Governments, largely bereft of developmental ideas and growth plans, have one simple fallback formula – caste-based job reservation politics. The virtues of divide and rule could never be more evident, than in this time-tested blueprint designed to guarantee results, never mind its outcome, which is pretty akin to chasing a mirage.
Instead of broad basing the economy and injecting technology and skills in a desperately underemployed and vast population, nothing works quite so effectively as a dose of gimmickry.
The recent announcement of the Maharashtra government that it would include the politically dominant Marathas under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) list is a case in point. Apart from the fact that Marathas are generally regarded as a prosperous community, there are simply no government jobs to offer! Not just Maharashtra but virtually all states and the central government have stopped recruitment at the lower levels of government, or at best, hiring in government is down to a trickle. So, what is this 'reservation' worth?
It would be instructive to remember that the much-vaunted reservation applies to the 85% staff that constitutes the overwhelming majority of government employees countrywide.
Governments in the last decade-and-half are opting for contractual staff to do what Grade C and D employees traditionally did in the years before job reservations caught the political imagination in the aftermath of the Mandal Commission recommendations.
Apart from the private sector, which has turned down job reservations of any kind, government employment in the country has been steadily decreasing in the last decade-and-a-half. According to an estimate by the Left-leaning All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), there are 60 lakh vacant job positions in various central and state governments.
Naturally, with political consensus evolving around 'minimum government', it cannot be any other way.
The dipping number of sanctioned posts and regular staff is due to the increasing employment of external outsourcing agencies to fill in the roles of permanent employees. The government's reliance on outsourcing and contractual staff has gone up over the years.
In the Monsoon session of parliament in 2023, the government told the House that it has over 40 lakh sanctioned posts, with more than 30 lakh employees, of which 9.64 lakh posts are currently vacant, a number which is significantly less than what AITUC claims.
According to the Annual Report in Pay and Allowances brought out by the Department of Expenditure of the Finance Ministry, the latest figure for the number of persons in civilian jobs in the Union government stands at 30.13 lakh, the lowest it has been since 2010. At 39.77 lakh, the number of sanctioned posts is the lowest in the last several years. Consequently, over 9.64 lakh posts are vacant in the Union government.
Between March 1, 2021, and March 1, 2022, the total sanctioned strength of central government civilian regular employees, barring Union Territories, came down from 40.35 lakh to 39.77 lakh. The slip in the sanctioned posts is due to the lowering of the number of posts in the Group C cadre.
The decrease in sanctioned posts and occupied posts is witnessed across departments. Railways, Defence (Civil), Home Affairs, Posts, and Revenue departments/ministries account for around 92% of central government jobs.
State governments are no better. Take Maharashtra, which has agreed to give OBC status to the Marathas. Last year, the state government was forced to scrap contract recruitment in government bodies. What followed was the classic blame game. Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadvanis disowned the whole programme, saying that "the entire concept and process of contract recruitment including empanelment of nine agencies complete with tender was done during Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by then CM Uddhav Thackeray..."
The state government’s decision was taken in the wake of growing unrest amongst unemployed youth. For good measure, it added that there were no plans of making contract recruitment in the police force.
So, on what basis has the Eknath Shinde government agreed to provide OBC status to Marathas, presumably for caste-based reservations, when there are no jobs?
What’s more significant, while promising jobs under the OBC category, there are clear indications that there are just not enough candidates, who fit the bill, for a variety of reasons. While latest figures remain elusive, in 2021, the Modi government said that over 42,000 posts reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) and OBC lay vacant in various central government ministries.
Last year, the Parliament was informed that less than 19% of the faculty at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi belong to OBC, as against the mandated OBC reservation of 27%. The situation slumped further at other AIIMS across the country, with the institute at Jodhpur having fewer than 9% OBCs.
The Union Health Ministry said the vacancies are due to non-availability of reserved category candidates for senior faculty positions, such as professor, additional professors and associate professor. Senior faculty posts in super-speciality departments are particularly hard to fill, with offers from corporate hospitals or from foreign institutions holding more attraction than a position at AIIMS.
Last year again, over 42% of teaching posts reserved for candidates from SCs, STs and OBCs across 45 central universities were declared vacant, the Union education ministry said. The story continues to repeat itself in one government establishment after the other.
Education and talent take time to come up. While it is true that reservations for SCs and STs go back several decades - and it was much needed at the time when it came - reservations for OBCs is a relatively new phenomenon that emerged in the 1990s. It will certainly take a generation or two before they qualify for government jobs – presuming government jobs are still there.
The politicisation of job reservations has had other unintended consequences, though not very difficult to visualize from the benefit of hindsight. More and more castes are clamouring for similar reservations. The National Commission for Backward Castes (NCBC) is currently processing the request for the approval of about 80 more castes in six states - Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana - for inclusion in the OBC list.
Theoretically speaking, NCBC is a constitutional body that examines requests for inclusion of castes in the Central OBC list. It constitutes a Bench to examine proposals and forwards its decision to the Union government. The Cabinet approves the additions and legislates.
Clearly, such demands - and acquiescing to them - has whetted appetites. Now, the Patels in Gujarat, Jats in Haryana and Kapus in Andhra Pradesh are demanding inclusion in the ever-burgeoning OBC list. This is clearly an emerging trend where many other dominant and landholding castes are asking for similar facilities.
Such developments have the potential to bring the executive and the judiciary on a collision course as well. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that the 50% ceiling for reservation, fixed by the nine-judge bench in 1992 in the Mandal Commission case, is applicable only to the SC/ST and OBC categories while the 10% economically weaker sections (EWS) quota was over and above the limit.
The big issue is even if all of them are accommodated, where will jobs come in an age of minimum government and maximum governance?
(Ranjit Bhushan is a senior journalist. These are the writer's views.)