As a nation we appear to manage inequality without denting it. Manage it the same way we manage corruption. A sop here and a mop there. But the open drain remains as rotten and the bias as deep. Inequity management systems in India have grown old but strong, and spread roots deep in the ground, like the grand peepal tree of the village. Generations of Indian politicians have been schooled under that tree. What they have learned is traditional patriarchal panchayati raj – where some decide the fate of many. And everybody is kept ‘subjectively satisfied’ in their place by periodic handouts. An ‘equal’ electorate would truly befuddle the Indian politician. How then to politic? Whom to give blankets to? Whom to give quotas to?
We manage inequality in group based silos of protectionism that match and reinforce the silos of our vote bank politics. In this handout-based, vote bank inequity management system of our body politic, those who get short shrift are those who don’t matter electorally – the disabled, women, and sexual minorities, among others. The rest – Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims – are left pitted against each other, with competing claims to the handouts.
What have been our dominant inequity management strategies? Quotas, Commissions and Ministries. Reserved quotas for dalits and adivasis were constitutionally sanctioned – 22.5% seats in public sector jobs, educational institutions, and legislatures. Since then we have expanded it to include 27% quotas for OBCs in public sector jobs and higher education and in some states a handful of Muslims have sneaked in through inclusion in other quota categories. Despite a Supreme Court 50% cap on quotas, several states flout this diktat.
Quota solutions have also been extended to those who don’t matter electorally but whose group based inequities were embarrassingly obvious (these were the bechaaras) and elicited the charitable protection of the patriarchal state. The 1995 Disability Act gave a 3% quota to the disabled in government jobs – much of which remains unfilled.
From the 1990s we have also inaugurated an era of group-specific commissions to further our stated equity agenda – each managed by the various group-specific ministries. Barring the Backward Classes Commission (which is mandated chiefly to examine inclusion and exclusion of citizens from the central backward class lists), the other group-specific commissions have a broad based mandate to promote welfare and equity. Some have individual complaints mechanisms, but armed with little other than recommendatory and advisory powers, they have been less than useful.
Successive governments have treated them shamefully by refusing to debate their reports or take on board their recommendations (the NCST website shows its 2004-5 and 2005-6 reports as ‘still to be tabled before Parliament.’ NCM reports have met a similar fate for several years); and systematically eroding their autonomy by using them as parking lots for party loyalists who must be accommodated somewhere. These are not solutions to inequity.
The true test of our coming of age as a democracy will lie in whether or not we can inaugurate an equality regime beyond quotas and commissions; one which forces our diverse deprived groups to seek some common ground; rather than perpetuating inequity through management systems of isolated, competing silos – always separate and always unequal.
