Negative discrimination or affirmative action?

The government might find it difficult to amend the Constitution to mandate SC/ST/OBC reservation in corporate houses, discovers Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Speaking to corporate captains at the annual conference of the Confederation of Indian Industry on April 18, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: "I urge you to give more attention to questions of social and economic discrimination and deprivation, to the educational and health status of our people, to employment generation, to social security and to the employment of women and the minorities."

On the occasion, Dr Singh did not mention mandatory reservation of jobs for those belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in privately-owned and -controlled companies. His circumspection is not surprising in view of the hue and cry that has been raised over the government's move to reserve seats in educational institutions for Other Backward Classes, reminiscent of the loud noises with which VP Singh's acceptance of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission report was greeted 15 years ago.

Similar outrage is certain to be expressed if and when the government introduces legislation to reserve jobs in private firms for SCs and STs. Opposition to such a move will come not only from influential industrialists in bodies like the CII but from the usual suspects who are convinced that reservation of any kind discriminates against the meritorious and cannot, therefore, become a programme of affirmative action. Those who oppose reservation believe it cannot and does not reduce inequality in a highly-hierarchical and deeply-divided society such as ours. It is thus argued that the move to reserve jobs for SCs and STs will prevent private companies from becoming competitive.

Has reservation in education and public employment helped those belonging to the SCs and STs? There is a counter-question: Would the SCs and STs have been better off if there had been no reservation for them over the past half-century? The answer to this question will almost certainly be in the negative.

The fact that the private sector is providing more employment opportunities than government corporations in recent years is an important reason why there has been demand for job reservation in such entities. A group of ministers headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has stated that job reservation in the private sector will be possible only after amending the Constitution. If the government introduces a bill in Parliament mandating job reservation in private corporate bodies, such a bill is certain to be vehemently opposed by almost all business magnates.

However, no political party in India will argue against job reservation in the private sector, given its implications. The same was true of the reaction of the political class to Mandal. The 1991 census indicated that the population of the SCs and STs stood at 205.9 million—138.2 million SCs and 67.7 million STs. The 2001 census indicates that their number is in the region of 250 million, or roughly one-fourth of India's population. If the proposed bill is enacted, one out of four employees in private firms may have to be a Dalit or a tribal. Currently, very few corporate bodies fulfil this criterion. The 1991 census figures show there were 3.45 per cent SCs and STs in the household industrial sector, 7.11 per cent in non-household industry (meaning factories), and 3.12 per cent in the construction industry. In the services industry, there were barely 4.14 per cent SCs and STs, while the proportion was 3.21 per cent in transport and storage, and 11.86 per cent in other services.

On the issue of merit-versus-social background, the problem simply is that there is no common yardstick to perfectly measure the competence or capability of employees in a privately-owned corporate entity. A great deal of subjectivity enters any assessment processes. Azim Premji (a Muslim) of Wipro and Nusli Wadia (a Parsi) of Bombay Dyeing are two names from the corporate world that come to mind when it comes to private corporations headed by individuals belonging to minority communities. But it is next to impossible to find one controlled and headed by a Dalit or a tribal.

It is worth recounting what has taken place in the US, the bastion of free enterprise. The US government's policy is one of "recruitment by non-discrimination". In the US, there is an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which oversees the working of both government and the private organisations and has powers to sue for damages in cases of discrimination. A minimum of 5 per cent of all purchases made by the US government have to come from suppliers belonging to minority communities. The US law also binds all government contractors to sub-contract a certain percentage of their work to minority sub-contractors. Automobile manufacturers have to go for auto-dealership diversity by allotting dealership to African-Americans, Native Americans, Asians and Hispanics. This concept was actually pioneered by private companies, with General Motors and Ford implementing it even before the government made it a law.
A look at the ethnic composition of the US media is interesting. Shocked by the low levels of employment of African-Americans and other minorities, the American Society of Newspaper Editors resolved in 1978 that newspapers would open a diversity department, offer special scholarships to train people from minority communities in journalism, organise job fairs to recruit them and take part in annual racial and ethnic census exercises in the newsroom. Film and television writing, too, had the same problem. In 1997, the Writers Guild of America found that white male writers accounted for roughly 70 per cent of all writers in television and 80 per cent in films, while minority writers accounted for just 7 per cent in and 5 per cent, respectively. After a campaign to correct the situation, employment of minorities in the US media reportedly shot up by two-thirds between 1992 and 1998.

Will the Indian media do the same for Dalits or tribals? They haven't yet, and are unlikely to do so. In India, there are virtually no Dalits or tribals in leading positions in any major newspaper or TV channel.

Reservation in the private sector does not, however, mean that the problem of empowering the underprivileged sections of India will get solved or even alleviated considerably. According to the labour ministry, employment in the private sector stood at 8.7 million in 2004. So, even if it were to fully implement job reservation, only 2.5 million additional jobs (adjusted for growth) can be generated for SCs and STs. Job reservation, even if legally mandated, can, at best, marginally help India's social underprivileged sections. Quotas can assist but can never be a substitute for comprehensive economic and social programmes that empower the underprivileged—these include schemes to impart elementary education and basic healthcare.

The issue of economic—as opposed to social—backwardness is often raised. Many claim that reservation is acceptable only if economic criteria are used to determine backwardness. After the "creamy layer" judgement of the Supreme Court, it is amply clear that a rich Dalit, tribal or a member of the OBCs cannot be favoured for jobs or admission to an educational institution. It is also no one’s case that eligibility standards should be drastically lowered for the benefit of SCs, STs or OBCs. Reservation is aimed at assisting the disadvantaged and not penalising the meritorious.

The much bigger issues pertain to how social as well as economic equations can be altered. Can and should the government reduce not just economic inequality but social injustice, too? Even if caste and class overlap in most of India, the presence of rich Harijans and poor Brahmins makes this country unique in the comity of nations. Unfortunately, the debate over reservation has been clouded by emotion, not cleared by logic.