The closing gambit

The Modi government produced a political rabbit just when things went wrong in the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The Bill to amend the Constitution for providing 10 per cent quota to economically backward among the open competition category infringes on no other section’s interests (except perhaps the urban middle class) and will serve to re-coagulate that core BJP support base which may have been disillusioned because of the Modi government’s capacity and constitutional limitations in job generation and building a Ram temple, respectively.

Ideally, the principle of caste should be completely forsaken in favour of helping the poor of all communities. But the manner in which society has shaped in India over the past 3,000 years made the framers of the Constitution decide that removing social backwardness took precedence over poverty — both often coterminous — in furthering equality in society. By this move, the BJP has tried to harness the upper-class angst over the sidestepping of the poverty criteria in reservation. As Bhupinder Singh Hooda realised in Haryana, PM Modi cannot rest on his oars by getting the Bill cleared through both Houses. In fact, expectations from the Prime Minister as the nation’s principal chief executive will be higher.

Modi’s credibility will be tested on how he makes the Bill into an implementable law since the courts had struck down an earlier attempt by the Narasimha Rao government. This means getting at least half the states to ratify amendments to Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution. By then, the danger is that countervailing forces will gather momentum. Already there are voices opposing the ‘quota within quota’. The Modi government is taking a political risk by reopening the quota genie. It will not take long for the parties that are now reflexively backing 10 per cent reservation to begin painting the Centre as anti-backward. The first challenge will be to deliver on the promise of a quota. And the second will be to ensure the BJP doesn’t get tarred as an upper-caste party. PM Modi needs another quota trick up his sleeve.