Anup Surendranath responds
I am grateful to Madhav Khosla for this discussion and for the passionate case he makes against reservations in promotions. However, better engagement with the arguments in my article would have made for a more meaningful exchange. For instance, Khosla’s declaration that I have ignored the principle of equality of opportunity fails to account for my argument that reservations at the entry level have failed to ensure equality of opportunity. The abysmal number of SC/STs in promotion posts belies Khosla’s foundational argument that equal opportunity at the stage of initial appointments results in equality between the general category and SC/STs.
Khosla’s argument on backwardness fails to distinguish between OBCs and SC/STs as beneficiary groups. The test that he describes is already in place for the OBCs but the Supreme Court has rejected it for the SC/STs on many previous occasions for good reasons. The nature and extent of the marginalisation faced by these two groups are very different and therefore excluding individual members from accessing benefits cannot proceed on the same grounds for OBCs and SC/STs. While there have been demands, like those from the Madiga Dandora movement, for internal reservations among SCs, the nature and basis of those demands are far removed from Khosla’s backwardness argument.
Khosla’s arguments are unfortunately yet another instance of viewing reservations in promotions as a battle between efficiency and social inclusion. I argued in my article that reservations in promotions must be viewed as furthering efficiency rather than taking away from it.
Also, the connection between the criteria for recruitment and the tasks of government employees is extremely tenuous. Therefore, the issue is not whether we would be willing to sacrifice efficiency for social inclusion in the case of the ticket inspector but not for the nuclear scientist. The issue is the dominant normative commitment that has prevented us from viewing reservation in promotions as furthering efficiency.
(Anup Surendranath is an Assistant Professor of Law at the National Law University ,Delhi and doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford.)
Keywords: SC/ST Promotion quota, government jobs
The concept of 'backwardness' does not apply to SC/STs as was given by the SC judgements and Constitution too, as they form distinct social group. Moreover, commonsense tells us that 'inadequavy of representation' is glaring at the middle to higher echolens because of the 'in-group' biased manipulations, favouritism among the power circles involving entrenched higher caste group's dominance. How could the genuine equitable representation be ensured, without tweaking of the prevailing normative systemic adjustments?
I am amazed at the shallow argument of Anup Surendranath. I expected a strong rebuttal on the points mentioned by Madhav Khosla and what I see here is hand waving and nothing else. Not going into the finer point of SC/ST and OBCs, there is a huge difference between reservations for recruitment and reservations for promotion. Reservation for recruitment can be argued as an equality of opportunity as it ensures that someone otherwise qualified and who could be deprived of a decent life can come even. Reservation for promotion is unlike that. It only serves to improve the quality of life. Anup's argument that there is little connection between selection criteria and tasks of government employees can be used to argue against him. While this is true, there would be a very strong connection between performance of a government employee at lower levels and the performance of the same employee at higher levels. So to tinker with the meritocratic set up of promotions is dangerous.
I tend to agree more with Madhav Khosla's argument. Reservation should help us in building an equitable society by creating a level playing field.
I fail to understand how reservation on promotion would help us in furthering this cause.If reservation at entry level fails to create this level playing field, there is every reason to believe that reservation on promotion will also fail.It on other hand will hamper the efficiency of govt offices by demoralizing capable employees.
Also I fail to understand why creamy layer logic won't apply in the case of SC/ST. If it is backwardness which we have to remove, then through reservation we must target most economically backward people in SC/ST and not the higher ups.
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