Supply-side solution

They say that governments take the right decision, after having tried out all the alternatives. That may well be the case with the wholly unnecessary business of reserving seats for people from the other backward castes (OBCs) in India's educational institutions, on top of the reservation that already exists for people from the scheduled castes and tribes (SC/STs). Having been pushed into a corner where it could not possibly ignore or oppose what Arjun Singh, as the human resource development minister, aired a few weeks ago (there is the OBC vote to consider, after all), the government has taken time to respond but has finally found a good via media: do not disown the reservation proposal, but expand the seats in educational institutions so that seats in the "open" or unreserved category will not be reduced. This is a solution that must be welcomed. Indeed, this newspaper had suggested some weeks ago that the way to deal with the issue was to get rid of the shortage mindset and create more seats, so that all qualifying candidates would find their berths, and there would then be no need for reservations. In a sense, this is exactly what the government now proposes to do""except that it has chosen to stay the course on reservation because of the political implications of dropping it.

It is also true that the government was in a situation where it could not wholly endorse Arjun Singh's idea, once medical students and doctors had taken to the streets in protest, and won public sympathy after brutal treatment at the hands of the habitually mindless police. For, there was the threat of the agitation spreading and growing in scope, and bringing to mind the conflagration provoked by the VP Singh government 16 years ago. In other words, the agitators and those in sympathy with them had to be appeased, without upsetting the OBCs. The only way to do that was to take the bite out of the reservation proposal, and expanding supply was the logical course to adopt. The pity is that the government did not come to this somewhat obvious conclusion before the issue snowballed and left it unable to move forward or back.

The government should not stop here, it must slay the reservation dragon once and for all. This newspaper has run a series of reports over the past week, demonstrating that the Mandal report on OBC numbers was based on shaky premises and that its numbers were hopelessly exaggerated. We have also shown that job reservation for OBCs is a non-solution for a non-problem. These numbers need to be looked at in detail, a realistic picture presented on the real caste numbers, and the issue of educational and job opportunities addressed in the correct perspective. If that is done, no future minister will be able to play ducks and drakes with this issue.