Pushing The Real OBCs Out

Context: Undeserving castes are crowding out the genuinely backward on OBC lists.

Issues with OBC reservation policy

• Invasion by upper castes: In modern India, many demands to be called ‘backward’ to enjoy reservation quotas.  Many socially affluent classes now come under OBC.
• Caste system granted brahmins all privileges, yet by going by the OBC list, they are considered socially and educationally backward in many states.
• E.g. In Karnataka, Goud Saraswat brahmins in OBC list, in Tamil Nadu and Kerala Saurashtra brahmins in OBC list.
• Ruling class ‘Rajputs’: Eg. Marathas attempts to return to the OBC list in Maharashtra.
• Various land-owning castes (quasi-feudal rulers in rural areas) such as Patels (Rajasthan) and Jats (Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand) etc. are also in OBC list.
• Issues associated with the 127th Amendment Bill: The Bill restored to states the right to determine their list of OBCs for reservation benefits. This can potentially lead to politicisation.
• There is a scope of further high castes getting into the reservation list, as there are no independent state-level institutions, and politicians will oblige in return for votes.
• Creamy layer exclusion not implemented: Supreme Court ruled, the creamy layers should be excluded, but the verdict is yet to be implemented.
• Information gap – Data related issues: 
• Persistent errors and weak updating mechanisms: Ten years have passed since the census was conducted. There were 82 million errors in the caste particulars reported in the census. State governments have rectified 67 million errors, but 15 million remains.
• The Centre called the 2011 census incorrect and outdated. So, the current government promised to conduct another caste census after the decennial census is completed.
• Rise in the number of castes: The 1901 census reported that there were 1,646 castes in India. By the 1931 census, the number increased 2.5 times to 4,147 castes. 
• Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) was conducted in 2011. The census received 4.6 million categories of caste, sub-caste, different surnames, gotras in the caste and clan names.

Conclusion: There is a need to identify the utility of conducting another caste census after the decennial census is completed (not to collect millions of caste, sub-caste, gotras and clan names). And, if we do need a caste census, it should be conducted without errors and reporting bias.