Paradoxical Reality of Reservations
Generations of reservations for backward classes have prepared the base for Tina Dabi and Kanishak Kataria from the Dalit community to top the highly competitive and prestigious civil services exams. About one-fourth (24 per cent) of our popularly elected House, the Lok Sabha, is filled with Scheduled Caste (84) and Scheduled Tribe (47) members out of 543 seats. Today, the President of India, Smt. Draupadi Murmu, belongs to a tribal community from the state of Odisha.
Paradoxically, from the very state of Odisha where our President hails from, a 23-year-old Sarmista Sethi, appointed as a helper-cum-cook in an Anganwadi Centre, faced discrimination when parents did not send their children to the Centre to eat food cooked by a Dalit (November 2025). Contrastingly, Aditi Mishra (Gorakhpur, 2025), a JEE aspirant, and two NEET aspirants from Jagityal and Adilabad of Telangana State (May 2025) died by suicide for not reaching the high General category cut-offs.
The paradox of caste discrimination finding solace in reservations has only perpetuated the caste system, while the fact that poverty has no caste remains a stark reality.
What 76 Years of Reservations (Positive Discrimination) Have Achieved: Social, Political & Economic Inclusion Decades of constitutional protection, coupled with dedicated and targeted expenditure on social infrastructure in backward areas, along with quotas in education and public employment, have produced significant transformations amongst the backward and marginalised communities of India.
1. Access to Higher Education
The criteria of lower cut-off marks, dedicated seats, etc., in premier institutions have given entry to thousands of SC & ST students into premier educational institutions and government universities across the country.
2. Improved Employment
Quotas for recruitment into the public sector have boosted employment and promotions after employment to the disadvantaged communities.
3. Infrastructural Upliftment Leading to Social Inclusion
Public spending and investments in backward areas and inaccessible tribal areas on infrastructure have led to better access to healthcare, schools and commercial markets.
4. Economic Inclusion
Several state welfare programmes and large-scale banking and financial initiatives have helped these marginalised sections to get economically integrated with mainstream society.
5. Political Empowerment
Guaranteed representation to SCs, STs and women in Parliament, State Legislative Assemblies and local bodies, both Panchayats and Municipalities, has resulted in political inclusion.
6. A New Middle Class Within the Backward Classes
All the above have created a new middle class, often referred to as the creamy layer, within the backward classes. This section is economically and socially stronger than before.
Flipside of the Coin: General Category Strain
The evolution of the reservation and quota system in employment has left its own impact on the rest of the population, which does not enjoy reservation. My analysis has led to these observations:
1. Reduced Educational Access
With the inclusion of OBC reservations along with traditional SC and ST reservations, the percentage of seats left in the open category has become severely restricted to as low as 30% or even less. This has intensified unhealthy competition and clamouring for the limited seats among open-category applicants.
2. Spike in Student Distress
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB – 2024) reveals 15,448 student suicides in that one year. In this number, around 2,000 to 2,500 cases (around 14 to 15 per cent) have been due to academic failure – a natural corollary of the above point.
3. Flight of Merit (Snubbing of Meritocracy)
Meritorious youth have started moving abroad for studies and employment due to the difficult atmosphere created in India due to reservations.
A case in point is Tamil Nadu. Here, reservations of various categories have come up to 69 per cent. Initially, the meritorious OCs shifted to employment in other states, especially through competitive exams, and later on to the West for both studies and employment.
4. Demotivated Workforce in Public Institutions
The quota system in recruitment and subsequently in promotions has affected the morale of non-reserved category employees in public sector institutions, resulting in poor motivation.
5. Emergence of a ‘New Class of Poor Amongst the General Category’
General social factors like fragmentation of land holdings, economic re-organisation and mobility through reservations have given rise to a financially deprived class within the General category.
6. Claiming Reservation After Religious Conversion
Individuals from reserved castes convert into religions that doctrinally reject caste, such as Christianity and Islam. Despite the conversion, these individuals continue to claim reserved category status – adding to the distress.
Factors Abetting Reverse Discrimination
1. Disproportionate Government Spending on Reserved Category Welfare
Improved focus on routing Government spending into SC & ST welfare. In 1998, the Vajpayee administration renamed the Ministry of Welfare as the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to sharpen the focus on marginalised groups (SC, OBC, LGBT, disabled, and elderly). Subsequently, in October 1999, an independent Ministry of Tribal Affairs was established.
Fiscal Breakdown (FY 2026-27 Budget Outlay: ₹53.5 Lakh Crore)
| Category / Sector | Allocation Details | Share of Budget Expenditure |
| SC Welfare Allocations | ₹1,96,400 Cr (General) + ₹75,077 Cr (Targeted) | 3.37% |
| ST Welfare Allocations | ₹1,41,089 Cr (General) + ₹62,093 Cr (Targeted) | 2.64% |
| Ministry of Education | Direct Union Allocation: ₹1,39,500 Crore | 2.60% |
Central outlays for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe welfare schemes together amount to 6.01% of total national spending (₹3.21 Lakh Crore).
Comparing this to the overall spend on the Education Ministry (2.60%), we can see how the scales of Government spending are tipped.
2. Politicisation of Caste
Over the years, both the Centre and states have tried to endear themselves to the reserved and other backward categories of the population through enhancement and perpetuation of reservations and quotas.
The states of Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Rajasthan and Jharkhand have more than 60 per cent of reserved seats in educational institutions. The downward revision of these reservations necessarily means the wrath of these populations. Fearing unrest and loss of power, vote-bank politics have won the day. Addressing the Distress of Positive Discrimination: Fight for Substantive Equality & Response of Judiciary
Arguments for a creamy layer
Over the years, the judiciary has played a role in trying to evolve a more substantive definition of equality in the face of caste politicisation. Apart from the basic Articles safeguarding and dealing with SC, ST, OBC and EBC reservations, time and again, the Supreme Court came in to accommodate the growing distress arising from the perpetuation of caste-based reservations.
As early as 1975, Justice Krishna Iyer (State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas, 1975) warned that the benefits of reservation are often “snatched away by the top creamy layer of the backward class, thus keeping the weak always weak and leaving the fortunate layers to consume the whole cake.”
To bring about substantive equality, the Government took action after the Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) landmark case, acting upon the creamy layer criteria, though restricted only to Other Backwards Classes (OBC) reservations and not to SC or ST reservations.
Indra Sawhney vs Union of India: Key Takeaways
Excluding creamy layer: a) it opined that wealthy and socially advanced individuals within the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) must be excluded, so that help reaches the truly needy. A cap of 50 per cent was set for overall reservations.
E V Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh (2004)
The Supreme Court opined that Scheduled Castes (SCs) form a single homogeneous class under Article 341; therefore, states lack the power to sub-classify the SCs and STs.
State of Punjab vs Davinder Singh (August 2024)
A larger seven-judge bench overruled the above judgment. The bench opined that both “CLASS AND CASTE ARE DYNAMIC.” It held that states can now constitutionally sub-classify SCs and STs based on quantifiable data to uplift the most backward communities within those groups, thereby extending the creamy layer principle to SCs and STs.
As late as February 2026, the Supreme Court directed the Union Government to submit an affidavit along with an “Action Taken Report” on sub-classification for reservation and the application of the “Creamy Layer” principle within SC and ST categories.
Has Social Justice Been Achieved?
According to Dr Ambedkar’s 1948 debates, backwardness caused by centuries of discrimination would not vanish easily. He believed that reservations should continue until these marginalised groups reached an equal footing with other forward classes in society.
The 10-year rule under Article 334 applies to SC and ST reservations in legislatures (political reservations) and not to jobs or education. However, these have been continuously extended over the years.
In actuality, these marginalised groups face discrimination in many forms even today:
- Social segregation in rural schools within classrooms and otherwise is prevalent in many states;
- peer mockery as freeloaders and non-meritorious students is commonly noticed in apex institutions;
- non-acceptance of SC employees in rural schools as cooks and ayahs, with many cases exposed in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Odisha recently;
- subtle cultural exclusion by upper castes in various socio-economic settings; and
- the existence of Khap Panchayats (community-based councils) perpetuating caste rigidities is an example of constitutional safeguards not reaching their goal.
Reforming Reservations
Modified positive discrimination (continuance of reservations) and acknowledging the distress of the General category should be the priority of the respective Union and State Governments.
a) To resolve this tension, an amicable solution should be arrived at. A few suggestions in this direction:
- Creamy Layer to be Extended to SC/ST Quotas Through an Operational Framework
As recommended in the State of Punjab vs Davinder Singh (2024), applying income criteria and tracking generational use of the reservations within SC/ST quotas will help distribute benefits more evenly. Families that have utilised reservation benefits across two consecutive generations or those with high-income brackets should voluntarily surrender their reserved status so that a needy first-generation user in their own community can avail of the reservation privilege.
b) Strict Sub-Classification
States should look into the establishment of specific ‘Commissions or Bodies’ to analyse the data on sub-castes within the backward communities at a micro level, arriving at the severely marginalised groups in dire need of reservation support.
A time period of 5 or 10 years should be set up to track upward movement of these sub-castes. Those who have gained advantage should be systematically excluded from reservation, such calculation being done on the basis of consensual socio-economic parameters.
c) Strict Enforcement of Conversion-Based Exclusion
The Chinthada Anand v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2026 INSC 283) case ruled that reserved status is automatically and immediately lost upon conversion to a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism. This needs to be emulated across all states via rigorous verification at the point of certificate issuance, promotion, and admission. This would ensure that quota benefits are not claimed by individuals who have exited the very social disability the reservation was designed to remedy.
d) Rightful Entry Into Higher Education
Creating new indices like the Multi-Factor Deprivation Index (MFDI), which can accommodate various factors to weed out the undeserving from the needy.
Such an index can technically target support to the specifically disadvantaged candidate and cut down on an urban elite candidate (with more resources) from becoming a competition within his own community.
5) National Education Policy
The National Education Policy must concentrate on the expansion of quality academic seats. The major distress of general category students stems from limited seats in the General category, leading to high cut-offs in competitive exams. If the central government can concentrate on bringing the spending on the education sector to 6% of GDP, as envisaged by NEP, increasing the number of premier institutes like IIMs, IITs, AIIMS, etc., and the seats therein can be easily achieved. This will go a long way in easing student distress.
Conclusion
Social inequality is a scourge and dampens the development of a country. Correcting it through constitutional provisions of reservations, thereby erasing discrimination, is unquestionable. However, lopsided social stratification should not be the outcome of the fight against inequality. It negates the very tenet on which reservations were proposed – erasing divisions within society.
Preserving the mental health of our youth and checking the flight of merit are also the need of the hour.
Dr Ambedkar’s vision of social justice, while also preserving merit and opportunity for all, can still be realised through enhanced public outlays on educational infrastructure, administrative compliance for strict sub-classification of reserved categories, and political commitment to exclude groups based on technical indices like the MFDI.
