Reservations in the private sector

By Sanket ‘a bit reserved’ Kambli

Asked about the opposition to reservations in private sector, Manmohan Singh said: “Nobody can avoid it as it is going to be a national policy. Nobody can prevent an idea whose time as come.”

The Congress-led UPA Government has already begun a dialogue on including reservations in the private sector for Dalits.

It is probably the first time that a Central Government has pushed forward an agenda without genuine public demand.

Even though the Government is trying to build a consensus on the issue, what is surprising is there has not been a single move by the Dalits for such reservation.

This policy was declared in Maharashtra, which is going to the election polls soon (not that soon).

But those who read the dailies know that it was in Maharashtra, that Dalits have led the longest movement of "Namantar Movement" for getting Marathwada University's name changed after Babasaheb Ambedkar.

If a Government was not able to change the name of a university after a long movement, how is it ready to give reservation to Dalits in the private sector even without any demands by them?

It seems to be more or less a political stunt by the Congress party, which has no long-term plan for the Dalits and it is a general view that it has lost its credentials among them at national level in general and in Maharashtra in particular.

Though there maybe a need for the policy of affirmative action in the private sector because of a dwindling number of Government and public sector jobs due to privatization, liberalization globalization, and disinvestment, it is believed that Dalits are not convinced that the policy will see the light of day in the near future.

Judging by the past record of the Congress Government(records sourced from other reporting agencies), it has not been able to fulfill the allotted quota of reservation (15 per cent for the Dalits under Article 335 of the Indian Constitution in the central Government and public sectors) even 57 years after the commencement of the reservation policy. Mind you, this quota has been enshrined in the Constitution. Second, the various governments took 44 years to identify other backward classes and to begin the implementation of reservation for them.

Then how can Dalits believe that the Government will implement a reservation policy that is not yet born?

That is why the whole exercise looks more like a political stunt and it seems the Congress wants to hide its own sins of not implementing the reservation in the Government and public sector and plans to shift the debate to the private sector.

If it were sincere and seriously believed that reservation is necessary for the uplift of Dalits, then it should have taken concrete steps toward filling the backlog of vacancies within the Government. What is it waiting for? The Government should immediately remove the administrative hurdles before this plan.

These politicians do not have any authentic data to build an argument on the issue of reservation in the private sector. In fact, they do not have any answers for the questions raised by the private sector players asking whether it is a step against industrialization.