Govt has won EWS quota case in the Supreme Court but the victory may be difficult to handle
The Supreme Court’s verdict, allowing a 10 per cent quota in jobs and education institutions for the poor or economically weaker sections (EWS), is a major victory for the Narendra Modi Government which had brought it before the 2019 general elections. The Government stands vindicated on a critical issue. But the split judgment cannot be called a win for our democracy as well, for a red line has been crossed—the 50 per cent cap on reservations. It may be recalled that even the most enthusiastic social justice warriors in the Mandal era did not cross that line. Former prime minister VP Singh, who inaugurated the era, did not propose to augment the quota percentage; he wanted 27 per cent reservation for other backward classes (OBCs), thus taking the total to 49.5 per cent. The EWS quota was aimed at the category of people not belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, or OBCs; in effect, it sought to cover the so-called upper castes. It was immediately contested by various petitioners. Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, Bela M Trivedi, and JB Pardiwala favoured the quota, whereas Chief Justice UU Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat dissented. The verdict implies that neither the EWS quota nor the breach of the 50 per cent cap can be regarded as a violation of the basic structure of the Constitution.
In his dissent, Justice Bhat said: “Amendment practices constitutionally prohibited discriminations and strikes at the heart of the quality code. Allowing breach of the 50 per cent cap set on reservation can lead to further infractions which can result in compartmentalisation.” He hit the nail on the head: the kind of politicians we have, only an incorrigible optimist would say that there would be no more demands for reservations as all sections have been covered; our leaders will find or invent new pretexts for more reservations. The 50 per cent cap was a good compromise between social justice and merit. But the Bharatiya Janata Party, after losing Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh Assembly elections at the fag-end of 2018, opted for short-term political gains and brought the 103rd Constitutional Amendment introducing the EWS quota. It didn’t occur to the saffron party that reservation politics was not its strong point, for it is predicated upon the assumptions which are uncharitable to Hindu society. This is the reason that the RSS, nucleus of the saffron family, is uncomfortable with caste-based quotas. The country has witnessed a large number of agitations by various castes and communities demanding reservations, many of which went violent. At a time when the employment scenario is grim and government jobs are at premium, more quota stirs cannot be ruled out; and now that the cap has been breached, there can be demands to include more groups. Neither the Government nor the BJP would like to face such an eventuality. But, if it happens, they would have no one but themselves to blame. The Government has won but it’s a pyrrhic victory.