People's Democracy

Caste Bias of India Inc Exposed, Will the Government Act?

G Mamatha

THE UPA-I government in its Common Minimum Programme in 2004 had promised to provide reservations for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the private sector. Even after six years, it has failed to implement its promise, which betrays a lack of political will in providing social justice.

Last week, there were reports in the newspapers that the leaders of the corporate houses have categorically rejected the idea of reservations in the private sector and have conveyed the same to the prime minister’s office. The Indian Express dated September 27 carried a report under the heading, ‘India Inc to PMO: Can't Reserve Jobs, Hurts Merit,’ which said Corporate India, led by the presidents of the country’s three biggest industry lobbies, CII, FICCI and Assocham, have told the prime minister’s office that they will not be able to reserve five per cent jobs for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The corporate chiefs rejected the idea of reservations because they do not want any interference of the government in their affairs, including the hiring process and procedures. These champions of the neo-liberal policies want the government to abdicate all its responsibilities towards the people. But, they have no shame in demanding the government to act pro-actively in their favour, be it from rescuing them from the recent crisis, offering bail-out packages or doling out ‘incentives’!

The industrial houses that have immensely benefited from the 'reservations' provided to them in the name of protection by the government are arguing against reservations now. They do not think twice when demanding incentives and tax holidays in their competition with foreign players in the ‘market’ even in this era of ‘globalisation’. For them, this is the level playing field, but the same is not true for the unprivileged sections of our society who genuinely need reservations and government support. Irony can never get better.

The corporate leaders say they will voluntarily do the needful for providing employment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and they should not be bound by reservations. But, as various studies show, caste based discrimination exists in the private sector hiring process. The results of field experiments and studies published in Blocked by caste: Economic Discrimination in Modern India, edited by Sukhadeo Thorat and Katherine S Newman found that low caste applicants who are equally or better qualified than higher caste applicants are significantly less likely to pass through hiring screens among private employers in the modern formal sector in India. In an interview based study of human resource managers responsible for hiring practises in 25 Indian firms, it was found that managers bring to the hiring processes a set of stereotypes that makes it difficult for low caste applicants to succeed in the competition for jobs. They face attitudinal barriers that subject them to negative stereotypes that may overwhelm their formal accomplishments in the eyes of employers.

The study says, “The empirical evidence presented contends that discrimination is not merely a problem of the past or an incidental force creating inequality, but an active agent in the growing gaps between those at the top and those at the bottom of the Indian society. It unfolds the role that systemic discrimination plays to explain low and high caste gaps in educational attainment, occupational segregation, access to capital assets and employment, and income polarisation. It provides the evidence of discrimination – induced / linked deprivation and poverty of the excluded social groups.”

“People who hold privileged positions within large organisations develop a sense that a certain kind of person is especially effective in their roles, leading many managers to favour potential recruits who are socially similar to themselves, a process that has termed been termed as ‘homosocial reproduction’. Conversely, employers hold stereotypes about certain out-groups as being unsuitable for an employment…. A person’s social networks prove important for finding jobs at the professional end and at a blue-collar end of the labour market, because social networks often run along status group lines, sponsoring people who are like us.” Therefore, unless it is legally enacted to provide job reservations for the SC/STs in the private sector, no matter what the good intentions and voluntary efforts are, they will not actually be implemented in practise.

The corporate leaders while refusing to implementing reservations have also spelt out that these would effect competitiveness and endanger merit. As pointed out in the earlier study, “The belief in merit is only sometimes accompanied by a truly ‘caste blind’ orientation. Instead, we see the commitment to merit voiced alongside convictions that merit is distributed by caste or region, and, hence, the qualities of individuals fade from view, replaced by stereotypes that, at best, will make it harder for a highly qualified low-caste job applicant to gain recognition for his/her skills and accomplishments. At worst, they will be excluded simply by virtue of birthright. Under these circumstances, one must take the profession of deep belief in meritocracy with a heavy dose of salt.”

It suggested that anti-discrimination law is required to insist on the actual implementation of caste-blind policies of meritocratic hiring and question the common and accepted practices of assessing family background as a hiring qualification, for it may amount to another way of discovering caste.

The study also questions how merit is produced in the first place. It says, “The distribution of credentials, particularly in the form of education, is hardly a function of individual talent alone. It reflects differential investment in public schools, health care, nutrition, and the like. Institutional discrimination of this kind sets up millions of low-caste Indians for a lifetime of poverty and disadvantage. As long as the playing field is this tilted, there can be no real meaning to meritocracy conceived of as a fair tournament.”

Merit makes little sense in a society based on the inheritance of private property, and privilege related to birth. Logically, merit is at best a measure of an individual's movement from a given starting-point to an end-point within a definite trajectory. And as Lyndon Johnson, in a famous speech in 1965 that laid the foundations for the Affirmative Action in US says, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains, bring him to the starting line in a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all others'. It is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates”, until the day that institutional investments are fairly distributed, policy alternatives will be needed to ensure the upliftment of the downtrodden and marginalised sections of our society.

It is noteworthy that many universities that are globally rated highly - and only two Indian institutions rank among the world's top 500, according to a Shanghai University survey - consciously promote a diverse mix of cultures, languages and social and ethnic backgrounds through aggressive affirmative action.. They admit students not because they are "bright", but because they are "interesting" and can contribute to diversity. Diversity has not lowered the ranks of Harvard, Oxford, the Sorbonne or London School of Economics. Thirty-seven per cent of Harvard's students are people of colour.

Therefore, India Inc must be made to realise that providing reservations to the marginalised sections will not hurt them, but on the contrary, will add to the enrichment of their work output and experience.

The UPA government makes a lot of noise about inclusive growth. It must realise that growth with inclusiveness requires a concerted effort, backed by legal protection against caste based discrimination in the form of law, and specific legal measures to implement reservations for the SC/STs in private sector and remove the barriers that prejudice generates on a daily basis for the majority of people in this country. These interim relief measures should be of course, followed by strengthening the public sector, ensuring job security and implementing land reforms.