"Revisit" and "reform" India's reservation policy, "provide" entitlements on the basis of vulnerability index

A few senior Dalit activists, social workers and scholars, who gathered for a workshop in Ahmedabad to discuss how to “annihilate” casteism from India a few days back, are learnt to have reached an atypical conclusion, which may not go down well with politicians: Drastically reform the present entitlement-based reservation policy, continuing in the country for decades. The activists agreed that while the reservation policy has helped create a new middle class among the Dalits, large sections of oppressed communities have remained outside overall development that has taken place in India.
Anchoring the meeting, Gagan Sethi -- heading Ahmedabad-based rights organisation Javnikas -- floated the idea of what he called “vulnerability index” in order to identify the most vulnerable individuals and sections suffering because of social and caste-based discrimination. “A poor Brahmin widow is definitely more vulnerable than a Dalit IAS bureaucrat”, Sethi asserted, adding, “As of today, the only category of Dalits whose life has not changed even little, and continues with its caste-based occupation, and suffers untouchability is the Valmiki community, involved in the despicable practice of manual scavenging.”
With decades of experience of working with Dalits and other oppressed sections, Sethi told Counterview that the idea of “vulnerability index” to identify the sections which need affirmative action is not new in the West, though it has not picked up in India. “It was discussed in the Planning Commission in February 2014 at a meeting on the need for setting up a viable Assessment and Monitoring Authority (AMA) for measuring the extent to which various schemes have helped the development of different socio-religious communities”, he said.
A high-level Government of India draft document, which provides details on on the subject, suggested the need to “generate data to mend the gap and also to recognize formerly unmapped vulnerable socio-religious communities (SRCs).” The document quotes Sethi as particularly stressing on the need to have what he called “multi-dimensional poverty index”, for which, he stressed, one should have a vulnerability-based approach.
Sethi, said the document, stressed that a national data bank (NDB), proposed for assessing the viability of all central programmes, should “begin work with the most vulnerable groups of Muslims, widows, manual scavengers, internally displaced persons, denotified tribes, persons living with HIV/AIDS, SC/ST and the destitute.”
The document said, “Such an assessment alone reveal whether universal schemes reach the more vulnerable groups in proportion to their populations and need. If not, in what ways can they be streamlined?” It added, this vulnerability index should be created not just for the most vulnerable areas, going right up to the block level, in the context of "for every government programme".
The Ahmedabad workshop, which saw exchange of ideas between Daniel Edwin, Gagan Sethi, Ghanshyam Shah, Manas Jena, Manjula Pradeep, Meenakshi Ganguly, Meera Velayudhan, Prasad Chacko, and Priyadarshi Telang, apart from several scholars with the Centre for Social Justice enrolled as fellows in the Lawyers for Change programme, reached the conclusion that it is clear to anyone that women manual scavengers, especially widows, are the most vulnerable section of Dalit society, yet it remains devoid of the "advantages" offered by reservation.

A well-known sociologist, Ghyanshyam Shah, particularly opined, “Only those who have received education up to 10th or 12th take advantage of reservation, as for the rest – who form 90 per cent of the population – are nowhere part of it.”
Shah stressed on the need to not just confine the Dalits' fight to overcome discrimination: "Unless the fight becomes part of the fight for liberty, equality and fraternity, for issues related with poverty and unemployment, things are unlikely to change." Others agreed that despite many decades, discrimination remains intact and has infected Dalit sub-castes, suggesting the need for an alternative strategy.

Comments

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

Guha plans book to counter Dalit, Marxist, and right-wing critics of Gandhi, recalls Modi’s 'pernicious lie' on Patel

Let me first confess: writing about an event three weeks after it has taken place is no good, especially for a newsperson. However, ever since I attended the public lecture by well-known historian Ramachandra Guha on May 18, organised by Sarthak Prakashan for the release of the Gujarati edition of his book monumental book "India After Gandhi", frankly, I kept wondering if he had said anything newsworthy apart from what had already appeared in the media ever since the book's first edition came out in 2007. Call it my inertia or whatever.

Two decades on, hunger still haunts Gujarat: Survey exposes stark gap behind poverty claims

A Niti Aayog report , released about two years ago, estimated that in Gujarat — which our powers-that-be have long considered a model state — 11.66% of people are "multidimensionally poor," a term referring to an index that seeks to estimate "multiple and simultaneous deprivations" at the household level across three macro categories: health, education, and living standards.

Search This Blog