Reservations Bill Hits Hurdles in Parliament

Pawan Kumar/ReutersA protest against caste-based quotas in government job promotions, in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, on Monday.

A proposed constitutional amendment that would make it easier for the government to promote employees from lower castes encountered stiff resistance Wednesday in the lower house of Parliament, which had to adjourn for the day after lawmakers opposing the bill repeatedly disrupted the session.

The Indian Constitution already empowers governments to make “reservations,” or quotas for promotions of government employees who are members of the country's lowest castes and tribal groups . But Indian courts, including the Supreme Court, have attempted to limit this power by asking the government to show “compelling reasons” to justify such quotas.

The proposed amendment to the Constitution seeks to remove those impediments, clearing the way for these quotas.

“The socially oppressed should be given the support of reservations,” said Kumari Mayawati, leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party, which champions the rights of Dalits, a section of lower castes. “They should get these reservations to advance in every aspect of their lives.”

However, critics of the bill say that it penalizes those who are not members of the special groups, especially since they cannot gain seniority over junior members of the quota groups under the proposed promotion system.

The bill passed in the upper house of Parliament on Monday by an overwhelming majority after a vigorous debate. It has enjoyed broad political support, par tly because parties have been wary of alienating backward caste groups, which make up a significant number of voters.

Yet in the lower house of Parliament, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party's main political rival, remains opposed to the bill.

“We are not opposed to reservations,” Ram Gopal Yadav, a Samajwadi Party lawmaker, said in Parliament on Monday. “But once they have received reservations in getting the jobs, it is unfair to give reservations in promotions, and that too with consequential seniority.”

On Wednesday, lawmakers from the Samajwadi Party chanted, “We won't allow reservations in promotions,” as they stormed the well of the house. One lawmaker even snatched a copy of the bill as a minister of state read from it.

The bill is likely to be taken up in Parliament again on Thursday, which is the final day of the winter session.

India has a large and contentious system of quotas, which are designed to create a lev el playing field for disadvantaged groups by guaranteeing them spots in state universities and government jobs.

India's so-called scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, which make up 16 and 8 percent of the population, respectively, are entitled to 15 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively, of jobs and university seats administered by the central government. Spots are also reserved for another category of socially and economically backward groups, knows as “Other Backward Classes.”

In 1992, the Supreme Court forbade quotas in promotions. Three years later, lawmakers amended the Constitution to nullify the court's decision.

The courts have since sought to make it tougher to introduce quotas in promotions. In a 2006 case, the court laid down three criteria that governments must establish to justify quotas: the groups in question must be truly “backward,” or disadvantaged; data must show that they are underrepresented in government jobs; and the propose d quota must not make the government less efficient.

On the basis of these criteria, the Supreme Court in April struck down as unconstitutional a law passed by the government of Uttar Pradesh setting quotas in promotions. The state failed to provide data, the court said, to show that scheduled castes and tribes were not adequately represented in state jobs.

The bill highlights the difficulty in collecting quantifiable data to measure the disadvantages a group experiences. But some states have tried. A report released in August in response to an order of the Bihar high court said that there is a “perceptible, though inadequate, improvement in the quality of life of scheduled castes and tribes due to policies of affirmative action” in arguing a case for continued quotas in promotions.

The report re lies on socioeconomic data to illustrate the “persistent backwardness” of Bihar's Scheduled Castes and Tribes: low literacy rates, a high incidence of poverty and few land holdings. The report also shows, through a detailed assessment of each government department, that despite decades of promotion quotas, representation of these groups in senior positions remains abysmally low, with reserved posts often going unfilled.

On the question of the policy's impact on administrative efficiency the report points to robust revenues and low rates of complaints.