Say "NO" To All Reservations

Curfew has been imposed in Hisar, Haryana, just 250 kms from New Delhi. The reason: The Jats of this state have been violently protesting for "reservations" - what Americans call "affirmative action" - so that they have a quota of government jobs and seats in educational institutions for members of their community. Mobs of Jats have set fire to state-owned buses as well as private vehicles, including an oil tanker. They have attacked banks and ATMs, as well as police stations.

I am opposed to reservations - period.

It was Thomas Sowell's slim book Preferential Policies: An International Perspective that made up my mind for me. Sowell is an African-American scholar - one whose other books also have had a profound influence on me, particularly A Conflict of Visions: The Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. Thomas Sowell deserves to be widely studied by all serious students of Liberty.

In Preferential Policies, Sowell looks at discriminatory policies of all kinds, all over the world, from apartheid in South Africa, to anti-Tamil policies in Sri Lanka, to bumiputra policies in Malaysia favouring native Malays vis-à-vis the ethnic Chinese who possess superior entrepreneurial skills, all the way down to our own "reservations" for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. His penetrating analysis shows how such policies have divided nations and produced enormous strife. Sowell, I emphasise, is a black in America, arguing against "affirmative action." A very rare kind of scholar, indeed. Unfortunately, my copy of the book is not with me right now, or I could have produced some thundering quotes.

How do such policies harm society? Well, what they do is divide society along whatever cleavages already exist. They do not unite society. They tell members of certain targeted groups to organise themselves and take the political road to securing their economic future. Politicians gain; society loses. And we in India well know the harm that caste politics has done to us.

What is the other way?

The other way is The Market. If anyone wants to improve his economic position, then The Market should be the only arena open to him - not politics. There must be no "politicisation of economic life" - a term Peter Bauer often used to describe conditions in socialist India.

As far as government jobs are concerned, they are NOT a means of promoting "welfare." Rather, the government exists to provide specific services, for which it must recruit the best talent available - just as private firms do.

With reservations, we get second-rate civil servants, second-rate doctors, second-rate engineers and so on.

Anyway, the beneficiaries of such policies are always the top layer of these disadvantaged groups - never the really poor. In a free economy, there are greater chances for EVERYONE to improve his lot - as Dalits have found since "liberalisation" began in India in 1991. Reservations in a closed, over-regulated economy are pure poison.

As always, violence of this kind underlines the fact that a free society is best off when legislation is not used on it, when "private law" prevails, and when the government is "policy-less." In such a society, everyone knows that the path to social and economic success lies in hard work - not politics.

In my view, these Jats of Hisar are guilty of arson - and should be prosecuted.

Caste, Cyclones And Petty Politics

I enjoyed Barun Mitra's article on caste in Mint today. He hits the hammer on the nail when he says:

As time goes on, economic growth is eroding strong caste distinctions. Indians who want to escape restrictive social customs in their villages can find economic opportunities and upward mobility in cities. Urbanization has also provided an opportunity to remain anonymous in a sea of humanity, in contrast to small towns or villages where it was easy for residents to know each other’s ancestry and caste.

He is equally forthright when it comes to condemning those politicians who are calling for a caste census:

Thus, the only people who would advocate a caste census would be the people who personally benefit from it: namely, politicians who depend on identity politics to win votes. They hail from mostly smaller parties such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar or the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Marginalized from the halls of power, they think a caste census could facilitate the flow of more money and affirmative action programmes to their political constituencies.

His conclusion rams the point home:

India’s politicians face a clear choice: They can side with the old social order and try to secure their own political future through patronage or they can discard it, like the rest of the country is doing. Indians are on the move and their many identities are becoming optional. It is the politicians who are in danger of being left behind, exposing the true nature of their own identities.

Which brings me to the cyclone that is to hit the East Coast today. Already, 12 people have died. Many more deaths and much more damage is expected - especially to the shacks that poor people on the coast call homes.

Why should the coast be poor? If there was free trade, coastal areas would be rich. There would be solid buildings to take refuge in when cyclones hit - as in Hong Kong, where residents are advised to sit in the bars and while away the time till the typhoon abates.

Thus, as with caste, so with cyclones - it all boils down to petty politics. This is the petty politics of reservations and protection. Both must go.