There have been rumblings about job reservations in the private sector for disadvantaged sections of society such as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes before, but mercifully they have never been realised. Now, the government seems inclined to try again with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion mooting mandatory 5 per cent SC/ST reservation in private sector companies. But in doing so, it has caught the wrong end of the stick. Caste reservations are a remarkably blunt instrument for securing social justice, and it's a failure of imagination to think of them as the only possible means of affirmative action. Reservations have not been self-limiting as they ought to have been if they were truly successful; instead, there has been consistent political pressure to push them into new domains.
Certainly, socio-economically disadvantaged sections of society must be made stakeholders in what has, to a significant extent, been the engine of India's economic growth. But that can't be done through purely mechanical means, setting aside the principle of merit which makes private sector companies competitive. Affirmative action in a broader sense implies creating an enabling environment by imparting vocational training, leveraging Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives to fund educational programmes and encouraging hiring policies that don't discriminate against certain groups, all other things being equal. In any case a survey carried out by the CII in southern states showed SC/STs to be well-represented in the private sector, making up 16.2 per cent of the workforce. Caste reservations have gone far enough in the Indian polity, it's now time to think of other forms of affirmative action as well as of implementing policies that lift all boats, such as better infrastructure and universal education.
