Fifty years after the introduction of an affirmative action program in jobs and education to benefit the most wretched people in India -- the "untouchables" now renamed "dalits" -- the verdict on its success in promoting access to opportunity to the country's lowest castes is mixed.
In the early 1950s, the government decreed that about 27 percent of all state jobs and college places should be reserved for such people and job quotas have certainly helped some move up the social ladder. In villages throughout the northern state of Punjab, for example, the children of parents who used to earn a living as cobblers or latrine-cleaners now work as clerks, policemen, teachers or bank managers.
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"It's not the status or income of this job that matter," said Atul Dadra, a bank clerk. "It's the sense of self-esteem. I have the confidence to look people in the eyes in a way my parents never could."
Few in India would deny the need for positive discrimination to help those who felt diminished psychologically and socially by the countless humiliations heaped on them by the Hindu upper castes: children segregated at school, adults served in separate cups at roadside cafes, access to village wells and temples denied.
The problem is that affirmative action has degenerated into a tool used cynically by politicians to win votes. In 1990, then-prime minister V.P. Singh, worried about losing support among low-caste peasant communities, dusted off an old study, known as the Mandal Report, that recommended a near-doubling of job quotas and college places to 52 percent.
Then a later government seeking easy popularity decided that a reasonably prosperous caste -- Jat farmers -- should also be eligible for job reservations. Recently, the chief minister of Rajasthan, with an eye on elections in November, has decreed that the poor among the upper castes will be entitled to 14 percent of state jobs, turning the whole idea of positive discrimination on its head.
This latest decision has thrown into relief the whole question of whether education and employment quotas have actually benefited those they were intended to help. However, hard data is scarce, because so few studies have been carried out.
Social trends analyst Yogendra Yadav says: "The available evidence suggests that while quotas have given the lowest castes more social mobility and greater access to education, the biggest beneficiaries have been the better off within these castes."
Many sociologists agree, arguing that only the more prosperous segments -- known as the "creamy layer" -- have done well out of job reservation schemes.
Affirmative action has certainly produced no sudden surge in social equality. Brahmins and other high caste Hindus may grumble about suffering from "reverse discrimination" but they still tend to be in charge. They dominate the civil service -- a recent survey showed they occupied 42 percent of top civil service jobs -- the armed forces, the corporate world, culture, the media and even the Indian cricket team.
"Brahmins have shown an unexpected degree of resilience," says sociologist Dhirubhai Sheth of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies.
In higher education, where college places are reserved for dalits, denigrating stories abound of "dull" dalit students failing final exams or taking up to seven years to complete their degrees. In the civil service, Brahmins sneer at the "incompetence" of low-caste colleagues who got their jobs through quotas "rather than merit."
"Brahmins have had centuries of practice in learning, absorbing information, doing well in exams and articulating a point cogently. These skills come easily to them," says Satish Deshpande of the Institute of Economic Growth. "The first generation of low-caste students and civil servants may be struggling but it will be easier for the second generation."
The only revolution of sorts has been political -- the emergence of powerful, low-caste parties in north India claiming to represent the interests of dalits and other deprived groups. Ironically, though, this has led to a reinforcement of caste identities rather than the development of a less caste-conscious society. Low-caste electors vote for low-caste politicians purely because they belong to the same group.
Some Indians are dismayed that dalit leaders have focused on job quotas rather than on fighting to change a culture that breeds contempt for the lower castes and perpetuates social injustice. They also fear that the upper castes may have the last laugh: with growing privatization of state-owned enterprises, the state sector is shrinking. As long as reservations remain confined to state jobs, Brahmins will enjoy the upper hand because the private sector, which they dominate, is expanding.
This realization has alarmed dalit political leaders, such as Udit Raj, who, like many dalits, converted to Buddhism a year ago to escape the caste system. Raj is now demanding job quotas in the private sector too.
Earlier this month, the opposition Congress Party also pledged to introduce job quotas in private companies in the interests of "social justice," if it is returned to power in next year's general election.
But not everyone thinks this is a good idea. Indian economist Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar believes the best way to get the lower castes into the corporate world is to provide them with good education, an area where the Indian state has failed.
"The answer to third-rate state education cannot be to create a third-rate private sector. We need true social justice, not job tokenism," Aiyar said.
India's most famous dalit and the author of the Indian constitution, B.R. Ambedkar, did not believe in quotas. He felt Hindu society had to change.
"This means a complete change in values, a complete change in outlook and the attitude towards men and things," he wrote.
Such a change is still a long way off.
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