http://www.greaterkashmir.com/today/full_story.asp?Date=11_4_2010&ItemID=25&cat=17
What Inter-District Recruitment Bill (Amendment April 2010) means to Kashmir
Arjimand Hussain Talib
The cloud of confusion and suspense over the bill banning inter district recruitment is over. The battle lines are clearer today. So is whose heart lies where in the state’s power politics. The bill in its amended form – quietly decided by a handful of Congress and NC leaders - appears a recipe for political disaster for the state. Firstly, it is patently unjust for the state’s Muslims, particularly from the Kashmir Valley. Secondly, it is due to divide communities and groups on newer geographical lines. J&K’s political monolith and Muslim culture will stand defeated.
To understand this issue better, it is important not to see this bill in isolation. We need to go to the genesis of India’s reservation politics and the manner its introduction in J&K systematically divided this Muslim-majority state on linguistic, ethnic, caste and geographical lines. Deep divisions now manifest even at district, tehsil, village and mohalla levels. Lack of inter-district mobility is bound to create island mentalities of petty interests. This politics of engineered divisions needs to be questioned now.
As per the amended bill, the people with ‘Scheduled Castes’ (SC) status – who comprise of certain Hindu social groups in Jammu - will have eight percent reservation in all the state’s districts. Although there are no SCs in the 10 districts of Kashmir Valley, yet they will enjoy reservation here.
This is a classic case of the Congress, the BJP and the Panthers Party consolidating their vote banks in Hindu-dominated Jammu areas at the expense of Muslims here. It is sad National Conference became a party to this scheme. The problem is that this bill does not only mean a disadvantage to the state’s Muslims, it also raises serious questions on the very idea of reservation as applied to J&K state.
The fact is that caste is an institutionalized social order in the Hindu religion. According to ancient Hindu scriptures, such as ‘Manu Smriti’, caste is Varnasrama Dharma, which translates to "offices given according to class or occupation". Islam’s idea of universality, as we know, does not differentiate human race based on any such differences. Reservation, as such, is an anti-thesis to Islamic principles of human equality and equal opportunities. As such, it should never have been applied to J&K state in the first instance.
Ever since 1947, India’s judiciary has been averse to some aspects of reservation, which it saw in contravention to the principle of equal rights as enshrined in the India’s constitution. Supreme Court of India held that caste cannot be the sole criterion for determining whether a person is backward within the meaning of article 15 and 16. Jawaharlal Nehru, the then PM of India, brought in the First Amendment Act in 1951 which read “Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.” The same was applied to J&K state.
The government of India-appointed First Backward Classes Commission (Kakasaheb Kelekar Commission) in 1953 listed 2399 castes as ‘Socially and Educationally Backward Classes’ in India. Subsequently, in 1956, New Delhi asked J&K government to appoint its own committee to do the same job. The result was startling. The committee reserved 30 percent avenues in education and government jobs for SCs and STs from Hindu community in the state. The then J&K government under a Government Order (GO) took to another extreme: it reserved 50 percent vacancies for Muslims of Kashmir, 40 percent for Jammu Hindus and 10 percent for Kashmiri Pandits. But the decision was intrinsically flawed: it was done on communal lines, which was antithetical to India’s Constitution.
The Supreme Court of India subsequently struck down this GO when a Kashmiri Pandit Triloki Nath Tiku filed a petition before it in Triloki Nath Tiku vs State of J&K AIR (1969) case.
Based on 1967 Gajendragadkar Commissions recommendations (formed on New Delhi’s advice), J&K government in 1969 formed the Backward Classes Committee headed by Justice J N Wazir. On Wazir Committee’s advice, J&K government framed the J&K Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation Rules) 1970, which provided for 8 per cent reservations for SCs and 42 per cent for backward classes, including 2 per cent reserved for Ladakh District.
As the Supreme Court disapproved with this reservation norm, J&K government again constituted a committee with Justice Dr. A. S. Anand as its chairman in September 1976. Justice Anand’s report in September 1977 recommended a new reservation structure: Scheduled Castes – 8 %, Gujjar and Bakerwal - 4%, Other Social Castes - 2%, District Leh - 2%, District Kargil - 2%, other Backward Areas - 20%, Areas near the Actual Line of Control - 3%, Children of Freedom Fighters - 2%, Children of Permanent Residents Defence Personnel - 3%, Candidates Possessing Outstanding Proficiency in Sports - 3%.
This atrocious system of reservation was followed by recommendations of the Mandal Commission in 1980. Surprisingly, the commission in its report identified 63 castes/communities as ‘Socially and Educationally Backward Classes’ (SEBC) in J&K state and recommended 27% reservation for them. Since the OBC reservation in its recommendations was based on caste rather than socio-economic conditions, the same got applied to J&K as well.
In year 2000, the Indra Shawney v Union of India case resulted in something interesting. Supreme Court ruled that in order to declare any section of society as OBC or SEBC there has to be a full fledged committee report which would ascertain the average backwardness in terms of education and social mobility of that community.
Some states have done something more interesting. For example, West Bengal introduced the ‘Creamy layer exclusion’ system – meaning once a person gets the benefit of quota, subsequent generation of the immediate family will not get benefit. It also employs ‘Economic basis of exclusion’ – meaning only those families having an income of less than 4.5 lakhs per annum would be brought under the quota.
In this backdrop J&K state stands at a crossroads today. It has to make a choice: either to live with this slide or take a longer term vision for its future based on inclusiveness, meritocracy and competitiveness. One of the reasons that the state’s governance remains in a shambles is that reservation-based official machinery is dogged by mediocrity. Although this system is a handy tool of maintaining political order and conflict management, it also underlines how precarious our political situation is.
At the end of the day, we are again confronted with the same question – can we afford to live so many divisions? What about a common future of the state based on equal opportunities?
Feedback at arjimand@greaterkashmir.com
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