the “creamy layer” provision is introduced, it will not benefit the people of unreserved or general categories, but only those SCs and STs who have been left out during the last seventy years. 

 

It will break the exclusive monopoly of a “select few” who got the initial advantage and continue to exploit that even up to the third generation now, at the cost of those who have not got any benefit even after seventy years of the reservation law.