EPW has been publishing many important articles on the reservation issue, apart from expressing its position through editorials on this issue. EPW has been consistent in supporting reservation for OBCs. If I remember it right, in the early 1990s there was a heated debate in the pages of EPW on reservation for OBCs as well as on the position taken by EPW. The April 28th issue has an editorial piece on reservation, courts and UPA. EPW makes some suggestions but they may appeal more
to social scientists than the allies of UPA including the left or the constituents
of UPA. EPW does not question the wisdom of imposing quota on institutions , nor it
asks the question, whether 27% quota in all institutions is an optimum solution.
It advocates including caste in the census.It does ask some right questions but
stops short of asking to rethink reservation for OBCs. To me the editorial seems to be an attempt to argue for some exercises that will increase the legitimacy of the
reservation for OBCs and credibility of the proposed quota.But its call for objectivity becomes doubtful when it writes
"Since its findings will interest the courts, the committee must include an eminent jurist, along with responsible academics sympathetic to the cause of reservations".
I think that such exercises should not be exercises in image building or exercises
to pacify those unconvinced about the 27% reservation, in the name of social science
analysis.In any case Sachar Committee is not the right example to be followed. The
Sachar Committee report has lots of data but its analysis is weak and hardly
convincing.One can get drowned in data without becoming any wiser. There is more to the reservation issue than data, the lack of it or otherwise. It is also a question of inter alia, putting equality into practice, interpretting the constitutional provisions and balacing competing interests. An optimum solution is feasible only
if we try to go beyond caste in the reservation issue. Let caste be a beginning point, but not the end point. An affirmative action program, that is similar to
one to USA, modified suitably taking into account multiple sources of inequality
in India is necessary. It is high time we move beyond quotas in terms of fixed percentages and make the reservation system more relevant to the really needy
among OBCs, women, and economically backward sections. The question is , is the
political class willing for such a change. Right now, EPW is in favor of 27% reservation and tries to enhance its legitimacy and credibility. But it forgets the fact that the political class is not interested in such academic exercises and policy discourses. It wants to implement it and assert that no force on the earth
can stop them in this. Hence the intellectuals are more likely to be impressed by
the suggestions made in the editorial than the UPA government.
