27 pc quota upheld: Are OBCs India's new rulers?

NEW ORDER? Experts suggest improving the quality of primary education so everyone gets an equal chance.

          

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The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a law, which provides for 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in educational institutions supported by the Central government.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan ruled that the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution. However, the Bench said that if the creamy layer is not excluded then the reservation benefits would not percolate to the needy.

CNN-IBN show, Face The Nation brought up a question: Are OBCs the new rulers of India?

On the panel to try and answer the question were MP, Congress, Convenor, Parliamentary Forum of OBC MPs V Hanumantha Rao, author and economist Gurcharan Das, MP, National Secretary, CPI, D Raja and founder member, Youth for Equality Anirudh Lochan.

Are OBCs really socially backward?

The Congress party had hailed the judgemant as a landmark judgment but had the court actually done what it actually wanted it do? Since all OBCs can avail the quota accept for the rich ones, did it actually bring the OBC vote?

V Hanumantha Rao said that the issue was not about votes. “People are suffering for the last 60 years. Even when the Mandal Commission was implemented in 1991-92 reservations could not be implemented for higher education. The UPA government under the leadership of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, and also Arjun Singh has taken a lot of interest in this affair and the other parties also supported this,” said Rao.

Since it was a big election year and 80 per cent OBC communities in Madhya Pradesh had gone to the polls. The OBCs in Chattisgarh had also gone to the polls so there was no question of the Congress not being interested in the OBCs.

So could the OBCs as a category be seen as socially backward?

Reckoning the thought as questionable, Gurcharan Das said that successful societies looked to the future and not to the past.

“Our aim in India should be to create a middle class society created by high growth, a kind of growth that we are having. But quotas will always lower standards in every society and also lower the chance for the society to become successful,” said Das.

Since D Raja also hailed the OBC quota as relevant, but 90 per cent of the children would be left out, so wasn’t there a need of setting up primary education?

D Raja did agree that there was crisis in the field of education not only in the primary level but also in the secondary level.

“If you go to our higher level there is more crisis. At primary level you get students from scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and OBC. But once they move to secondary level they get dropped out,” said Raja.

So why was there no stop in opposing of privatisation of education?

Raja in his defence said that, “The students are denied access to education in educational institutions,” said Raja.

He further said, “In the post independence India there have been efforts to give them access to education in educational institutions that is why we welcome the judgement as a positive judgement,” said Raja.

According to Raja the quota had upheld the Parliament’s right to amend the Constitution to ensure social justice.