Anti-Reservation vs Pro-Reservation
But The Answer Lies Elsewhere 

“ Who are our enemies? Power, Wealth, … Landlords, Capitalists, Moneylenders and their lackeys. Those parties who indulge in religious or casteist politics and the govt which depends on them.

“ We do not want a little place in the Brahman Alley. We want the rule of the whole land. …Change of heart, liberal education, etc will not end our state of exploitation. When we gather a revolutionary mass, rouse the people, out of the struggle of this giant mass will come the tidal wave of revolution.”

Perhaps none of today's students who were stirred in the recent spurt of ‘anti-reservation' versus ‘reservation' “movements” can recognise the authors of these quoted sentences. Those lines are from the manifesto of the dalit panther – an organisation born in Mumbai, back in 1972. Those were days of the last ripples of the last ‘radical' times in the past century, before the low ebb set in within the international communist movement, which culminated in the naked display of the defeat of that movement since the early 1990s. Today's Dalit Panther ‘party', or the self proclaimed ‘messiahs' of the Dalits, the BSP et al, would surely pay no heed to this prehistoric rhetoric; and the Chiefs of YFE (youth for equality) platform would perhaps shrug off such impractical words of dinosaurian era sneeringly! It is difficult for them to confront such ‘audacious' Dalit voice. Yes, we did not beg for a slice or some breadcrumbs within this exploiting system of yours, sirs. We never prayed for ‘quotas' within this oppressive system and in turn accept this system as legitimate. We vied for demolishing your entire system and creating ours. We were not and are not hoodwinked by past and present Mayavati-s or Lalu-Mulayam-Nitish-Rambilas-Meera-etc company who cash on their caste card and betray the poor and toiling Dalits and Other Oppressed Caste people. Following the wicked parlance of BSP's student-organisation, they all practice: unprincipled cashteist or cashtshit politics. They serve the cash: the big business, native and foreign; they abide by the imperialists' dictates; they never call for a total land reform that will hurt the zamindars, baniyas, usurers; they always have an eye to gain cash and power-share manipulating caste-vote-banks! Besides, they all fear revolution in India , an essential and prime component of which is annihilation of caste & casteism, lest their power-n-cash-grab-game ends.

We had the opportunity to read handouts of student organisations of some of the coveted institutions of Delhi . Just as a sample, we shall probe here only those published by organisations acting in the JNU. To our astonishment, even student-leaders of the elite JNU chose to forget the dalit rebel history! By the way, interestingly, no parliamentary party dared to ‘disagree' with the UPA govt's reservation proposal, at least overtly; surely the ‘vote bank' concern debars them doing so! Well, let us go back to the opinions of the student organisations, and here we are concerned with the ‘left', ‘revolutionary' student organisations, who are supposed to articulate anti-establishment, rebel aspirations of society.

But before we get into the subject we would like to tell those students veering towards YFE: You need to study with a scientist's eye the Indian history, Indian social-reality, which will give ample evidences of assaults, brutality, coercion, degradation of the Dalits and Other Oppressed Castes, even if you examine the last 20 years instead of last 20 centuries. Just imagine what your dalit or ‘backward caste' friend [if you have any] might feel if they saw elite upper-caste students protesting Mandal Commission report in the late 1980s by polishing shoes! However, insults like that are minor to atrocities that are still going on, on ‘lower caste' people after so many decades of ‘SC/ST reservation'. Then, as far as ‘Merit' and ‘Equality' is concerned: Will not you try to ponder deeply the question of ‘Merit' and the concept of ‘Equality' as put by the YFE leaders? Is not ‘Merit' a socio-economic construct, which in present Indian society has a strong correlation with social and economic status? Well, we are not avid supporters ‘Affirmative Actions' as practiced in, say, the imperialist USA . Nonetheless, how the YFE leaders will answer President Johnson? [He argued at Harvard convocation on June 4, 1965: “You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you have been completely fair. … We seek …not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.” How much ‘affirmative' the US society became under his reign is another question. The “Black Panther” was born within 16 months after that speech!] Then, try to feel the reasons behind the angers, desires, frustrations, humiliations, spoken and unspoken; and even the distorted desires of the oppressed people: ‘distorted' not by them, but mainly by the absence of a vibrant revolutionary struggle in our society, and generally, the world over. Consider friends, is not the humanitarian egalitarian desire of the student community too is being ‘distorted' by the YFE leadership, which tries to narrow down your vision to seeking ‘solution' within this present exploiting system and tries to maintain upper caste cum upper class privileges? Moreover, which seeks to hibernate the ‘natural' human passion towards the lower depth of the society, very ‘natural' within the student community, the most sensitive section of the intelligentsia?

Anyway, let us begin our discussion on the literatures of the ‘left' ‘revolutionary' organisations. “The present announcement of the govt to prove reservation to the OBCs as well as increase in number of seats is a step towards achieving the objective of the eternal trinity of Indian education – quality, quantity and equity.” [Emphasis ours – Ed FAPP] This is an expression used in a leaflet of the students' union of JNU led by ‘communist' CPIM's student wing – the SFI! Wherefrom they have discovered the eternal trinity that they can only tell, but it does certainly smack of the parampara [tradition] of Hindu–Indian-ness preached by the RSS-Sangh Parivar brand of thought while persevering with their ideas of the ‘golden ages' of education, culture and etc of the ‘Hindu' and/or ‘Vedic' era. Besides, the SFI has also expressed their tremendous faith on the Congress-led UPA govt's reservation programme and seat enhancement, hoping that these will go on in achieving ‘quality, quantity and equity' of the country's education system. Probably it expresses rather the faith they presently repose on the capitalist system and the ruling classes! The socialism (?) preaching SFI has even gone further ahead to uphold the ‘supremacy' and ‘sanctity' of the ruling class made constitution and our [pruned] democratic parliamentary system.

Appendage of a crassly parliamentary left party they are, collaborators they are with the big bourgeoisie Congress party led govt, so much so that they have shed their last shred of ‘leftism' and ‘socialism' to challenge the YFE by stating “Any attempt on the part of the ongoing agitation of the so-called Youth For Equality to undermine the parliament is immoral, illogical and anti-national.” So out and out constitutionalist they have become that in opposing one erroneous idea they had to take refuge in the ‘sanctity, morality' etc of the parliamentary democracy. They demanded that those who burnt an effigy of the constitution should be jailed. This is the inevitable consequence of placing parliamentarism and opportunist politics at the centre of their ideology. This is the fruit of towing ruling class politics. They have dumped even the garb of social revolution they have been wearing. Amusingly, the established Indian ‘Communist (!) Parties', de-facto, never gave due importance to the question of caste-system, caste-oppression and the need of abolition of this ghastly system. Later, they assimilated the ruling classes' conspiracy regarding this. Moreover, their mass base in Bengal accommodates everything from upper-caste chauvinism to all sorts of rubbishes, for an example, some of their leaders said that their ruled WB will not need the recently UPA declared reservation scheme! Now their fellows in Kerala govt are surreptitiously experimenting a newer plot – reservation for economically backward people (how ‘reasonable' these CPIM people are, are not they, YFE-leaders?). Thus they are trying to ‘de-link' economic backwardness with ‘social oppressions' based on caste, religion, nationality, etc in India !

This was not unexpected from the students' wing of the unashamedly revisionist and opportunist CPIM. Rather our hope in search of the real revolutionary evaluations rested on the radical organisations such as the AISA and the DSU. Hoping to find the reflection of the voice of the society, especially in this particular context of the govt proposed reservation programme, it was expected that they will show us the beacon of light that may prevent the radical students from falling into the pitfalls and traps of the ruling class design on the one hand and the upper-caste chauvinism on the other, and thus navigate towards the real path of emancipation from the morass of caste-based oppression.

Quite unexpectedly here also we were in for more astonishment and alarm. Let us see what the staunch claimants of the revolutionary heritages of the working class and toiling masses' movement, the DSU said in one of their handouts, “reservation is one of the outcome of years of struggle by the backward castes to end a historical oppression: A step towards ending an inhuman inequality.” At another place they said, “Reservations, while being a partial measure, upsets this pretty apple just a little bit – giving a section of the downtrodden a long denied taste of freedom: Freedom to education, to employment.”

Is the present reservation proposal of the govt really ‘a step towards ending an inhuman inequality'? Will it in reality give ‘…the downtrodden a long denied taste of freedom: Freedom to education, to employment'? Such an assertion from a ‘revolutionary' students' organisation confuses the implication of the petty reform measure taken by an imperialist-backed capitalist-led government, lending it recognition in positive light. One of the reasons behind their confusion is not considering: “reservation is … the outcome of” many other things too, and those other things are important.

The British during their Raj designed the system of reservation based on caste and religion in the regional legislature by the notorious communal award. The ‘famous' Poona-Pact of the Indian elites tried to legitimise it in the mind of the ‘lower caste' people with little bit quantitative increase of seats [and also made those election-praying aspiring black-sahibs belonging to ‘lower' castes by their birth reliant on the ‘Babu's of upper-castes by indirect-election procedures]. The “scheduled-castes” were given reservation of 8.5% in the central services in 1942. After the British Raj, in ‘independent' India, the constitution provided reservation for what they call the ‘scheduled castes' and ‘scheduled tribes' in govt services; and it is still continuing. Reservation for the so-called OBCs in govt employment is there for the last 15 years. Has there been any sign of eradication of the horrid caste-system? Has even a sizeable minority of Dalits and Other Oppressed Caste people got the ‘long denied taste of freedom: freedom to education, to employment'? Has it moved the society even a single step ‘towards ending an inhuman inequality'? NO. Our rulers did not make the reservation policy for these goals. The British Raj did not mean to abolish the caste system, neither our present ruling classes want that.

A very small section got the benefit of govt employment, and this ‘benefit' is shrinking more and more due to the policies of globalisation. When V P Singh led govt took decisions regarding Mandal Commission he and they knew what would be in store for the ‘other backward castes', they knew which way the economy was moving nationally and internationally. His govt never dreamt or cared for emancipation of dalits and other oppressed caste people. His and all the previous governments reservation policy was designed with the following aims:– 1) to cope with the rising democratic aspiration among the oppressed people including the dalits; 2) to divert their growing aspiration and dissention from going towards rebellion to petty paltry ‘gains' like some thousand govt jobs; 3) to use the oppressed people as vote banks; and 4) to incorporate the ‘lower caste' want-to-be elites in the ‘power structure'. Additionally they had a useful by-product: division, split within the camp of toiling people, pitting one against the other over breadcrumbs.

Presently, after a decade a half of adoption of the policy of globalisation, the scenario is still bleaker. Among general deterioration in the conditions of the toiling masses, reservation for education for the backward among them is another big drama to hoodwink the people of oppressed castes. Moreover, the anti [and pro] reservation agitations were restricted to the upper strata students of the elite institutions in only a few important cities of the country. In spite of Media's over-blowing of the upper-caste sentiments, it did not churn and arouse the ‘lower' caste masses caged in destitution and poverty. They in fact cannot even dream of sending their children up to the stage of high-school education – we are talking about the vast multitude of the oppressed caste workers, toilers and poor and landless peasants. Many SC/ST seats remain vacant, and then those are filled up by ‘General' category. However, with the natural consequence of capitalist development in society and the slow percolations of its effects down through the different layers of society, a thin layer of ‘backward caste people' has ascended upward. They can and do avail opportunities of this reservation system to be incorporated in the existing exploitative system. They need some quota in ‘higher learning' too; they are eager to get their MD-MBA-M.Tech … from elite institutions. They vociferously demand and support this OBC–reservation policy. The achievement of ‘a little bit' of ‘long-denied sense of freedom' for the masses of the downtrodden remains a mere illusion and also a ploy only to divide the masses and strengthen the rule of the capitalist landlord combine. Astonishingly the DSU did not see through the politics of reservation.

The DSU has said, “The real force behind reservation is the growing backward caste movement”. In one sense it is. With the natural consequence of capitalist development in society and the slow percolations of its effects down through the different layers of society still bound in pre-capitalist relationships, more and more backward caste people are getting mobilised, demanding democratic changes and fighting brutal oppressions. But there is no real leading force that can play a conscious revolutionary role for thorough democratisation of the society and liberation from such oppressions through a revolution. The so-called communist parties never cared for the problem in real terms in the past and they are now playing the role of petty reformist and traitors. In absence of any revolutionary democratic movement that may seek the complete abolition of caste system and its bases, the pre-capitalist relationships, the dominating upper-caste landlordism and vested interests, it is the fake backward caste politics of reservation that is predominant. The growing oppressed-castes' movements are manoeuvred by the emerging regional privilege-seeking narrow-minded ideologues. These ‘backward caste movements' are strangled in struggling for petty concessions and a little share in the power structure capitalising the backward caste peoples' aspiration and emotions. However, this is not the ‘totality' of the history of dalit or other oppressed caste people's history of struggles, rebellions. Just imagine, had any spontaneous dalit or other oppressed caste people's struggle of the 1920s or late-1960s or early-1970s demanded paltry ‘reservation'? Or did they yearn for challenging the entire oppressive system? In addition, we have mentioned above the design of the ruling classes behind the ‘reservation' policy. Taking together, the statement “The real force behind reservation is the growing backward caste movement” becomes only partially true. While fighting the upper caste students' tirade, this student organisation paid little or no attention to the ‘politics of reservation', neither they did judge the ‘backward caste movements' with historical, social interconnections.

Only at one place they had to admit, though somewhat vaguely, “Reservations, just by itself, will not achieve socio-economic equality … struggles for alternative development and reservation have to go hand in hand”. Another organisation, the AISA also, who claimed that ‘AISA was born in head-on collision with casteist and communal forces', after having staunchly defended the government's proposal of reservation and competed with the SFI in who supports more the reservation programme, had to reconcile at the end only by stating “The Government's policy of reservation should go hand in hand with a comprehensive policy of ensuring the access of all students to education, by putting an end to the sale of education as a commodity”.

But this is the central question. The successive governments had thrown down the titbits of reservation from their rulers' seats as they were compelled by the objective circumstances. It is another aspect that the ruling class is forced to accommodate via slow and meagre changes to keep their rule intact. But the main thing is that those titbits are fruitless; unless the whole system is overhauled, the rule and repression of the upper-caste and class hierarchy is dismantled from top to bottom, liberation cannot be thought of. What the society needs is not the lollypops of reservation but the complete annihilation, end of the caste system. The politics of reservation must be exposed outright. And here comes the ‘struggle for alternative development' or the urge for ‘a comprehensive policy of ensuring the access of all students to education, …”. Such struggle means – struggle for establishment of a real democratic society, and further moving ahead to an egalitarian society, socialism. That road the ruling bourgeoisie and their allies can never opt for, rather they are in opposition to that. “Putting an end to the sale of education as a commodity,” also demands an out and out social change, a revolution. Instead, the ruling classes only try to prevent and postpone such possibilities for the time being by sops of reservation [and other petty reforms like yearly only 100 days job guarantee, self-help groups, etc], which acts as a safety valve and also as a cushioning layer around it, and keep the masses divided [and dependent on the reforms]. Therefore, these two opposites cannot go hand in hand. Reforms do come as a ‘by-product' of revolutionary struggles; but ‘struggle for petty-reform', spreading illusions based on reforms etc and revolutionary struggle cannot go hand in hand.

Not exposing that design of the ruling class, not elaborating on the necessity of social upsurge [and the real forces that can put an end to this politics of ‘reservation and simultaneous exploitation'], the revolutionary student organisations only dilly-dallied on the side of the reservation program. We hope our radical student friends will consider: Was that populism, or, was that the influence of the weakened class struggle and heightened reformism?

Perhaps it was not very decent or conventional for a theoretical journal of revolutionary communists to engage in any critique on literatures of Students Organisations. But the issue was compelling; plus, it attracted the eyes of working class too, thanks to the media and the medico-strikes. The revolutionary proletariat desires more from their student friends. They must try to defeat the govt plan of dividing the student community [and also the people] and pitting one against the other on trivial reforms; and simultaneously they should try to build up unity – unity for radical change.

 

go to top

Home Page >> Dalit, Caste & Tribal Question >> Anti-Reservation vs Pro-Reservation...