creamy layer: a figure from the dark ages

OBC job share plunges to 5% in 13 yrs of quota

NEW DELHI: In 1990, other backward classes claimed 12.55% of government jobs. But 13 years after the government created a 27% quota in their favour in 1994, the OBC share in jobs has, in fact, plunged — to an alarming 5.21%.

The figure emerged from the documents submitted by the Centre to the Supreme Court during arguments on anti-quota PILs challenging the validity of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act, 2006.

that's from a six month old report in the times of india, always on the right side of upper caste righteous indignation. and this is a frustrated jayanthi natarajan at a debate telecast a couple of days ago by ibn live, a channel that'll dramatize whatever it takes to drive home some politically difficult sense into the lower castes:

Jayanthi countered that politically difficult statement with a politically correct one. “After the Indra Sahni case, when we’ve had reservations for OBCs in employment, only 5.4 per cent of those seats have been filled. So until social inclusiveness is totally achieved, I don’t think it’s time yet to talking about leaving people out. It may be a very attractive argument. It’s also not true to say that it replaces merit,” she said.

and a five month old story from the hindu, that doesn't see any contradiction between being the mouthpiece of the brahminical left and the working classes in the country, says:

Speaking at the end of the rally on Parliament Street, Dr. Ramadoss said Central Government jobs should be distributed to various social groups in proportion to their population. Though the share of the OBC population in the country was over 52 per cent, its share in government employment was only 5.3 per cent.

yes, the core message in all the links is the same: obc representation in the central government has fallen from around 12.5% in 1989 to 5.21% in 2007. then why so many links?

so that some folks, like this commenter at abi's blog, would see the light: the obcs are still in the dark ages. like i had said in a recent post, it is quite impossible for certain folks who've been taught by the army of intellectuals opposing reservations to see the obcs in a certain light, as powerful and prosperous, to accept any information that punctures that picture. hence, the multiple links: choose you favourite rag. and forgive it for slipping up- this isn't the kind of news you'd like to read or reread. what you like is more objective stuff, right? the headlines should say, in your kind of politically correct language: the students opposing reservations aren't elitist, and the editorial should say: the poor among the upper castes deserve a break too.

the figure i'd suggested in this post, a couple of days ago, that only 0.5% of all obc families belong to the creamy layer, isn't from the dark ages, as the commenter suggests. as you can see, things were better for the obcs in the dark ages.

in 1990, when the estimate of obc representation in central government jobs, according to mandal, was 12.55%, the size of the central government was 34 lakhs. now it's 31 lakhs (according to the report of the 2004, the latest, census of central government employees ). 5.21% of 31 lakhs- which means the number of obcs in the central government is around 1,62,000.

and how many of those 31 lakh jobs could be group (a) and group (b) officers (check sections II A and II b of the creamy layer categories)? around 7-9% of central government jobs fall in those categories- say, 2,50,000 jobs. ignoring for the moment group (a) and group (b) officers of state services, how many obc group (a) and (b) officers do you think could be skimmed off? how many obcs do you think actually hold those posts? 5%? 6%? 10%? remember, the percentage of obc officers in 1989-1990, was- class I: 4.69%, class II: 10%. less than the number of total representation in central govt jobs- 12.55%. the percentage of sc/st officers too is usually less than their total representation in jobs. a great majority of the obc/sc/st/ employees hold group (c) or (b) jobs- yes, following a historically ordered pattern. they want jobs, right? give them all those menial jobs so that they can gloat about the numbers, but never make too many of them officers! so how many obcs do you think are group (a) or (b) officers in the central government. 4% of the total number of officers? 3%? 2%? 1%?

what will you skim off, mr.balakrishnan, pasayat, bhandari ...?

it's not the ignorance that's staggering, it's the blatant refusal to see an apartheidic divide building over the years. and i'm not talking about only excitable commenters. it's like men and women, so wise and knowledgeable and sensitive on other issues, automatically switch off their minds when a fact that contradicts their flawed understanding of what the obcs and other unfortunate sections of the indian population are. obcs? prosperous, powerful, and too goddamm many- but not enough to deserve any special attention. definitely not the benevolent kind of attention, anyway.

let me end this post with an illustration of the selective blindness i've been talking about- in this post, bhupinder, talking about how and what he learnt about mandal, quotes an excerpt from an article by s.s.gill. the argument in the post and the article is almost the same- most people have failed to see mandal in its true light. let's see what mr.gill does see- here are a few other excerpts from the same article:

And who were the main beneficiaries of this provision? Only the better off among the OBCs — the so-called creamy layer — who already had access to good educational facilities and could outperform their lesser privileged peers at competitive examinations within the reserved quota. This deepened the divide among the OBCs, as those who were already at the top of their community cornered the plum jobs and those at the bottom were left further behind.

plum jobs? he goes on to say:

Of course, Article 16 (4) empowers the State to make job reservation for "any backward class citizens... not adequately represented in the services under the state". But is it anyone's case that the forward castes as a whole are not adequately represented in the services?

is he blind or what? where are the the plum jobs that were cornered, mr.gill? if the obcs' share has fallen from a tokenistic 12.5% to a dregs-at-the-bottom-of-the-glass 5%, and the dalits and the muslims together do not make up more than 20% of the plum jobs, who's been sucking up the milk and the cream, mr.gill?

gill has been a babu in the mandal commission. but it looks like, like many objective observers, he didn't see even 12.5% of the truth then, nor does he see even 5% of it now.