Say yes to affirmative action

The results were stunning. There were no Dalits and just three OBCs among the group's 300 journalists! Most were Brahmins, Kayasthas, and Banias. This was not due to policy: it was just how things were -- "naturally," as a manager put it, emphasising "merit."

It's astounding, and of course incredible, that the upper castes, who form a tenth of India's population, concentrate nine-tenths of its entire "merit." That reflects vicious discrimination in this super-hierarchical society, where caste is more important than educational achievement or talent.

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This denial of social opportunity is pervasive in India. Contrast this with the frankly capitalist United States.

There, two-thirds of all major newspapers draw 15 to 20 percent of their journalists from minorities like Blacks and Hispanics. Their proportion is 16.2 percent in The New York Times,19.5 percent in The Washington Post, and 18.7 percent in The Los Angeles Times.

This is the result of a decision of the American Society of Newspaper Editors to raise the minorities' representation to the same level as their population share. This was achieved through special programmes like as diversity promotion, scholarships, training schemes, and job fairs.

The key is affirmative action or positive discrimination favouring historically disadvantaged groups. This must be adopted in India.

India is marked by cascading inequalities. If you are born underprivileged, you face discrimination in education, employment, income, etc. -- each step of the way.

This destroys the very possibility of realising the human potential of millions. It can be effectively countered by levelling the originally-tilted playing-field -- through affirmative action.

That's how we should see the reservations issue, being raised in respect of the private sector (especially in Maharashtra) and Muslims. In Andhra, 5 percent of government jobs have been reserved under a policy initiated by Mr Chandrababu Naidu.

Extending reservations to the private sector is part of the UPA's Common Minimum Programme and is worthy. But reservations for Muslims may be undesirable.

The private sector has responded negatively to Maharashtra's new policy. Some magnates have threatened to relocate industries. This is bizarre coming from businessmen for whom birth and inheritance count more than "merit."

Indian business families jealously guard their lineage at the expense of all else. Efficiency isn't their forte. Or else, we wouldn't have 250,000 private factories lying closed, sinking tens of thousands of crores. In private business, most people are recruited on the strength of contacts, sifarish and loyalty, not "merit."

Affirmative action is necessary for marginalised groups like Dalits because of the persistence of barbaric discrimination against them, sanctioned by the Dharmashastras.

The Manusmriti prescribes gruesome treatment towards shudras (including most OBCs). They must be "free from pride," and own no property other than donkeys and dogs.

Should a Shudra try to sit next to a savarna, "he shall be … banished. If a Shudra threatens a Brahmin with a stick, he shall remain in hell for a hundred years; he who strikes a Brahmin …

for a thousand years."

There's more: "A Chandala, a village pig, a cock, a dog, a menstruating women must not look at the Brahmin when they eat. The Chandalas shall be outside the village and their dress shall be the garments of the dead."

Even today, cruel discrimination prevails: Dalits must take off their shoes and their women must uncover their faces while passing through an upper-caste area; their dead cannot be carried through it. Dalits can be banned from making ghee. In Andhra and Tamil Nadu, they have been forced to eat human excreta for asserting their legal rights.

Such vile discrimination cannot be eliminated by calls for equal opportunity -- among unequal people, whose starting conditions are grossly unequal. Correcting them demands affirmative action. Its principal function is not individual betterment, but acknowledgement of historic injustice against a group.

So long as anti-Dalit and anti-OBC discrimination persists, we must continue with reservations, but recognise that reservations or quotas are a particularly strong form of affirmative action.

It won't be easy to implement them in the private sector, which anyway creates very few new jobs. Organised private enterprises employ just 8.4 million people -- down from 8.8 million in 1998. (The whole organised sector employs just 27.2 million.)

Other forms of discrimination are often preferable to reservations. Take the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which fights for ethnic minorities. EEOC has brought major changes in countless industries and occupations like automobile dealerships and even TV anchorship.

It ruled that 5 percent of all government purchases must come from minority suppliers. Thus, major corporations like Exxon-Mobil, General Motors and Wal-Mart recruit 16 to 23 percent of their workers from the minorities. IBM has 15 percent of its staff drawn from them. Over one-third of the Harvard Medical School faculty belongs to such groups.

India must emulate such methods -- to start with, to ensure jobs for Dalits and Adivasis in proportion to their 23 percent population share, up from their abysmally low representation of 7.1 percent in factories, 3 percent in transport, and 3.4 percent in domestic industry.

Finally, a word on reservations for Muslims. In recent years, many Indian Muslims have suffered discrimination. But they don't fall into the category of Dalits who face historic injustice. Nor are Muslims homogenous.

Muslims will be better served through education, modernisation of madrassas, opening up of special state services (e.g. RAW and police intelligence) hitherto closed to them. EEOC-type programmes will greatly help Muslim professionals.

Given India's history of communal conflict, there will be a strong backlash to reservations for Muslims -- through screams of "appeasement." Instead of reservations, Andhra should announce affirmative action for Muslims in education and job training.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.