14 Apr Opportunity in crisis: Backward class political reservation
Opportunity in crisis: Backward class political reservation – Today Current Affairs
On 4 March 2021, the Supreme Court’s three-judge bench scrapped the reservation for the OBC, which provided more than 50% reservation in local bodies of Washim, Akola, Nagpur, and Bhandara districts of Maharashtra in Vikas Kishnarao Gawali v The Chief Minister and Ors (2021).
Today Current Affairs
This verdict affected at least 56,000 OBC seats in 28,000 gram panchayats, 350 panchayat samitis, 367 municipal councils, 34 zilla parishads, and 27 municipal corporations across the state and it has been argued that the verdict will have an impact across the country. The Court observed that the reservation for OBCs was just a “statutory dispensation to be provided by the state legislations,” is different from the “constitutional” provisions that mandate reservation to the Scheduled Castes (SCs)/Scheduled Tribes (STs), the total reservation should not exceed the 50% cap, and it may be invoked only upon complying with three conditions before notifying the seats reserved for the OBC category in the concerned local bodies.
These triple conditions included, first, setting up a dedicated commission to conduct a contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness with regard to local bodies within the state. Second, specifying the proportion of reservation required to be provisioned at the level of local self-governments in light of the recommendations of the commission so as not to fall foul of overbreadth. Finally, ensuring that reservations do not exceed an aggregate of 50% of the seats reserved in favor of SCs, STs, and OBCs taken together. The 50% ceiling specifically relied on the ratio of the historic Indra Sawhney judgment.
The SC’s Intervention : The Hindu Analysis
In 2018, a petition was filed by Vikas Gawali, a former member of the zilla parishad of the Congress party from Washim and an OBC member himself. A petition was filed to force the issue of enumeration of OBCs. Gawali filed his first petition in the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court citing the quota was exceeding the 50% limit in Akola and Washim zilla parishads in which the court granted the status quo and the elections were delayed for two years.
Meanwhile, in 2019, Gawli filed another petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Maharashtra State Election Commission’s notification for elections to local bodies of Washim, Akola, Nagpur, and Bhandara districts which exceeded the 50% reservation limit contrary to the Supreme Court’s judgment of K Krishna Murthy and Ors v Union of India.
On 4 March 2021, the Court read down Section 12(2)(c) of the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961 entailing 27% reservation for OBCs in zilla parishads, terming it as an enabling provision, that may be invoked only upon compliance with the abovementioned triple conditions before notifying the seats reserved for the OBC category in the concerned local bodies, thereby quashing reservations for OBCs in local bodies. Following this verdict, the Maharashtra government filed a review plea, which was quashed by the apex court in May 2021.
To address the question of the lack of OBC representation and ensure that the reservation for SCs, STs, and OBCs does not exceed 50% in the rural and urban local bodies, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government passed two ordinances, first on 23 September 2021 to amend two legislations that pertain to the rural local bodies—Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961 and Maharashtra Village Panchayat Act for Zilla Parishads and the second on 1 October 2021, to amend three other laws—the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act and Maharashtra Municipal Councils, Nagar Panchayats and the Industrial Townships Act—which govern urban local bodies.
The MVA government passed a unanimous resolution in December 2021, recommending that the SEC should put local body elections on hold until reservation for OBCs was restored. The union government subsequently filed an application seeking a recall of the Supreme Court’s order in the case of MP.
MVA versus the BJP : The Hindu Analysis
Maharashtra’s politics has been dominated by the question of “reservation” in the past few years. One relates to granting backward status to the Marathas and the other pertains to OBC reservation in local bodies. As a consequence of these developments in the state, unrest and insecurity has erupted within the OBC community, but the discourse in Maharashtra is confined to blaming political rivals by both the MVA government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP who is aggressively protesting now to restore the OBC reservation was in power when this case went to court for the first time. When the OBC political reservation was challenged in 2016, the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP–Shiv Sena government informed the Bombay High Court that it was taking appropriate legal action and sought consent from the court to hold local body elections. The high court had allowed the elections to proceed, subject to the outcome of the court order. However, in the three years from 2016 to 2019, the BJP–Shiv Sena-led government did not take any concrete measures to retain the OBC reservation. As a result, the elections were held in December 2019 and January 2020 with the permission of the high court, which was canceled by the Supreme Court in March 2021 and held again in October 2021 without OBC reservation.
Similarly, the MVA government has not taken any concrete steps other than taking the usual route of ordinances to overcome an adverse judicial decision. After the Supreme Court’s direction, the state government declared the MSCBC as a dedicated commission in June 2021 but failed to provide the required resources to collect empirical data for the entire year.
Post-Mandal OBC Politics : The Hindu Analysis
OBCs are a highly stratified group of castes comprising peasantry, artisan and service providing castes. These communities were regarded predominantly as Shudras in Hindu scriptures. A section of them was part of the anti-caste movement in the form of the Satyashodhak movement and subsequently non-Brahmin movement, which later got subsumed in the Congress in 1930. In the post-independence era, Palshikar (1994) argues that by appropriating the ideology of Bahujan Bad, the Congress evolved non-antagonistic relations with the lower castes. Owing to the dominance of the Congress, OBCs did not have an independent mobilisation and politics in the state till the 1990s.
With the Mandal Commission’s recommendations, the concerns of OBCs were thrust into the center stage of Indian politics. This gave rise to a new surge of consciousness about caste discrimination among the intermediate castes and provided a platform for their political assertion leading to the emergence of OBC parties in North India. As a result of this, the proportion of OBC elected representatives in the Hindi belt rose from 11% in 1984 to 25% in 1996, whereas that of the upper-caste elected officials fell from 47% to 35%. The Hindu Analysis
As against the situation in North India, OBCs in Maharashtra constitute around 27% of the state’s population and are scattered in different regions of the state. The numerically strong Maratha community, which constitutes 30% of the state’s population, has historically dominated Maharashtra politics. Vora (2009) has studied the social background of the Maharashtra MLAs from 1962 to 2004; during this period, 50% of the MLAs were Marathas. Therefore, Marathas enjoy “reservation” over half of the assembly constituencies in the state. In the Maharashtra assembly election of 2019, similar numerical dominance of Marathas has been observed.
Quota in local bodies: The reservation to the OBCs in panchayati raj institutions was seen as a sign of “democratic deepening,” decentralisation of governance and another step towards the downward shift of political power through electoral politics. With this move two main processes took place. First, a new phase of politicisation of caste emerged where even a numerically small OBC caste wanted their claim in power. Second, this helped OBCs to mobilise by increasing their bargaining power with the dominant Marathas (Deshpande 2009).
Most of the upper rungs of the Shudras hailing from the peasant background constituting the Kunbi, Mali, Vanjari, Dhangar, Agari, Teli, and the Lewa Patil communities who are numerically dominant in specific regions, represent the state’s OBC politics primarily. Similarly, these communities control the various welfare boards set up for the improvement of OBCs.The OBCs would lose their political footprint if the reservation is quashed. At this juncture, it is imperative to ask why the OBCs seem to shy away from organising themselves as a formidable political force. More so at a time when OBC politics at the local level is gaining ground steadily.
OBC identity in the making: The history of the struggle for OBC reservation in Maharashtra dates back to the decades of the late 1960s. However, their demand did not receive widespread support at that time. In recent times, OBCs have come in massive numbers on the streets demanding caste census of the OBCs. The protest and enormous public meetings were organized in Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan by non-political OBC leaders mainly from peasant castes.
While this is a positive development, backward caste political leaders across the parties have not seriously challenged the move of dismantling OBC reservation in the local bodies, apart from a few sporadic protests at the district level. A major contributing factor to this trajectory is that the OBCs in Maharashtra do not have a strong political leadership that could pose a challenge to the established Maratha elite. Today Current Affairs
Therefore, OBCs across the parties do not want to challenge upper-caste hegemony because, in all parties, it is the upper castes that decide who will contest the election. Bavkar argues, since no single OBC leader is acceptable, even OBC social organizations are not united and do not fight together.
The second reason is the heterogeneity of the OBC category—the internal differentiation among OBCs and the sense of caste-specific identity. Given the heterogeneity, OBCs are stratified along caste lines following an inward-looking each-caste-for-itself approach
The third reason is the absence of the intellectual class. It has been argued by anti-caste leaders that reservations help in forming an intellectual class that will lead the society. However, the “creamy layer” clause has affected this possibility and affected the unity of OBCs. The Hindu Analysis
The contemporary crisis in state politics is an opportunity to formulate the caste census that has been demanded by OBCs for two decades. It will facilitate OBCs to claim a fair share of union and state power that have been denied all these years. The decennial data would provide up-to-date evidence that would help analyze the accomplishments as well as the limitations of reservation policies.
The caste census would also provide the much-needed impetus to the findings and recommendations of union and state-level backward caste commissions. It would showcase the magnitude of the gap between economic and social capital acquisition within and between the general category as well as the reserved sections. The census would also be instrumental in revising the benchmark for social, economic and educational backwardness.
Here we mention all information about Opportunity in crisis: Backward class political reservation Today Current Affairs.
No Comments