The Daily Observer

Reservations, for vacancies in educational institutions and public sector jobs, have always been a source of vigorous debate in independent India. Traditionally meant for the socially discriminated scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, the present UPA government, more specifically the HRD Minister, Arjun Singh, is planning to add reservations for Other Backward Castes (OBC’s) in elite Indian educational institutions. Moreover, for quite some time now the UPA government has been talking about forcing companies in the private sector to adopt government guidelines regarding reservations. The Social Justice Minister, Meira Kumar, has said that since private companies benefited from government licenses in the past, it is payback time for the government, so the private sector should be obliged to adopt reservation guidelines.

This shows the level of perverted political thinking going on in the government. Government licensing rules actually discouraged entrepreneurs and stifled the Indian private sector. India’s economic boom began only after the licensing rules were made more liberal, in some sectors of the economy done away with altogether. Moreover sectors of the Indian economy, like Information Technology, that started out with minimal government support and had to deal with discouraging government rules and regulations (Infosys and Wipro used to pay huge import duties on computer workstations) are at the forefront of India’s international economic image revolution.

Sure, government initiatives, such as maintaining India’s transparent legal system and setting up institutions like the Indian Institute of Science, have helped India’s private sector. On the other hand, in addition to the license-permit-quota raj, the government’s apathy towards basic infrastructure, the maintenance of a bloated bureaucracy, toleration and even encouragement of corruption, have done great harm to the economy in general and the private sector in particular. The reason the private sector survived before the era of economic reforms began, and the reason it is flourishing today, is because in the private sector managers, owners or shareholders can make decisions about what is best for their companies, without being burdened by ideology or vote-bank considerations.

In fact, without a vigorous, growing private sector, unemployment and hence social tensions will increase. The government and polity in general should feel more indebted to the private sector, not the other way around. Forcing the private sector to recruit employees like a government institution would probably make the private sector as lethargic as a government institution, resulting in lower growth and less jobs for everyone, including members of the scheduled castes and tribes and backward classes.

Anyway, any competent recruiter in a private sector company would not discriminate against a person just because he/she belongs to a low caste.

Caste has been and still is a shameful social institution in India. There is no doubt that certain sections of society have been discriminated against, humiliated, and have had uncountable atrocities heaped upon them because of their caste and social background. Even today many Dalits (politically correct term in India for Scheduled Caste members) are subjected to torture and inhuman treatment by high-caste buffoons if they stand up for their rights and try to live their lives with dignity. But mere job reservations are probably not the best way to do away with such kind’s discrimination. They are actually an excuse by governments, both state and central, that are totally incompetent in advancing the interests of SC/ST’s. The prosecution rate for hate crimes due to caste is abysmally low. The quality of primary education in most Dalit dominated localities is atrocious. Local governments cannot even provide good drinking water and public toilets to most places in India, let alone Dalit dominated ones. Job reservations may play a role in lifting some Dalits out of the poverty line and into the middle class, but for the vast majority they have no meaning. It is also very common for the benefits of job reservation to be gobbled up by the already well-off people within the SC/ST/OBC communities, who may already be rich or whose families may have already been the recipients of reservation for generations.

If the government really wants to have the private sector hire more SC/ST’s, rather than forcing them it would be better to offer companies tax breaks for hiring SC/ST’s. Companies can then decide how much benefit they will get and act accordingly. Many companies might come to conclude that having a more diverse workforce makes them more competitive. But forcing them is a different matter altogether.