THE recent debate on the issue
of reservation in the private sector in India is significant for more
than one reason. This demand comes in the wake of a growing restiveness
marking unemployed dalit youth in particular, and non-dalits in general.
And it seems to provide a safe channel for containing this mood which
could otherwise become more explosive. That is to say, this demand, though
polemically attractive and seemingly radical, intends to provide a more
pacifying impact on the constituency in question. As a subtext, it has
offered a much needed opportunity to the ‘champions’ of dalits to remain
politically relevant in the public sphere.
Nevertheless, the articulation of this demand is important
for it has brought to the fore the much awaited response, however mixed
that may be, from the corporate class. The corporate class had, in the
past, remained relatively skeptical on the question of reservation. Its
response now is vehement and vociferous if not also humiliating. The humiliating
dimension was categorically evident in an anguish-cum-threat voiced by
one leading industrialist when he said, ‘We would rather move out of Maharashtra,
if the state government decides to implement the reservation policy in
the private sector’. 1
While the entire corporate class has overwhelmingly
opposed the quota system in the private sector, a relatively more
enlightened section of this class seems to have taken a more sympathetic
view of this issue and shown an inclination towards affirmative action. 2
Incidentally, the champions of a dalit cause do not seem to provide any
reason as to why the corporate class should endorse the policy of
reservations in the private sector. There is no attempt at critically
examining of the corporate commitment to the issue of social justice.
Those who have raised the issue of reservations in the
private sector defend their case by referring to affirmative action programmes
that are endorsed by the corporate class in other countries. Such defence
seeks to counter the righteous indignation of the Indian corporate class
at the idea of implementing reservations in the private sector. However,
they collapse reservation into affirmative action without realizing that
there is a significant difference between the two. It is interesting to
note that some of them feel that the state sector still has the capacity
to fulfil the promise of reservations. This suggestion involves the politics
of capturing the state through elections, which then can be driven to
implement the reservation agenda. 3
On the other hand, members of the corporate class have
sought to oppose the quota system on the ground that it could be
disastrous for the future of the private sector. 4
While these polemical positions are understandable, they are not
sufficiently illuminating. In fact the very logic of polemics seeks to
foreclose the possibility of situating the issue in a larger framework
where one can ask more significant questions. One needs to go beyond mere
polemic and raise serious questions that would rescue the debate from
sliding into polemics or self-serving rhetoric.
I t
would be interesting to ask the following questions: What is the notion
of social justice that the corporate class has developed over time? Was
it ever commited to social justice? If so, how strong was corporate commitment
to social justice? To what extent has this class shown political maturity
in achieving a critical balance between its own inward looking modernity
focusing singularly on accumulation oriented expansion of its material
base and outward looking egalitarianism tied up with a notion of social
justice? To what extent has this class taken a moral lead in facilitating
a dignified accommodation of dalits into more diversified opportunity
structures within the private sector? In other words, have they created
diversity based on modernity, or have they retained the four fold division
represented in the varna system? One needs to address these questions
to explicate the normative dimensions of social justice.
As previous experience makes clear, the corporate
conception of social existence has shifted from seeking protection in the
market (conditions where the corporate class is also a beneficiary of
state protection and thus operating in the realm of demand) to supporting
competitive structures (the sphere of command). This could further be
explained in terms of the following dictum – each according to his/her
relative disadvantage to each according to his/her ability. Generally
speaking, the condition of protection expresses the need for intervention
from an external agency, particularly the state. The function of the
welfare state in a liberal sense is to provide protection to the
relatively disadvantaged sections that otherwise may face a grave danger
of being flushed out by the force of unequal competition. Although this
class did not face such a grave danger at any time on its journey during
the colonial period, it certainly felt that its capacity to develop and
progress were constrained. Consequently, it felt the need for a new
independent nation state that would enable it to embark on a much smoother
journey.
T he
possibility of accomplishing this task was dependent upon the consolidation
of different social groups, including dalits, into one nationalist whole.
It is this pragmatic consideration of avoiding fragmentation and building
nationalist solidarity that motivated the corporate class to adopt a more
hospitable approach towards the question of social justice. In fact some
of the more enlightened members of this class, like the senior Birla and
Bajaj, supported Gandhi’s anti-untouchability campaign during the freedom
struggle.5 A few
others chose to provide financial support to Gandhi’s struggles in South
Africa.6
Even after independence, particularly in the initial
decades, this class adopted a more skeptical rather than a hostile
attitude towards the provisions for reservation. One could understand this
soft approach in terms of the twin processes of constitutionalization and
governmentalization of the reservation issue, which helped this class to
insulate itself from the larger question of social justice. So long as
reservation could be pushed into the basket of the public sector, there
were few anxieties. Having been spared the pressures of promoting and
pushing social justice, members of this class built more temples than
schools for dalits and children.
S econd,
this class also found it morally difficult to raise any serious objection
to the quota system as it was itself the beneficiary of state protection
in a variety of ways. In the initial years of independence, this class
sought state protection for keeping the flow of foreign capital under
control. The realm of protection under which this class operated, in effect,
led to an extended notion of social justice. According to this notion
a big capitalist required protection from foreign capital, smaller enterprises
in turn required protection from the national capital (the MRTP was a
result of this demand). The rich peasantry required protection from the
urban capitalist and the smaller sugar mills required protected sugar
zones in view of the danger from the bigger mills, and so on.
However, reliance on protection necessarily produces a
much more pragmatist orientation to social justice and its concern for
equality. But the corporate class began to deviate from this larger social
vision the moment it acquire both capacity and modernist confidence to
compete without the support of the state. Arguablly this confidence seems
to have gone up manifold particularly in the age of globalization. ‘Karlo
Duniya Muthi Me’ represents this confidence. This has in effect led
to a shift in the corporate notion of social justice which now draws its
sustenance from competition rather than protection.
The new notion of justice involves an innocent looking
principle, namely, that the market is fair to both the employee and
employer as each can enjoy freedom to choose. For example, an educated
dalit can choose from more than one employer and vice versa. It is
assumed here that this kind of freedom will expand manifold particularly
in the era of globalization.
A s
a corollary to this principle, the corporate class can argue that it does
not entertain the pre-dated notion of justice that would suggest ‘each
according to his/her birth or social origin.’ What also follows from this
logic is that conditions in which the corporate notion of justice operates
are ultimately produced by the market and not by caste or community. That
is to say, market does discriminate but only on the basis
of the acquired qualities of people and not on ascribed markers like caste
or ethnicity. The motivational premise of this class, therefore, imagines
a modernity which suggests that a rationalily is the only guiding force
behind market transactions.
In the recent debate the corporate class and its
supporters have continuously argued that the corporate sector has been
rational enough not to practice, for example, casteism while recruiting
its own personnel. In other words, this class has been indirectly
asserting that it operates in the condition of ‘veil of ignorance’.
That is to say, in market transactions the contending players are mutually
disinterested in the social background of the participants. 7
What is being suggested here is that the terms of transactions are much
more transparent. The question that needs to be addressed is, since when
and to what extent has this class followed the veil of ignorance in
practice of justice? Or is this assertion porous with a lot of loopholes?
L et
me begin with the argument that these pronouncements about the ‘veil of
ignorance’ as the main organizing principle of transaction is fairly recent
and has come up in the context of the issue of reservations in the private
sector. To state it differently, in the absence of such demand, we would
perhaps not have known whether this class is wearing a ‘veil of ignorance’.
In fact the checkered history of industrial capital shows that this class
has followed this ‘veil of ignorance’ principle rather selectively. For
example, the textile mills owners in Bombay in the 1930s did not bother
to follow the modern criterion of recruiting mill workers and even managers.8
Relatively more unskilled upper caste mill workers barred more skilled
workers from the dalit castes from working in the weaving sections of
Bombay based textile mills. The upper caste workers opposed the entry
of dalits, not on grounds of merit but on the line of purity-pollution.9
Unfortunately, we do not have any evidence to show that
the Bombay mill owners deployed a ‘veil of ignorance’ to ensure more transparent
and modernist element in the organization of mills. Some of the observers
seek to understand this porous veil of ignorance particularly in terms
of the need to divide the workers on the basis of caste. 10
Thus, the corporate politics of stalling working class solidarity overwhelmed,
in a limited sense, the principle of ‘veil of ignorance’ that would have
benefited much more qualified Mahars (dalits from Maharashtra) in getting
into the weaving sections of the textile industry. Thus, it was the question
of stability rather than efficiency that by implication replaced the need
for veil of ignorance. This also brings forth the fragmentary nature of
the corporate concept justice that seems to have been adopted by this
class in India. On the one hand, it did not object to political reservations
for dalits, both during the freedom struggle and after independence, but
on the other, its studied disregard for the ‘veil’, by implication, reproduced
the varna system in several factories.11
I n
recent times, however, a growing confidence sustained by the speculative
nature of investment has encouraged this class to argue in favour of a
veil of ignorance. Ironically, capital intensive investment, particularly
in the IT sector, prompted some of them to claim commitment to the issue
of merit and transparency in the private sector. This indirectly assigned
a higher moral status to the corporate notion of justice. This was clear
in an observations in which it was said that the reservationists are hunters
therefore without any responsibility and regard for conservation of
the common good (emphasis mine) while the capitalist are conservers
with a deep sense of conservation for common good.12
Though for some this argument might look ‘ecologically’
sound, but for others it is sociologically blind as it fails to
historicize the role of other social groups like dalits, tribals and women
in conservation. After all conservation is not single-handedly achieved by
the capitalist alone. Besides, the merit argument is deeply problematic
for its utilitarian logic is morally deficient. It is limited by an
inability to factor in the historical experience of exclusion and
discrimination that has bearing on the present notions of merit and
efficiency. It can be argued that the demerit, if any, is the result of a
historical disadvantage and exclusion of dalits from the opportunity
structures. Conversely, corporate claims of merit are more the result of
historically accumulated advantage of the top of the twice born. Of
course, the corporate class treats merit as a natural and not socially
produced capability. This historical advantage and the logic of capitalist
accumulation has eventually helped some of the corporate houses to
transfer profits from one generation to another, while a majority of
dalits have transferred only their misery and deprivation through
generations.
T he
merit argument based on utilitarian logic promises to achieve the twin
purpose of rewarding the meritorious candidate and saving the firm from
possible collapse seen as imminent in a recruitment policy based on a
criterion other than merit. The essential function of utilitarian logic
is to forewarn the corporate class about the possible dangers involved
in recruiting ‘dumb’ candidates since the anti-reservationists believe
that reservation provisions tend to produce only dumb candidates.
The hidden script of this utilitarian logic, however,
is that it links merit ultimately to the maximization of capacity and
efficiency, which in turn leads to the maximization of production and
profit. The very drive for maximization of production and profit assumes a
certain notion of justice. In fact, the idea of justice inherent in this
framework suggests that only those who can invest their efficiency and
skill in production and are ultimately responsible for the maximization of
profit should be suitably rewarded. One often sees supporters of this
class on TV suggesting that their singular commitment to merit makes them
naturally disinterested in caste while recruiting in the private sector.
Let us examine who is disinterested in the pre-modern social base of the
private sector.
L et
me argue that as far as dalits are concerned they have no choice but to
brandish their caste flag for gaining access to the private sector. They
are painfully aware of the fact that their caste is considered a liability
rather than an asset; hence, it would be detrimental for them to use it
for gaining access to opportunities available in the private sector. This
involves a very subtle assumption that the private sector and even the
public sector suffer from an inherent bias that mostly favours the upper
castes. That leaves only two options open to dalits: either to seek dignified
isolation from the private sector or to accept humiliating placement in
scavenging or sanitary occupations. Most dalits opt for the first option.
Of course they, like the upper castes, do not have the luxury to acquire
a generic entity, which can move across this sector without a sense of
shame.
However, the Indian corporate class claims both mutual
disinterest in the caste background and that it does not influence the
recruitment process at any level. Members of this class aver that they
make sincere efforts to advertise opportunities through an extensive
network and not the more secretive mechanisms which operate silently
through caste, community and kinship networks. They seek a list of
prospective candidates from the government’s employment exchange office.
They can claim that the veil of ignorance is accompanied by an
interrelated justice principle in as much as it takes the interest of the
meritorious into consideration, and takes precaution only to ensure
quality and efficiency for the sake of the ‘common good’.
As several studies have shown, the motivational claim
that the corporate class is not interested in using caste remains highly
suspect asis that this sector is devoid of caste problems. 13
It would be interesting to look at a leading industrial firm from Maharashtra
where top officials are from a particular sub-caste of Brahmins. It is
somewhat ironic that the same industrial house was generous enough to
send a dalit to London to acquire advanced training in the leather industry.14
I t
is notable that the private sector which follows the diversity principle
does so top down and not bottom up. The distribution of opportunities
operates parallel along the vertical and horizontal axis. On this axis
, an upper caste person has a bright chance to rotate his job more frequently
thus hopping from one good job to a better one. This thus violates an
important principle of justice15
which, as Walzer suggests, requires vertical and horizontal rotation of
opportunity structure. This structural condition that is quite unfavorable
to dalits, tribals and others, renders the prescription of affirmative
action redundant if not absurd. That is to say affirmative action might
just enable a few dalits to acquire some qualifications and finally reach
a level playing field, but this would only offer psychological satisfaction
of reaching and not making it in terms of the outcome principle of justice
in the corporate sector.
T hus,
the option of affirmative action that is so often advanced by the corporate
class somehow fails to convert opportunity into an asset. In the present
context, assets have to be understood in terms of the extent to which
the corporate class treats the dalits as the part of a universal pool
of common resources, and not simply the assets to be realized in the sanitary
sector.
One is not arguing that the corporates deliberately
promote candidates belonging to a particular background. In fact they don’t
have to do it because the selection process, which looks genuinely
modernist and based on merit, envelops a strong undercurrent of caste that
runs parallel to the modernist current. The infection of caste in the
private sector is structural and does not require formal deployment. It is
already incipient in the system, not a deliberate design to seek dalit
exclusion.
Lopsided educational development has produced
structural exclusion of dalits from courses in places like the IIM the IIT
that are absolutely essential for getting into the corporate sector. This
exclusion of dalits gets further accentuated due to the expensive nature
of these professional courses. This ultimately results in producing
handicapped ambitions among the dalits who then find themselves landing up
in the arts and social sciences that hold limited promise for job
opportunity. When the social conditions predetermine opportunities in
favour of the twice born, the corporate class ends up recruiting from the
top of the twice born. In such conditions the claims of transparency and
openness look a little redundant if not completely deceitful. Has any
corporate firm undertaken a survey of its own organization that could
prove their disinterest regarding caste as a basis of recruitment?
In view of the structural denial of opportunities in
the private sector and the lack of actual placement in a sphere other than
the sanitary divisions, the demand for procedural and not simply
protective justice, appears legitimate. Procedural justice in turn demands
a constitutionalization of reservation provisions in the private sector.
However, this would be unacceptable to the corporate class for the
following reasons. It poses a serious challenge to the autonomy of the
corporate class, which finds constitutionalization and governmentalization
as impinging on their generic rights to decide merit without any directive
and dictation from the state.
I n
one of his interventions Gurcharan Das argued that if we follow the quota
system in the private sector, it would not leave any scope for the employee
to remove a dalit on account of inefficiency.16
Thus, the corporate class suggests that merit is the defining marker of
the private sector and that purity of merit can be maintained only if
it is not messed up by quotas in the private sector.
The real challenge before the corporate class is to
adopt conscious measures to treat dalits as part of the long cherished
merit as also to realize this merit through actual rotation of opportunity
structures. They can do so by taking a moral lead in providing, not simply
enabling conditions but for converting opportunities into real assets.
They need to assign some worth to dalits who need to be treated as part of
a common pool of assets and not as refuse to be pushed to the margins of
the garbage and sanitary sections.
1. Rahul Bajaj’s intervention in ‘The
Big Fight’, NDTV, 19-06- 2004.
2. Narayan Murti’s speech at a seminar
at Infosys, 11 July 2003 in Bangalore.
3. The Hindu (Delhi edition), 31
January 2005.
4. Business Line (Delhi edition),
27 December 2004.
5. Writing and speeches of B.R. Ambedkar,
vol. I, Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai, 1979, p. 46.
6. Gandhi in South Africa,
7. Gurcharan Das, Unbounded India,
Viking, Delhi,
8. Gopal Guru, ‘Political Economy of Segregation
and Desegregation of dalits in 19th Century Bombay, Social Science Probings,
Delhi, 1989, p. 56.
9. Op. cit., Ambedkar.
10. Op. cit., Gopal Guru.
11. Barbara Harris-White, India Working,
Essays on Society and Economy, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp.
176-199.
12. P.V. Indresan, ‘Hunters and Conservators,
Indian Express (Delhi edition), 19 November 2004.
13. M.N. Panini, ‘Political Economy of
Caste, in M.N. Srinivas (ed.) Caste and its Twentieth Century Avatar,
Viking, Delhi, 1996, pp. 42-43.
14. I thank Dr. Shrsrtu Jadhav, a leading
London based psychiatric, for sharing this information with me.
15. Michael Walzer, Sphere of Justice.
16. Gurcharan Das in ‘The Big Fight’,
on NDTV, 19 June 2004. |