Summarized by – Nioshi

Why is the reservation policy used and what is its need?

• The reservation policy is developed for the discriminated groups. 
• ‘Discrimination’ is when a group of people is denied equal rights. These rights include the right to property, right to employment, right to education, and civic and political rights, and so on.
• There is a difference between the denial of rights for an individual as compared to the denial of rights for an entire group. When an individual is excluded, it may be because of the lack of capability. In the case of denial of rights for a group, the exclusion of rights is because of their identity, not because of their merit. 
• Affirmative action policy is brought in for the development of a group of people simply because they were denied rights. If everyone is born equal, they should be given equal rights. Hence the need for reservation policy. 

What is the purpose of the reservation policy for Scheduled Castes?

• The caste system is the division of people into different groups on the basis of their caste. Caste is based on one’s birth, it is fixed, not to be changed at all. 
• This division extends to the assignment of their rights. However, the problem is that the rights are assigned unequally. Rights reduce as you move from the higher castes to the lower castes. 
• The untouchables, who are at the lowest end of the caste system have the least access to rights. Their only job is to serve the higher castes, particularly the Brahmins, through physical work. Hence, untouchables suffered the most because of the denial of rights. 
• Untouchables are considered ‘impure’, and so they were physically segregated and socially isolated. Physical segregation meant that their residence will be away from the higher castes. Social isolation meant that there would be no intercaste marriage, intercaste dining, and access to public services or events. Even today, higher castes follow physical segregation and social isolation from the SC. 
• The cumulative impact of this was that untouchables could not get into quality employment. They were forced into physical work outside of the house.

Ambedkar’s arguments for equal rights for Scheduled Castes

• According to Ambedkar, untouchability has all the worst features of slavery. He made three main arguments for equal rights of SCs:

1. His first argument was that everyone should have equal civil rights and political rights. Civil rights are rights to expression, writing, public amenities. Political rights include the right to vote and the right to make or unmake a law.
2. Since rights are denied to SC, there should be legal protection for them. If there is a violation of rights, there should be a law to protect them from that. 
3. And finally, SC’s have been denied access to employment, military, bureaucracy, property, and education. A policy must be made for them to get these rights. 

Legal Safeguard Aspects of Equal Rights

• Ambedkar fought for equal rights, and finally, he got political representation in 1932 through the Poona Pact, where SC got the political reservation. 
• While writing the constitution, Ambedkar made the provision of ‘equality’ to be included along with liberty and fraternity. Merely implying that everyone was equal was not enough, so he elaborated on the term equality by taking discrimination into account. Equality meant nobody should be discriminated on the basis of their caste, race, religion, gender, or place of birth.
• He also brought the ‘Untouchability Offence Act’ of 1955, so as to make sure that the untouchables have the right to go to the court and seek justice if their right to equality is violated. 
• However, many times when SC’s would approach the court, the higher class would deny justice, not democratically, but violently. Hence, in 1989, the ‘Prevention of Atrocity Act’ was brought in, to prevent such atrocities. 
• The consequence of the denial of rights was that untouchables were landless, less educated, and lacking civic and political rights. Therefore, the ‘Affirmation Action’ Policy was brought in whereby the untouchables would get access to employment, education in proportion to their population. 

Today’s reservation policy has two parts to it:

1. The policy of giving fair access: Since discrimination persists in practice, we must give the untouchables their fair share in public employment, education, housing, and enterprises. 
2. Policy for economic empowerment: Since they were denied rights, an additional provision of land, property, scholarship, and financial aid was made to compensate for the exclusion. This was to be done parallelly with reservation policy. 

Challenges of Reservation policy

• The reservation policy has been implemented for over 50-60 years now. But the situation od SC’s in the country is still bad. They still remain the largest group in terms of landlessness, illiteracy, access to education, and share in the private sector. The untouchables are behind the higher castes in any indicators of development. The gaps between the caste groups have not been removed, and the untouchables still suffer from malnutrition and hunger. 
• The higher castes do not oppose all policies created for the poor. But when it comes to the reservation, it is opposed on the following grounds:

1. “Reservation policy is not helping the poor, it is helping the relatively economically better class in the SC group”

• A central government job has four types; A, B, C, D. The lowest paying jobs are those of C and D, which are given to clerks. 70%  of SC under reservation are C and D employees. These employees are school dropouts. 
• Through reservation for Sc’s, 37 % are from rural areas. If you look at their land ownership backgrounds, almost 80% own land less than 1 and a half-acre. 
• Hence, it can be proved that the reservation is hugely benefitting the poor. So the argument that it doesn’t help the poor is a myth, not based on facts.

1. “Economical criteria should be the basis of reservation”

• The ground for reservation is not the economic factor of the group. It is on the basis of discrimination based on caste. 
• So whether you are economically better off or not, if you belong to the lower caste, you are socially discriminated.  
• Protection is needed against such discrimination. Hence economic criteria can not be the basis. 

Limitation of reservation policy

• Employment in the government sector constitutes a very small sector of total employment. 80% of employment is in the private sector. It is in the private sector that discrimination is predominantly seen. The private sector is excluded from the reservation policy. This is a major limitation. 
• One of the problems faced by SC is that they are without land, capital, literacy, and no job. This is because they were denied all of these rights. So what is the solution? Consequences of past exclusion and denial must be addressed. But discrimination also continues in the present. So it is a double fold problem; past exclusion and present exclusion both should be addressed. 

Solution?

• If certain groups have been denied all these rights, they need to be compensated. This can be done by a ‘compensation policy’ that gives them a share in all the above areas that they have been excluded from. 
• The policy must be dual in nature. The present policy must be extended to the private sector.
• Who to compensate? 
• Those who are a victim of the caste system 
• Compensation policy must be for the entire group and not for individual
• Who should pay?
• Persons or groups who have benefitted from the denial of rights to the untouchables should pay.