The Supreme Court’s judgment on reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in institutions of higher education have created an artificial triumph, but have had to distort the real import of the verdict and harp on the exclusion of the creamy layer from OBC quotas as this is only one, minor, aspect of the judgment.

The Supreme Court has accepted caste as the fundamental, but not the sole, criterion to determine backwardness. In doing so, it has recognized caste as the central axis around which discrimination occurs in this hierarchical society, and called for remedial action. In keeping with Art 30 of the Constitution, it has exempted minority institutions from quotas True, the Court has also said that OBC reservations must be reviewed every five years. But this is not a new stipulation. Even in reservations for SCs and STs, there is a provision for review every 10 years. The 5-member Bench hearing the case delivered four separate judgments. But there’s no ambiguity about the verdict’s overall basic thrust, which is against discrimination, and in favor of equal opportunity in an unequal society.

The Court has reaffirmed that the Constitutional values of inclusion and facilitated the entry of OBCs in institutions of higher learning-and thereby, the professions and skilled jobs, in which the lower and middle strata of society are badly under represented. The verdict sets out a clear norm for the future direction of society-not least because it rejects the idea of equality as the equal treatment of groups who are unequally situated in reality and have unequal access to opportunity. Instead, it recognizes that there are huge entrenched inequalities in society, based on birth, which produce and reproduce inequalities of status and life-chances at all levels-a situation of cascading iniquities.

OBC reservations will facilitate, not impede, the equality of results or outcomes and make for a society based on caring and sharing. The verdict was necessitated by a challenge mounted by OBC quota opponents to the 93rd Amendment and the CEI Act, although this law explicitly provided for a 54 percent increase in the capacity of higher educational institutions and thus preserved the savarna castes' access though the open general category. The savarnas wanted to corner the additional capacity too. The petitioners also argued that caste must not be a criterion of backwardness because the Constitution mandates the aboli¬tion of caste and the creation of a casteless, classless society. The Constitution in fact outlaws untouchability, and seeks to abolish discrimination based on caste. Caste cannot be abolished by legal fiat, but only through social reform.

Merit makes sense only when it measures the distance between the starting-point and the end-point. Most upper-caste people enjoy unfair advantage over OBCs and the lower castes primarily because of their disparate starting-points. Merit is only one, usually small, component of their overall achievement. In any case, the identification of socially and Educationally Backward Classes for reservation is not done solely based on caste. Other parameters are followed too, including poverty, social backwardness, and economic backwardness. Reservation is one of the many tools that are used to preserve and promote the essence of equality so that disadvantaged groups can be brought to the forefront of civil life.