Let's Be Clear On Quotas

EWS, like OBC, is about caste, not class. We should stop pretending reservations are about the poor

- D Shyam Babu

Our founding fathers had set up, through the Constitution, a small gate and a narrow path that would lead the nation to a just social order by limited reservations. But over the decades, governments widened the gate and broadened the path to such an extent that any and every group can be granted some quota. And the judiciary provides its enthusiastic support to this policy elasticity. Now it is no longer very clear what the Constitution of India stipulates, envisages or merely allows, or indeed downright prohibits.

The apex court held on Monday that the 10% quota reserved in government jobs and seats in educational institutions for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) among the upper castes is constitutional.

The rub is that one cannot find an article in the Constitution that envisages quotas for the EWS. Moreover, one cannot even cite an argument or a sentiment expressed in the Constituent Assembly that supports quotas for a section of the upper castes merely because they are poor.

The government inserted exceptions to Articles 15 and 16, that too to give effect to Article 46, a Directive Principle, which requires promoting educational and economic interests of weaker sections. Therefore, upper castes are now treated as a part of ‘weaker sections’.