Central Government and Supreme Court play cynical game with the future of students

Following the Supreme Court stay order against the law providing for 27 percent reservation for other backward castes (OBCs) in higher educational institutions, the entire admission process for the new academic year is at a standstill causing great consternation among students and their parents. The future of many students has been thrown into jeopardy as the different institutions of rule of the bourgeoisie — in this case the executive and judiciary slug it out.

When the UPA government proposed a law to provide for caste-based reservation in central higher educational institutions in 2006, thousands of college students came out on the streets in protest. Central and state governments put down the protests of students with brute force in many cities.

In spite of these country-wide protests, the government went ahead to enact the Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Admissions) Act (2006). This Act was passed unanimously by parliament with the opposition NDA alliance as well as the Left Front supporting it. There was no attempt by the ruling coalition or the opposition to engage the students and broad masses of people in a constructive discussion on why there is no social justice in our country and why the people are discriminated on the basis of caste, religion and region. There was no attempt to answer the critique that reservation in higher education was no answer to ending social oppression of the backward Castes. The Supreme Court has stayed this Act with the technical “justification” that the 1931 census figure on which the government has relied on to arrive at the percentage of reservation for OBCs may not be valid today. In other words, it has stayed it because the government has not organized a caste census in recent years which will indicate who is a “OBC” and who is not, and what percentage of India’s population is of which caste.

Both the government’s move to reserve seats in Central higher educational institutions, as well as the stay of this move by the Supreme Court are not innocent moves. No one should be under the delusion that either the government or the parliamentary parties or the Supreme Court are at all interested in equity or social justice or providing higher education to poor or students disadvantaged because of their social background. On the contrary, as far as higher education is concerned, the ruling as well as opposition parties are committed to privatization of higher education, wherein seats are being sold to the highest bidder and this is officially monitored by the Supreme Court and High Courts!

It is well known that for all their “concern” for the oppressed castes, neither the UPA government nor past governments have come forward to make the financial and other commitments to raise the level of education in those schools where the majority of students really study, and from where the majority of dalit and OBC students pass out. The pathetic conditions of primary and secondary education in our country reveals the utter lack of commitment of the rulers to social justice. It reveals the utter debauchery of these champions of “inclusive growth” and “social inclusion”!

Capitalism in India has developed on the basis of perpetuating the Brahmanical caste system, against which the people of India have waged struggle for many centuries. Caste based reservation is a favorite tool of the bourgeoisie to coopt a section of the oppressed castes as well as to sharpen caste divisions amongst the working people and youth. The fact of the matter is that nearly 60 years of caste-based reservation after formal independence has not made any dent on social injustice in India. In fact, the system of caste-based reservation has enabled the Indian ruling class to preserve the present exploitative system where a minority rules over the vast majority of the Indian people.

Only the sweeping away of the hated caste system through a social revolution can end the oppression of the lower castes and make them real equals in society.