Ehical Issues with reservation (1)

8/7/2019 Ehical Issues with reservation (1)

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COURSE: BUSINESS ETHICS

Ethical Issues in

Reservation

Under the Guidance Of:Dr. J L Gupta

Submitted by: group 3 ( sec C) Page 1


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to express our heartiest gratitude to J L Gupta sir for providing us

opportunity and guiding us in preparing the report on Ethical Issue In

Reservation. Our heartfelt thanks for his invaluable guidance, support, and

encouragement throughout our project work which has aided us in the successful

completion of our work. We also extend our thanks to our friends who directly or

indirectly helped us during our project work.

Submitted by:

Group 3, Section C

Anket Kumar Gupta (10p128)

Karan Talwar (10p146)

Kartik Luthra(10p147)



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Sumitra Sredharen (10p175)Surendra Sanaye (10p176)

Vijaya Suryavanshi (10p179)

CONTENTS OF THE REPORT

1. Introduction

2. OBC Reservation

a) Viewpoint

b) Counterpoint

3. Womens Reservation In Parliament

a) Viewpoint

b) Counterpoint

4. Theories Of Ethics

5. Conclusion



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1. INTRODUCTION

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act

towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.- The Indian Constitution

The above statement forms the core ideology of the Indian Society wherein

every person holds the same place in front of the law and no preferential

treatment is legal. However, the constitution also has a provision to provide

opportunities to people who have been historically denied any role in the

economic or the social sphere. It is ironic as to how the fathers of the Indian

Constitution could have come up with such contradictory thoughts.

Since hundreds of years, the society has been plagued with prejudices against

SC/STs, women, and Other Backward Classes. The Indian bureaucracy,

dominated by a few educated elite have always kept them on the sidelines and

avoided any inclusion so as to maintain their powers. The fact that even after 63

years of independence little has changed; reflects the failure of the people of

India and the government as a whole.

Reservation has been a dominant issue now for decades. Dr B R Ambedkar, who

founded the Constitution himself was a proponent of it but failed to provide clear

directives, resulting in endless debates, violence and fury amongst the masses.

Now with the implementation of almost 50% in govt. aided institutes, 33%

reservation of women in parliament, and discussion for reservation in the private

sector, the issue is back on the table.

Leaving aside the question at whether it would serve the purpose or not, it

actually exposes the true hypocritical face of the society and the vested interests

of the politician.Are the politicians really concerned about the upliftment of the downtrodden or

merely about their vote bank?

Does the general middle class truly believe that reservation is not the answer or

do they just want to avoid the resulting increase in competition?

One thing is clear, both the opponents and proponents have flaws in their

judgement. While womens reservation is seen as a step forward, but OBC

reservation is seen as a step back.

Isnt it unethical to apply one set of rules for one group and another set for a

different group.



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In the following report we try to understand the ethical/unethical issues involved

in OBC reservation in educational institutions and the womens reservation in

parliament. We would represent two contrasting views on each of these issues.

2. OBCRESERVATION

a)VIEWPOINT

SOME PRIVILEGED AND elite middle-class people, who have seen their families

move steeply upwards, have an extremely arrogant attitude. They are unaware

and unconcerned that 80 per cent of our population lives in villages. In these

village people set their time in concurrence with the public vehicles coming from

the city. In such villages one rainfall ostracises them from the rest of the city,

candle lights are not used for dinners but for work, students see the faces of

their teachers once in a year, a matriculate is considered the eighth wonder. A

skyscraper makes them dizzy and young ones dont hang in malls but work in

fields under scorching heat. What will you tell those people who spent their

whole lives battling various prejudices, poverty, and non-existent schools only to

lose out to private school educated, tuition-coached city kids?

Merit makes little sense in a society based on inheritance of private property and

on privileges related to birth. Property inheritance and generation-long privileges

mean that the powerful are at a vastly different starting point from the people

who are socially and economically backward. A person born in such conditions

has totally different social contacts, knowledge and acceptability in the elite and

also a different access to information about the availability of study courses,

tutorial institutions, career options, professional advice etc. An alert observer will

tell you that it is not Dalits and downtrodden people who are holding high

positions but people from high strata and elite castes. It is these very people who

are reaping the rewards of the positions of power and privilege that theirancestors got as part of their inheritance.

The people who are anti-reservation are the ones who celebrate selfishness and

greed as virtues, worship privilege and power, and singularly lack compassion.

They have grown up with a totally instrumentalist view of achievement. They got

high marks in school and college level examinations and did not care about the

means they employed. For many of their parents, paying exorbitant fees to

private tutors or capitation charges up to 20 lakhs for a medical seat comes as

naturally as admission to the expensive schools they attended. Education for

them is not learning. It is all about scoring and expanding their career choicesand incomes.



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Education is not only about being cleverer and faster than others. It is as much

about understanding social processes and life in all its complexity, respecting

diversity and differences, and building a community based on free inquiry. One

must relate admissions and job recruitment to large social objectives. If one

really wants to build a genuinely non-hierarchical, caring and sharing society,this includes education and equal opportunity; one must promote the humane

values and incorporate them in selection criteria. Reservation is not only a

means to find jobs but the first step towards power sharing for the deprived. But

if you look closer you will be astonished to see that all those reserved posts are

mainly for class III and class IV. Temporary posts are never filled through

reservation in order to avoid complications in the future. Many of my friends will

vouch for the fact that sometimes posts are not filled on the pretext that

qualified candidates were not available. The elites many times reserve posts

which they do not want to fill, knowing very well that SC/ ST and OBC candidates

will not be available for such posts.

The so-called reserved category students who graduate from medical and

engineering colleges or from any professional college are equally qualified. They

are as meritorious as any other student. Real merit cannot be measured by one-

day competitive examinations, however open and fair they are. A student who

scores 180 marks in a single competitive examination is not necessarily superior

or more suitable than the one who scores 120. One should not forget that there

is some minimum cut-off point for the SCs/ STs and OBCs. Many MBBS and

Engineering people will tell you that life after five and a half years is no

cakewalk.

The irony is that those professionals who are anti-reservation, feel that they are

more correct and firmly believe that their views count for more because they are

educated and therefore of value to society. Yet it is precisely this access to

public education, which they seek to guard so zealously, and which the backward

community wants to wrest away from them. If there was no reservation I

suppose we wouldnt have seen lady doctors in hospitals nor a butchers son

with scissors. We wouldnt have seen a barbers son giving road maps nor a

bakers daughter architecting a new model for India. We wouldnt have seen a

cobblers daughter donning the white apron nor a sweepers son sitting with topbureaucrats in India. I suppose, therefore, reservation is not a favour but a

necessity.

In India it is easy for a Dalit or SC/ST/OBC person to become president, but it is

nearly impossible for him/her to get a clerical job. After all how many Dalit

people do we see in the media? How many people from lower castes are editors

or reading news on TV? And how many city children have ever gone into villages,

where Dalit women are paraded naked and killed or sold in open. How many

police officers have you seen from the Dalit community? How many Dalit models

have you seen on the ramp? What percentage of lower castes people areworking in government jobs? And doesnt India belong to them? Saying that we



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have no objection and we dont care who is sitting next to us, does not make any

sense when we are not ready to give them a chance to come out. After all how

many metro city kids know that in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh

and Orissa, lower caste people do not get the benefits that they do and are

mainly identified by their caste? How many people know that Dalits have their

own gods to worship? You will be surprised that a large chunk of Indianpopulation comes under this very category and if you delve little deep you will be

astonished to see that 35 per cent of Indians fall below the poverty line. And that

is not in international terms but in Indian terms. India may be shining because of

its newly upward mobile people but the harsh reality is that more and more

segregation is taking place.

The backward classes have always been denied their rights and hence they

deserve reservation. How does one analyse whether reservation is good or bad?

How does one define who belongs to reserve category and why? On what

parameters are people demanding to shelve off reservation? Why has inequalityincreased in our society? We need to see which generation of SC/ST/OBC is

deriving benefits. We presume that just because few SC/ST/OBC are able to give

their wards certain facilities such as admission in a posh school, every backward

caste or community does the same. This merely reflects our ignorance. Human

psyche tells us that once their grandchildren will get benefits from the

reservation policy they will realise that they do not need it anymore and will

discard it. After all nobody wants to show a past that is based on economic

poverty and backwardness.

There are some facts that effect of reservation

Percentage of SC employees in Government jobs

ServicesClass 1959 1965 1974 1984 1995

I 1.18 1.64 3.2 6.92 10.12II 2.38 2.82 4.6 10.36 12.67III 6.95 8.88 10.3 13.98 16.15IV 17.24a 17.75 18.6 20.2 21.26a

Sources: National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Seventh

Report, April 1984 - March 1985, 5

Number of employees in A class category has increase significantly over the

years( from 1.18 to 10.12) while maintaining the same level at lower level jobs

so there is a clear improvement in the quality and knowledge level of the SC

category people.

Sex-wise Literacy Trends among SCs and Total PopulationTotal population SC

Male Female Total Male Female

Total

1961 34.44 12.95 24.02 16.96 3.29 10.27



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1971 39.45 18.72 29.46 22.36 6.44 14.67

1981 65.5 29.85 43.67 31.12 10.93 21.38

1991 64.13 39.29 52.21 49.91 23.76 37.41

2001 75.85 54.16 65.38

Source: National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Fourth Report,

1996-97 & 1997-98, 12.

As can be seen from the table above that the literacy rate among the SCs are

increasing at a very significant rate this is also because of the amount of

opportunities provided to them through reservation.

Percentage of SC and Total Population below the Poverty Line

Year SC Total1977-78 56.3 48.31983-84 50.1 37.41987-884 1.5 29.9

Source: National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Fourth Report,

1996-97 & 1997-98, 13.

So the facts stated above strongly support the view of reservation as it is

beneficial for a section of the society which was highly underdeveloped.

b)COUNTERPOINT

The opponents often consider it that reservations result in denial of seats to

those with merit in the General Category. But in most cases, as per the

proponents thousands of general category candidates with basic merit are

competing for a few hundred seats. The number of reserved seats is limited to a

few tens. Thus the maximum "loss" due to reservations is highly limited. Most

general category candidates with merit lose out only because the number of

available seats far outstrips the number of candidates with merit. But now when

then reservations will rise up to 49.5% then it can not be said that so. It will only

make the competition doubly tough (and its already one of the toughest in the

world) for students who cant avail the reservations resulting in denial of seats to

the General Category. That will mean - more stress, more frustration and more

discontent.

The opponents of the reservations say that it results in diluting the quality of

professionals (by letting in those with lower marks). When the 50% of the seats

that gets filled up is not exactly based on the talent, it is bound to affect the

quality of the students. It will also faint the brand image of the premier institutes

as the image of the premier institutes is that it produces students of quality

much better than most other will only get tarnished a bit as the other half mightnot have had the kind of background and aptitude as is the norm. But the



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proponents pay heed to the fact that the reservations are at the entry stage.

Each reserved category student has to later qualify in the examination before

becoming a doctor or engineer. The "knowledge" required for qualifying to be a

doctor or engineer is NOT lowered by reservations. This is the reason why many

reserved category students take longer to complete the course -- as also are

sometimes withdrawn from the course. For this very reason, the students whopass out from private colleges too do not result in significant lowering of quality

of professionals. The reality is that, many fit candidates are today denied

opportunity simply because of shortage of seats. The advocates of meritocracy

must answer as to why they conveniently forget about talent' when seats are

sold in the name of NRI quotas or through massive fees hikes. Why don't they

oppose reservation of education for the rich through privatisation of higher

education? If they are so concerned about talent, why they don't advocate

further extension of central educational institutions like IITs and IIMs by

increasing their seats and reducing the fees?

Another argument given by the adversary against reservations is that India does

not have the money or resources to increase the number of seats in our

professional colleges. Also that, it will force more students to move to other

countries for their higher education as if one cannot find good seats in India, they

would not be left with options other than to move to the other countries and the

foreign institutes will only be glad to accept the Indian students. On the other

hand the promoters believe that the youths should realize that we do have

enough money and resources. It is vested interests (such as a section of the

Indian Medical Association) who have been lobbying with the government NOT to

increase the number of seats -- because in their myopic vision, this would createtoo many professionals in the country. The fact is that India is woefully short of

professionals. Also they describe it to be ironical that those people who are

crying hoarse over the loss of merit have never bothered to raise their voice

when the government was commercialising education and allowing all sub-

standard institutes to be set-up across the country.

This issue has been a vote bank issue. None of the political parties want to lose

their vote bank and antagonize their voters who were/are getting benefited from

the reservation policy. Interestingly percentage-wise the people who fall under

the reservation policy exceed 80% of Indian population. Hence who will dare totouch this issue and loose in an election? This fear of losing election if the

reservations were discontinued made sure that the policy continued for a long

time and there seem to be no change in near future also as different political

parties are fighting to give more and more reservation (some say 50% others say

69% and some others say why not 85%). If 70% of the recruitment is for those

belonging to reservation quotas and only 30% are left for merit what kind of an

output one can expect? This conveys the message that in India only 30% are

selected based on their merit and all others under different consideration. If a

person is not selected because he belonged to a particular religion or caste, even

though he/she is a meritorious person then such a practice should be stoppedand prevented. And in fact the whole reservation policy should concentrate on



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the above aspect that discrimination should not be there instead of giving seats

to non-merit candidates and claim justice is done to backward communities. If

such a justice is done then at what cost it is done? Number one the meritorious

loose the chance; mediocre persons are selected, thus compromising the quality

at every stage. If no other candidate is available then taking a mediocre person

and giving a chance for one to prove is worth trying. One explanation given wasthat for thousands of years the backward communities have been oppressed and

why people become impatient for 60 years of reservations to backward

communities. This is once again unacceptable argument as the present

generation does not know whether such a thing existed or what happened in the

past. For no fault of theirs the present generation should not be punished.

Oppressed is a term, once again which is subjective. This is because most of the

officers or people holding high offices presently are those belonging to backward

communities. The way they conduct with their subordinates, juniors or public

would show that when power is given to them they suppress and oppress 100

times more than anybody in the world. If anyone has doubts the last statementcould be verified and a survey could be conducted on this also.

Presently, India is suffering from problems of corruption, nepotism, favouritism

and bribery in all spheres of day to day life. One has to really examine whether

the reservation policy has anything to do with such a trend where meritorious

candidates were/are ignored and mediocre are considered in the name of social

justice. If the people, who get benefit through this system of social justice viz.

seats in colleges, jobs, promotions, etc. instead of repaying their gratitude to the

government through all efforts to serve the country since the government has

provided them such opportunities, but, instead, go into a mode of adopting

corrupt practices, regularly, then they are doing a disservice to the country and

injustice to the proponents of reservation policy. It may not be difficult to identify

those who are taking bribes and to what groups they belong. Only thing needed

is political will to identify them and acceptance of facts as facts and then to call a

spade as a spade. In India, all extraneous considerations and reasons are given

to shut the mouths of people who raise voices in the democratic setup. The

unfound reasons are that, freedom of expression, as expressed above, could lead

to passions and emotions (both artificially created, almost in all cases) and might

bring unrest among the public. With this kind of threatening behind the people,

no one is ready to express their views and one has to always prune his/her

spontaneity of views and settle for some diplomatic expressions which never

convey the actual meaning or intentions. Of course the freedom of speech has its

own limitations but how long are we going to emasculate the truth?

3. Womens Reservation In

Parliament



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a) VIEWPOINT

The passage of the constitution amendment bill to introduce 33% reservation for

women in parliament and state assemblies in the Rajya Sabha is a progressive

and substantive step towards the political empowerment of women in India. Thefact that it has taken nearly a decade and a half for this legislation, since its

introduction, to be passed in the upper house of parliament stands testimony to

the stubborn opposition against it from various quarters. There is no point

singling out the Yadav troika or the social justice lobby for opposing this

legislation. It is well known that a big section of male parliamentarians cutting

across party lines; who have never held less than 87% seats in the parliament

since the first general elections of independent India; have been all along

providing covert (sometimes even overt) support to the prominent and vocal

opponents of this bill. In essence, the opposition is from all those who want to

preserve the status quo. Therefore the real roadblock before the bill ispatriarchal ideology; not individual parties or leaders. It is important to

underscore this point at this juncture, because the political battle to enact this

progressive legislation has only been half won so far. It cannot become a law

until the Lok Sabha passes it and at least 15 state assemblies endorse this

constitutional amendment.

Idea Whose Time Has Come

Much has been said about the desirability of womens reservation in Indian

legislatures. It is undeniable that not only will it empower women by increasingtheir political representation but also open up substantial space for gender

issues in the political sphere. This is very essential given the unequal status of

women in our society. Almost six decades of overwhelming male domination in

legislatures has ensured that gender equality, as envisaged in the Indian

constitution, still remains a far cry. Not only have women continued to be denied

equal rights in land, property, access to education and jobs, but violence against

women in myriad forms, from female foeticide and domestic violence, to dowry

and honour killings, to sexual harassment, continues to be a part of our daily

existence. If we are serious about reversing these retrograde trends, we have to

accept the centrality of womens empowerment in all spheres social, economic,cultural and political.

Among the myriad discrimination against and denial of equal rights to women,

the political one is crucial. Patriarchy never had problems in accepting awoman

as a political leader or even a head of the state; the history of India, indeed

South Asia, is replete with such examples. But whether in intent or in action, that

never really challenged the status quo. In contrast, 33% reservation for women

in legislatures will not only amount to a trifle change in the status quo; it has the

potential to fundamentally alter the political landscape and challenge existing

power relations in society. That is why the patriarchal opposition to a

constitutionally mandated floor of 33% representation in legislatures is so steep.



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But this is also the reason why this opposition has to be comprehensively

defeated. The experience of womens reservation in village panchayats and

other local bodies have already shown the positive spin offs of greater public

participation by women, not only in terms of advancing social justice but also in

terms of greater efficacy of public policy. This process needs to be furthered,

especially at the highest level of decision-making and governance. In the 15th

Loksabha, out of 543 MPs, only 59 are women (10.8%). This status quo is

unacceptable, not only from the point of view of women, but the society as a

whole. Womens reservation in legislatures is an idea whose time has surely

come.

Political Opponents

The opposition to the womens reservation bill today is couched in three distinct

but inter-related threads. Let us consider them by turns. The most vocal andsteadfast opponents of the bill within the political class have termed it as anti-

OBC, anti-dalit and anti-Muslim. They have demanded sub-quotas for women

from these categories. These demands, either raised together or in parts,

amount to pitting one deprived section of society against another in order to

jettison womens reservations altogether. While there are perfectly just grounds

for OBC reservations in education and jobs due to historical discrimination, there

has not been any significant demand for OBC reservation in legislatures. Even

the SP or the RJD have not demanded this so far because given their proportion

in population, OBCs are fairly represented in the political sphere. In case the

seats held by OBC MPs or MLAs get reserved for women, there is no reason whyOBC women cannot get elected from those constituencies. In fact, the proportion

of OBC women MPs in total women MPs in the 14 th Lok Sabha was slightly higher

than the proportion of OBC MPs in total MPs. While their socio-economic

backwardness is undeniable, OBCs cannot be considered as politically or

electorally marginalized communities in todays context.

As far as dalits and adivasis are concerned, the constitutionally mandated SC/ST

reservation in parliament and state assemblies already exists and 33%

reservation for women will only amount to reserving one third of SC/ST reserved

seats for SC/ST women. This will substantially increase the number of SC/ST

women in legislatures from the current levels; for instance to at least 40 SC/STwomen MPs in parliament from the current number of 17. The argument made

by the BSP that this increase in the proportion of SC/ST women be brought about

not by reserving one third of existing SC/ST seats but by increasing the SC/ST

quota itself beyond the constitutionally mandated 22.5%, is not very convincing.

If more women have to be adequately accommodated in parliament and

assemblies, then men belonging to all castes and communities, including those

belonging to the socially deprived sections, have to make some way for the

women of their castes and communities. After all, gender discrimination and

oppression cuts across all castes, communities and class. To suggest that the

principle of positive discrimination in favour of women is acceptable for



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everybody else but not for my caste or community is neither a logically tenable

nor an ethically sound position.

The situation vis--vis Muslims does merit a more sympathetic consideration.

The number of Muslim MPs in the 15th Loksabha is a mere 28 (5%), down from 34

in the 14th

Loksabha. This is certainly way below the proportion of Muslims inIndian population (13.4%). There is no doubt that this gross under-representation

of Muslims in parliament and several state assemblies needs to be redressed.

However, reservation for Muslims on a religious basis is still an unsettled

question within the framework of the Indian constitution. The Ranganath Mishra

Commission recommendations have surely opened the issue, as far as minority

reservations in education and jobs are concerned. Given the past interpretations

of secularism by the judiciary, the implementation of the Ranganath Mishra

Commission may well require a constitutional amendment. In fact, the existing

socio-economic condition of the Muslim minorities, as brought out clearly by the

Sachar Committee findings, merits a serious reconsideration of the receivednotions of secularism and social justice. Can the secular basis of the state remain

secure if the largest religious minority continues to remain a victim of systemic

discrimination and socio-economic deprivation after sixty years of

independence? It is imperative that the Congress led Government at the Centre

initiates a result-oriented debate on this vital issue without any further delay. It

is inexplicable why the Central Government took over two years to table the

Ranganath Commission report in parliament after its submission and that too

without any action taken report.

Having said so, however, it makes little sense for those genuinely fighting to

ensure social justice for the Muslims to oppose the constitution amendment forwomens reservation because it does not reserve seats for Muslim women. That

amounts to pitting the legitimate demand for greater Muslim

representation against another equally legitimate step to enhance womens

participation. This will only work towards narrowing the support for greater

Muslim representation in legislatures. Indias neighbouring countries with a

majority of Muslim population, like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, already

have constitutionally mandated quota for women in their national legislatures. In

fact the positive experience of those countries following greater womens

participation in legislatures, especially for their women, have strengthened and

inspired the forces in favour of womens reservation in India.

While womens reservation in the present form may or may not increase the

participation of Muslim women in legislatures, it is certainly not going to make

matters any worse for the Muslim minorities. Opposing the womens reservation

bill in the name of Muslim quota would be entirely unwarranted, since it amounts

to postponing the issue of womens reservation on which there is a political

consensus today after 14 years of debate no political party says they are

opposed to womens reservation per se till a consensus emerges on the issue

of Muslim reservation, which will obviously take more time. If anything, a broad

based consensus on a constitution amendment in favour of the womensreservation bill today can only facilitate a similar consensus on Muslim



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reservation tomorrow. And when that happens, 33% of those seats will also get

reserved for Muslim women.

Liberal Cynics

Apart from the political opposition to the constitution amendment, there are

opponents in the liberal intelligentsia, who are berating the bill in televised

discussions and news columns. Some are of course conceptually on the same

page as far as womens reservation is concerned, but are opposed to the specific

provisions of the bill, like reserving 33% of the existing 543 seats rather than

applying quota on an increased number of constituencies in the Loksabha so as

to protect the existing seats of male MPs. Some continue to maintain that

mandated quotas in the candidate lists of political parties would have been a

better and non-controversial option. What has particularly miffed some

commentators is the provision that the 33% womens quota seats would change

every five years so that in fifteen years every constituency in the country is

covered. This, it has been argued, would imply existing male MPs losing their

right to contest in constituencies, which they have nurtured for years.

In its long and arduous journey through the two parliamentary committees the

first one a joint select committee chaired by the late Communist leader Geeta

Mukherjee and second time the parliamentary standing committee on law and

justice the merits and demerits of all these options and suggestions were

thoroughly debated. In fact, very few legislations in the history of independent

India have been scrutinized so meticulously for fourteen long years. All options

other than what is contained in the present legislation were found to be inferior.

For instance, reserving candidate lists of political parties would never guaranteea minimum threshold of elected women MPs in the first past the post system; it

would merely ensure a minimum number of contestants. International

experience shows that the countries which have opted for womens quota in

candidate lists under the first past the post system continue to have much lower

representation of women in their legislatures; the situation does not change

much because it is difficult for female candidates to win against their male

counterparts. Increasing the number of seats of parliament, to the extent of

protecting all the existing seats of male MPs would amount to increasing the

number of seats to over 720. An increase of such magnitude in the number of

constituencies for the parliament and state assemblies, would not only make theelections and the democratic process logistically unwieldy and prohibitively

expensive, it would also lead to the construction of new buildings for parliament

and state assemblies in order to accommodate women!

The upshot is that all these proposals which are being parroted today, which

sought to accommodate the concerns of womens representation while keeping

the status quo of overwhelming male domination intact, were debated

threadbare and found to be infeasible. Those who are shedding tears about

existing male MPs/candidates losing their nurtured constituencies, are of

course being quite candid. But they are missing the whole point about this

legislation. The fact that this legislation will break the status quo, ifimplemented, does not amount to any argument against the legislation. The



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problem is with the status quo itself, since it has been unfair to women, who

comprise half of our population and electorate. Therefore this legislation

explicitly seeks to break that status quo; but does so in a fair manner, where all

existing male MPs/candidates have to make way for a woman MP sometime or

the other over the next three elections. And any male MP/candidate can return to

contest in his nurtured constituency after a gap of one election. Thus, on theone hand it does not take away the right from any male MP/candidate to contest

in his preferred constituency in perpetuity. On the other hand, it creates

concrete possibilities for the growth of political activism of women across all

constituencies of the country. Anyone who sincerely wishes to see greater

participation of women in politics and enhanced number of women elected

representatives will easily see that the present legislation is the best among all

the options available.

Then of course, there are the skeptics, who consider greater womens

participation or representation in politics to be at best symbolic, and perhapsentirely meaningless. Not surprisingly, this opinion is not openly articulated in

the political circles. Some successful women in the media and the corporate

world have, however, become the most articulate proponents of this view. Their

arguments amount to saying the following: Look at us. We have succeeded in

the mens world without any quota. So why do women need quota to be

successful in politics?

This sounds typical of all those who are opposed to any positive discrimination,

particularly reservations. There exists, for instance, a number of successful dalit

or OBC professionals, who either out of conviction or compulsion, opposereservations, confusing their own subjective experience which may have been

marked by certain privileges or sheer good fortune for the objective social

conditions of the large majority of SCs or OBCs. But in the case of those

successful women opposing reservation for women in legislatures, there is

specificity. They seem to believe that a display of cynicism towards the political

process and insensitivity towards gender discrimination in particular, reflects

virtuosity. Being a professionally successful woman in a world dominated by men

is certainly commendable; but that does not automatically make someone

gender sensitive or alive to the problems and concerns of women. In fact women

in politics, almost without exception and cutting across political lines, aresupporters of womens reservation because their own experience, however brief,

must have shown them the enormous difficulty to sustain activism and compete

successfully in a patriarchal setting.

Afraid of Feminist Tag?

Why are some of the more successful women not sympathetic to the aspirations

of the women in politics for some positive discrimination in their favour?

Patriarchy, after all, is an ideology and it operates at complex levels. This indeed

makes life difficult for women, even for those who have become successful in a

world dominated by men. This difficulty is best captured in the Union RailwayMinisters comment made on the day the womens reservation bill was passed in



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the upper house: Though I am supporting the bill, I am not a feminist. It can be

assumed safely that nobody asked the Minister whether she is a feminist. Yet

she asserts that she is not one. Are all the other parties and individuals

supporting the bill feminists? Surely not.

The BJP, which provided crucial support to the bill and whose suave leader in theupper house forcefully argued in favour of womens rights during the debate, has

never disowned the manuvadi ideology of the RSS, which considers women as

naturally inferior to men. We have not forgotten the glorification ofSati under

the BJP rule in Rajasthan, the rape of innocent Muslim women during the post-

Godhra riots in Gujarat or the continued hooliganism of the Sangh Parivar outfits

on Valentines Day. The Congress President has been rightly hailed for her

determined role in pushing the legislation within her Party and cajoling the

Central Government to take a firm stand. Yet, why she preferred her son to be

the heir apparent over her daughter, without any tested basis of political

acumen, organizational performance or mass acceptance, is anybodys guess.Even the Communists, with an enviable record in fighting for womens rights

since the days of freedom struggle, took well over six decades of existence to

elect the first woman into their central leadership. The biggest contingent of the

Left, the CPI (M), took longer. And even today, misogynist critics have not got

tired of shamelessly alleging how women are promoted within the Left because

of influential husbands rather than their own capabilities and contributions.

The long and the short of it is that no political party functioning within the Indian

political system or elsewhere can claim to be totally immune from the vestiges of

patriarchy. Their ideological standpoint, however, in terms of whether they are

programmatically committed to womens empowerment and emancipation ornot, is what counts, along with their political positions and day to day practice.

And if a political party, or any individual for that matter, is committed to gender

equality and womens empowerment, why prevaricate on the womens

reservation bill for the fear of being called a feminist?

b) COUNTERPOINT

Reservation of seats in Parliament and Legislative bodies will surely create

opportunities for about 2000 odd women to get salaries, perks and the

underhand commissions / bribes that are currently pocketed by men. Can the

prosperity of these 2000 odd women be called national interest or even growth

of women of India? Pakistan, I understand, has almost double the representation

of women in Parliament as compared to India. Does it mean that the women in

Pakistan are any better off than the women of India? Do more women in

Pakistani parliament mean that the democracy in Pakistan is any better than in

India? Women form more than half the members of parliament of Rwanda. Whatdoes that mean for women of Rwanda? Practically nothing! Clearly there is no



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relationship between the status of women in a society and the number of women

in parliament. Similarly, increasing the number of women in parliament does not

strengthen democracy in any way.

Increasing womens participation in politics sounds like a fine idea in principle.

But its implementation would have grave consequences for the quality of Indiasgovernance and political culture.

A comfortable majority in Parliament professes to support the Womens

Reservation Bill, with dominant parties on both sides of the political divide in

favour. However, the truth is that many members are apprehensive about the

consequences. And that opposition cant be explained away as simply the vested

interest of male politicians.

First of all, the justifications for the amendment dont stand up to scrutiny. If

there is indeed political and social support for greater participation of women inpolitics, nothing prevents political parties from choosing more female

candidates. Nor would reservations somehow change the status of women in the

countrysome of the worst forms of discrimination against women continued to

take place even after Indira Gandhi became prime minister in the 1960s. And

finally, outstanding women leaders such as Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu and

Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal have come up on their own through

persistence and political acumen. In the name of empowering women, the Bill is

very paternalistic, believing that women cannot make it in politics on their own.

More importantly, the Bill poses a threat to the nature of Indias representativedemocracy. While the reservation of a few seats for certain castes might be

accepted as a temporary anomaly necessary to correct historic wrongs, a

reservation for such a broad section of the population undermines Indias first

past the post electoral system. The Bill moves India towards a proportional

representation system dividing the population on sectional lines. This is a change

from the basic design of the Constitution, and the debates in the Constituent

Assembly, when the notion of separate electorates was considered and rejected.

In the current system, parliamentary constituencies comprise a wide range of

people, forcing candidates to build a social and political coalition to have areasonable chance of winning the election. It is this tendency to bridge the

sectional divide among the population that has been the hallmark of Indian

democracy, where diversity has only strengthened the political institutions.

If India is to tread the path towards ensuring representation according to the

diversity of the population, by adopting a kind of proportional electoral system,

then the social coalition will inevitably break down, leading to increased political

instability. The demand for a sectional quota within the womens quota would be

a logical step in that direction. And the next step could be to demand political

reservation for men as well along sectional lines. This would signal the end of the

idea of India.



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Accountability to voters will also be reduced. At one stroke, by rotating the

constituencies reserved for women, an enormous political churning will be

triggered. Legislators who have built up their own independent base of support

within their constituencies will be forced out of office. Two-thirds of the sitting

members of the legislature may have to surrender their seats under a rotational

reservation for women. In effect, this will disempower the voter, and reduce theincentive for elected representatives to be seriously concerned with the issues

affecting their constituencies.

Party leaders stand to benefit the most from a system where the voters are not

in a position to assess the performance of their representative. The parties will

have to constantly put forward new candidates, and these are chosen by the

leadersthere is no inner party democracy in India. Hiding behind the fairer sex,

entrenched party leaders are solidifying their authority over backbenchers.

This represents an extension of the anti-defection law passed by the Congressgovernment of Rajiv Gandhi in 1986, when it had an unprecedented majority in

Parliament. Under this law, a legislator is required to vote along party lines or

face disqualification from Parliament. That spelt the end of meaningful

parliamentary debate. Now Sonia Gandhi is attempting to push through a

constitutional amendment that deals another body blow to representative

democracy. At a time when the rest of the world is beginning to appreciate the

Indian democratic miracle, it is ironic indeed that the countrys own political

leadership is seeking to change its democratic character to further its own

narrow interests.

4.Theories Of Ethics

There are two counter theories of ethics which explain each of the view stated

above.

1) Traditional theory of ethics ( Normative theory )

a) Utilitarian theory ( Consequentialist )

b) Ethics of right and justice ( Non-consequentilist theory )

We will explain how these theory explain each of the views stated above



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a) Utilitarian theory ( Consequentialist ): According to utilitarian theory An

action is morally right if it results in greatest amount of good and greatest

amount of people affected by the action. This is also called greatest

happiness principle.

The ethical decision is the one which is beneficial to a larger portion of the

society. But as the facts stated above suggest that reservation can be loss

for a larger section of the society (general category in case of OBC

reservation and male community in case of women reservation) hence

according to utilitarian theory of ethics this should not happen and this

cant be an ethical way of doing things. This theory explains the view

taken by the one opposing reservation.

b) Ethics of right and justice (Non-consequentilist theory): According to this

theory Natural rights are certain basic, important, unalienableentitlements that should be respected and protected in every single

action.

So according to this theory we should not worry about the outcome but

have to do things which are morally right and should give justice to all.

This theory goes in favour of passing the reservation bill. The supporter of

the reservation follows this principle.

Conclusion

In conclusion we would like to state that reservation is an endless debate and

there is no right and wrong view point in such case There have been two

contrary theory of ethics which explains each view (favouring and against the

reservation) so there is a big ethical dilemma over this. Hence the solution for

this endless debate over reservation is hard to get.

But there should be certain rules and guidelines on basis of which reservation

should be given in the society. As our country has seen over the years that in thename of reservation there have been a huge loss of government property in



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Rajasthan and have been huge protest throughout the country. So the rules and

law order to maintain the decorum is necessary. On the name of reservation

people are doing thing which are by no means can be called ethical.

What is harder to pinpoint is how much improvement can be credited to

reservations and how much might have occurred without them as a result ofgeneral government development policies and economic growth. Dalit groups

are in no mood to find out. Realistically, the system has become such a mainstay

in India, involving a significant portion of the population,that it is doubtful that

the dismantling of the system is even feasible. No politician will risk trying to roll

back these temporary measures.

Are Reservations Enough?

Reservations will continue to play a useful role but will likely be a diminishing

part of the solution of Dalit problems. There are major flaws. Reservations apply

to the public sector but not the private sector, the probable growth area of the

Indian economy. Then there are tens of millions of Dalits living in rural areas and

not part of the organized economy. It is often a difficult life. In 1976,

Shankarrao Mane, the then Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled

Tribes, wrote the following appraisal:

The hard fact of our social life is that the Scheduled Castes are

fighting

alone. Houses in Caste Hindus localities are not available to them

on rent

even in urban areas; drinking water wells are generally not open to

them,

the services of priests, barbers and washer men are still denied to

them in

several parts of the country and they are paid nominal wages for

hard labour

in the fields. And, when they try to assert their rights to use

common services

or demand proper wages, they are subjected to inhuman atrocities,

abuses,

assaults, social boycott, loot, arson, murder and what not. They are

branded

with red hot iron. Even their women are not spared. Still they

struggle.

What Can Be Done?



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The reservations system would benefit markedly from an administrative face-lift.

As recommended by the Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled

Tribes, a comprehensive act, articulating the policy, is needed. The revision and

streamlining of procedures, such as SC certification, might help curb abuse. In

addition, social programs such as those directed at improving the educationsystem, especially at the primary level and in rural areas, should be given more

emphasis. Reform will depend heavily on the political will of government leaders

and dominant political parties as well as the ability of the Dalits to mobilize

successfully.

To end, one can never say if reservation is ethical or not. But the intent behind

this move does expose the true face of society. Politicians who would not dare

their voice for the fear of losing votes. And on the other hand, the civil society

did all they could to stop the bill, so that their children could go to the best

colleges, not caring about those on the fringes of the society.By no means, such an attitude is ethical.



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References

1. Source: National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. FourthReport, 1996-97 & 1997-98, 13.

2. Sources: National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes,Seventh Report, April 1984 - March 1985, 5

3. Source: National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, FourthReport, 1996-97 & 1997-98, 12.

4. Book on Business ethics second edition by Andrew Crane and Dirk Matten ( Indian

edition) pg 88-100.

5. http://www.ambedkar.org/News/reservationinindia.pdf

6. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/reservation/artical5403


Documents

Ehical Issues with reservation (1)