NEW DELHI : Two members of the National Knowledge Commission, set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year, resigned on Monday in protest against the Centre's reservation policy.

While putting in their papers, sociologist Andre Beteille and political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta placed on record their support for affirmative action as opposed to numerical quotas.

The two were among the six in the eight-member Knowledge Commission who felt that the status quo ought to be maintained and the existing policy of reservation should not be extended to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) till alternatives were explored. The Commission formally discussed the reservation policy at a recent meeting in Bangalore and apprised the Prime Minister individually about their respective positions.

Dr. Beteille (Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Delhi University) and Dr. Mehta (Chief Executive at the Centre for Policy Research) submitted their resignation letters to the Prime Minister stating that in the light of recent announcements by the Government in the realm of higher education, their continuation would serve no useful purpose.

Dr. Beteille told reporters later that he favoured affirmative action. "Though slow to bear fruit, affirmative action makes universities truly inclusive while quotas merely queer the pitch." He questioned the process by which the Government was imposing quotas on institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology without consulting their directors.

In his letter, Dr. Mehta said more radical forms of affirmative action than numerically mandated quotas were needed to achieve social justice. "We are not doing enough to genuinely empower marginalised groups but are offering condescending palliatives like quotas as substitute. All the measures currently under discussion are to defuse the agitation, not to lay the foundations for a vibrant education system."

He opposed the "one size fits all" approach where the Government is trying to impose a uniform policy on all types of educational institutions. Critical of the manner in which educational institutions are turned into the private playthings of politicians, he likened the United Progressive Alliance Government's bid to extend reservation to OBCs in education to the previous Government's "instrumental use of educational institutions for ideological purposes".

According to Dr. Mehta, "instead of finding imaginative solutions to allow us to transcend our own despicable history of inequity, your Government is ensuring that we remain entrapped in the caste paradigm."

Reiterating the Knowledge Commission's position that a Knowledge Society should be a "socially inclusive society", he said the measures being proposed by the Government would "inhibit achieving both social justice and economic well-being."

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