The Union Health Ministry has announced that it will implement reservation laws meant for both Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWSs) in the all-India quota (AIQ) scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses from 2021-22. The demand for OBC quota in AIQ was raging in courts and outside for the last few years.
Many people confuse the issue of OBC quota in AIQ with the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test aka NEET; however, there is no actual connection between the two. Whether there should be a uniform national entrance test for medical seats or students should get admission on the basis of their 12th standard marks is a separate debate and not related to the issue of reservation. While NEET was first conducted in 2013, discontinued next year and then reintroduced in 2016, the AIQ scheme was created way back in 1986 on the orders of the Supreme Court.
As per this scheme, 15 per cent of undergraduate and 50 per cent postgraduate seats are surrendered by state medical and dental colleges to the AIQ. What this means is that the state laws regarding reservation and domicile do not apply to the AIQ. When this scheme was introduced in 1986, the union government already had provisions for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) reservation, and many state governments had provisions for OBC reservation too. However, the Supreme Court made the AIQ a reservation-free scheme. If the AIQ seats had remained with the states, in a state like Tamil Nadu, for example, 69 per cent of these seats would have gone to SCs, STs and OBCs.
The Supreme Court corrected the mistake in 2007 when it granted reservation to SCs and STs in the AIQ. However, OBCs were still not included in the AIQ. By this time, most state governments, including West Bengal, had enacted reservation laws for the OBCs, and the union government itself, in early January 2007, had extended OBC reservation to higher educational institutions (the OBC reservation in government jobs had come into force in 1993).
The OBCs had to wait till July 2020 when the Madras High Court finally ruled that the OBC students too could avail of the AIQ from the next academic year. But the union government was still dragging its feet to enforce the high court’s orders, which led to the high court reprimanding the government two weeks ago.
The story of OBC reservation in the AIQ is a familiar one. First of all, the laws meant for Bahujans are enacted reluctantly and even when they are passed in Parliament, the union government as well as government institutions do not show much enthusiasm in implementing them. (The state governments have performed comparatively better on this count.) The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are known to flout reservation laws in faculty recruitment and time and again have demanded that they be exempted from these laws. However, IIMs are not the only culprit here. If given a chance, most public institutions would be more than happy to bypass quotas meant for SCs, STs and OBCs.
This stands in stark contrast to the EWS quota. Even though this quota came on the statute books only in 2019, most governments and public institutions have shown tremendous enthusiasm in implementing it. Note that this quota operates just like the quotas meant for the SCs, STs and OBCs, except it is meant specifically for the upper castes (which, in my opinion, goes against the very premise of reservation policy).
The decision to implement OBC quota in the AIQ is a welcome one. However, it became possible only because anti-caste activists and some pro-people parties raised their voice continuously inside and outside the court for the past few years. There was no reason for this issue to drag on for so long though. An act of Parliament prescribed 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs and all the government had to do was to implement it.
The health ministry’s decision will hopefully pave the way for implementing OBC reservation in all government departments and institutions, such as the IIMs and Indian Institutes of Technology. The union government is patting itself on the back for giving ministerial berths to several Bahujans in its cabinet reshuffle and is claiming credit for OBC reservation in the AIQ as well. However, it recently stated in Parliament that it has no plans to enumerate OBCs in India’s decennial census. If the union government really cares about the OBCs, it should not be selective in taking pro-OBC decisions.
The author is copy editor with EPW and commentator on social issues. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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