Determining backwardness

Sometimes political mobilisation and not socio-educational backwardness decides the distribution of the benefits of reservation for specific communities in education and jobs. While striking down the inclusion of Jats in the Central list of Other Backward Classes, the Supreme Court voiced its opposition to the State’s tendency to go by the “perception of the self-proclaimed socially backward class” in deciding the beneficiaries of reservation quotas. The judgment is thus important not only for its articulation of the rationale for identifying the groups that need to be kept out of the reservation system — politically dominant and economically prosperous caste groups — but also for its support for the inclusion of heavily disadvantaged groups such as transgenders, who cannot ordinarily be classified as a social class. Closely linked to the setting of norms for identifying new groups for reservation benefits is the court’s downplaying of the importance of caste in deciding reservation benefits. Surely, the fact that the previous United Progressive Alliance government notified the reservation for Jats despite advice to the contrary from the National Commission for Backward Classes played no small part in counter-posing historical injustice to emerging forms of backwardness in a changing society.