The principle is of equality.Reservation is an exception.

How long will the reservation system last?

The provision of reservation was made in the Constitution of India. In historical context, most of the countries of the world do not have such a system. The principle is of equality which is a fundamental right, but in India the caste system had taken such a hideous form that most people were discriminated against. There is a Varna system in Hinduism, Varna is a difference between castes. Whatever the problem may be, all the problems arose from the elimination of the differencebetween Varna and caste. To eliminate this historical injustice, the Constitution maker made a special provision of reservation, which was initially given to scheduled castes and tribes. This was done only for 10 years. The purpose was to change the society. The provision of reservation was first made by King Sahu Maharaj of Kolhapur. 

On 26 July 1902, an order was issued that 50% of the seats in all the jobs of the state would be filled by backward castes.

Then on 23 August 1918, King Krishna Raja Wadiyar of Mysore formed a committee under the chairmanship of Chief Justice Lacey Miller of Mysore Court to provide reservation to the weaker sections, on whose recommendation it was implemented. In the 1920 Madras Presidency elections the Justice Party won a majority and in 1921 the First Minister A. Subbaraiyal Reddy issued the reservation order. It could not be implemented immediately due to strong opposition. E. V. Ramaswamy Periyar, who was in the Congress at that time, asked his party to support it.

Congress refused to support it and in protest, Periyar left Congress. After this, on 29 January 1953, the Backward Classes Commission was formed under the chairmanship of Kaka Kalelkar under Article 340 of the Constitution. 

The Commission submitted its report on 30 March 1955, it identified 2,399 backward castes in the whole country, of which 837 were declared extremely backward. While sending the report to the President, Kaka Kalelkar opposed some of the recommendations of the Commission in his covering letter. However, he did not register any disagreement in the report. The Central Government rejected the report by calling it unscientific and full of errors. In 1962, an important decision of the Supreme Court came on reservation. In M R Balaji vs Mysore, a Constitution Bench of five judges ruled that reservation must be kept below 50% in any case. Chief Justice Gajendra Gadkar gave the reason for this that the general rule is and reservation is the exception, so the exception will be less than half. How much work will be done will depend on the situation. Thus, a reduction of 50% was decided in the Balaji case. But it is repeatedly said that such a provision has been made in the Indra Sawhney case of 1992. In 1979, the Morarji Desai government constituted the second Backward Classes Commission under the chairmanship of B.P. Mandal to identify socially and regionally backward classes. In this five-member commission, four members were from backward castes and one from scheduled tribes.

The commission based its 1931 census report on the conclusion that the number of other backward castes is 52%. The last caste census was conducted in 1931. The commission examined social, educational and economic backwardness and recommended that 27% reservation should be given to OBCs in jobs and educational institutions. There was a lot of controversy over some of the standards it made for backwardness. The commission submitted its report in December 1980, but neither Indira Gandhi nor Rajiv Gandhi's government took any action on it. In 1990, Vishwanath Pratap Singh suddenly announced on 7 August that the Mandal Commission's recommendations would be implemented. It is interesting to know that on 9 August a rally was organized in Delhi by Chaudhary Devi Lal. Devi Lal was the Deputy Prime Minister in B.P. Singh's government. But a few days ago he was dismissed. There was a movement in the whole country against this. Many students committed suicide. It was challenged in the Supreme Court. In Indira Sawhney vs Union of India, a nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court upheld reservations based on caste in its judgment delivered on 16 November 1992. It held that caste is an acceptable measure of backwardness, but directed that the creamy layer should be excluded from the purview of reservation.

The maximum limit of reservation will be less than 50%, there will be no reservation in promotion because discrimination cannot be done twice. First time at the time of recruitment and then at the time of promotion and there will be no reservation in the field of higher skills. The central government restored reservation in promotion by adding provision (4A) in Article 16 by making the 77th amendment in the Constitution. This was only for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. It was challenged in the Supreme Court in the M. Nagarajan case. In 2006, the court ruled that the principle mentioned in Article 335 has to be taken care of that there should be a balance between reservation and administrative capacity. 

The court said that Article 16 (4A) gives the state the power to give reservation in promotion, which it can use or not, but if it wants to do so, then it will have to give concrete data as to how much representation of which caste is in that service. In 2019, the 103rd Constitutional Amendment was made and a provision of 10% reservation was made for economically backward people of upper castes. The apex court has justified this constitutionally, the principle is of equality. Reservation is an exception. In 75 years, not a single caste has been brought out of the ambit of reservation and new castes have been added. The question is what should be the percentage of reservation and how long should this system continue?

Gajendra Kumar Parkash Chand morya ✍️