Brewing tsunami over OBC reservations

There’s emerging evidence that the country’s massive younger generation — 540 million Indians are less than 25 years of age — is brewing a tsunami-style storm which could blow away the ruling gerontocracy and reshape the republic. Dilip Thakore reports Currently there is considerable satisfaction within the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in New Delhi that the national dust storm stirred by Union human resource development minister Arjun Singh’s April 5 pronouncement that the cabinet has agreed to provide additional reservation (i.e over and above the 22.5 percent quota of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) for OBCs (other backward castes) in Central government institutions of higher education has blown over. However there’s emerging evidence that the country’s massive younger generation (540 million Indians are less than 25 years of age) is brewing a tsunami-style storm which could blow away the ruling gerontocracy and reshape the republic.  There’s growing conviction within young India that on the reservation issue, the value premises and objectives of the political class — the Constitution (Ninety Third Amendment) Act 2005 (which overrules the Supreme Court’s judgements in the T.M.A Pai Foundation (2002) and the P.A Inamdar (2005) cases and permits the Central and state governments to decree reservations for backward castes and classes even in private, unaided institutions of education) received the unanimous support of all parties in Parliament — are at complete variance with those of India’s generation next. Internal pulls and pressures within the ruling coalition government and particularly the unrequited political ambitions of the 74-year-old Arjun Singh who forced the government’s hand on the issue of provisioning an additional quota of 27 percent in Central government institutions of higher education, have compelled it to devise ways and means to provide additional reservation for OBCs without alienating the merit-driven and politically influential middle class. For instance, the additional reservation kicks in from next year, and currently a 13-member Oversight Committee chaired by former Karnataka chief minister Dr. Veerappa Moily is examining how to expand the overall capacity of Central government institutions, so that the quota of merit students is not reduced. But meanwhile the student community is becoming increasingly impatient with the divide et impera (divide and rule) strategies of all political parties, and the caste fixation of the nation’s aged leaders. “We are not against affirmative action in favour of the genuinely needy; what we are against is caste-based reservations. Thus far India’s campuses have been free from the malaise of casteism and we intend to keep them that way. The introduction of an additional quota for OBCs is nothing but a political ploy to harvest their block vote. Therefore we will defeat this political proposal politically. Youth for Equality has launched a nationwide signature campaign in which students will pledge to vote out those dividing our campuses on caste lines. I am confident that we can mobilise the youth vote and make it matter. In forthcoming elections, political parties will feel the heat of the youth vote,” vows Dr. Jitendra Singla president of the Resident…