The Rage of the Bhumiputra

Today morning I was in a brief debate with some friends on the broad topic ‘Is reservation fair’? As you can well imagine it was a very charged conversation. Overall there seemed to be an agreement on educational support but complete disagreement on caste-based support. It is needless to say that the group involved in this conversation comprised completely of non-dalits. As we are in the ‘silly’ election season reservation was dismissed as a ‘political ploy’ of a particular party. Without going into the merits of the different point of view in that conversation, I feel that any discussion on reservation cannot happen without a more nuanced understanding of equality, diversity and disadvantage.

Today the discussion on equality seems particularly relevant because the world over there are contests about who is the ‘bhumiputra’ or son of the soil. It is primarily about men because women often cannot claim any independent ownership of either property or even an idea. It’s all mediated through their men. But this idea was not so hotly contested say fifty years ago. At that time the idea of equality was still ‘young’. The world had just about recovered from the bruising 2^nd World War and the idea of human rights had been incorporated into the global compact of the United Nations. New countries were establishing their independent identity after a century or more of colonial domination. Patriarchy was being challenged by the assertion of feminist critiques. The dream of an economically egalitarian society imagined by Marx and Engels was being tested in a number of ‘communist’ laboratories under the stewardship of Soviet Russia.   

If Marx had spelt out the arithmetic of oppression, Hitler had graphically shown the world many images of social intolerance. The idea of social and economic divisions among people and among nations was firmly established as a key concern for human well-being by the end of the 1960’s through the international bill of human rights. Martin Luther King was one of early icons who strategised for social equality and it is unfortunate that his crusade against economic injustice was cut short cruelly by the assailant’s bullet. Gandhi the politician-saint from India had earlier met a similar fate because he also preached a gospel of tolerance, non-violence and equality. The idea of equality had suffered strong birthing pains but it was firmly established as a social aspiration and a guide for public policy in many places around the world.

Today fifty years later, the idea of equality in the economic domain suffers from a serious onslaught of liberalisation and privatisation and global capital has assumed a god-like aura. However, the idea of social justice still remains strong but is being challenged by the ‘bhumiputras’ everywhere.

The ‘bhumiputras’ in the discussion I participated in were upper caste, upper-middle class, Hindu. They had experienced economic constraints in pre-liberalisation India when opportunities were regulated and thus recognised economic disadvantage. However, none of them had probably faced the stigma of social exclusion and did not think caste-based reservation had any virtue. An important arena for discussion related to state sponsored higher educational opportunities in the technical fields like medicine and engineering

A couple of question came to my mind during this discussion.  Firstly, why does this group care since most of them could afford private education for their children? Secondly, this group had benefited from state-sponsored and nearly free technical education when their parents had limited salaries but today they seem to grudge others with similar disadvantages the same benefit ?

A possible reason for this sense of threat from reservation in education, as opposed to reservation in jobs for this group, lies in the fact that in India the bulk of the so-called ‘ivy-league’ institutions are still in the public sector. Money can’t buy you the best since institutions like the IITs, IIMs AIIMS etc. are required to fulfil the public obligation of ‘reservation’ which leads to an ‘exclusion’ this group cannot afford. I make a deliberate reference to jobs, because this group does not look for public sector jobs. A recent study of AIIMS graduates shows that over 50% of AIIMS graduates over the years do not even live in India. The same holds probably in greater measure for IITs and IIMs.

Another question that comes up is why does this ‘social group’ which could earlier easily lay claim to public opportunities not be able to do so now? Why do many more of our children study in private universities compared to our times? Is the heightened competition only due to increased population not being satisfied by increased number of seats in public institutions? I certainly think this is a reason, and this will continue to happen if the state leaves the educational sector to the private sector. But there is also another very important reason. And this is because the competition has increased because the aspiration of other social groups who are not from among the ‘reserved’ categories has also increased. The overall upwardly migration of educational attainment and professional aspiration has increased the pressure on the so-called ‘general’ seats as well. The historically privileged groups are now facing the pressure of competition from the new generation of the population comprising of first-generation university goers, first generation English speakers, first generation urbanites and so on who are not from the reserved categories. There has been a humungous increase in their numbers and more importantly proportion in recent times. This is where the old privileged group is facing its tougher challenge. Unfortunately, the heat of their anger is being faced by the ‘reserved’ candidates and the idea of reservation. This is an interesting contradiction because even in the earlier generation the ‘reservation’ existed but no threat was perceived.

This heat from the upward social and economic aspiration of the erstwhile ‘socially and economically subordinate or marginalised groups is being faced by different categories of ‘bhumiputras’ everywhere. The migrants in Europe and America have settled down and become citizens but their ethnic difference is being noticed. Citizenship categories are being constructed through new imaginations and re-justification of historical and colonial subordination. This has become necessary because in the last fifty years the idea of social justice has found many more accepters and believers than the idea of economic justice. While disparities in wealth continue to be widespread and justified, abject economic deprivation is less. Absolute measures of health and educational attainment has increased and these have fuelled more aspirations. It is these greater aspirations of an erstwhile subordinate group that is now creating pressures for the ‘bhumiputra’. And till we can learn to value and celebrate diversity and difference the rage of the bhumiputra will persist.