Recently, the All India Federation of OBC Employees Welfare Association, a body representing the OBC community released a report in regard to the annually conducted medical entrance exam NEET. The report pointed out that 11,027 NEET aspirants from the OBC community were deprived of the admission process in the last four years because of the BJP Government’s dillydallying implementation of OBC reservations. This expose brought back the debate surrounding the Brahmanical nature of present Government and its repeated attack upon reservation and undermining of social justice since it came to power in 2014.
This particular case of NEET exam should not be seen in isolation from other incidents of attack upon social justice, which includes the introduction of EWS quota or the recent decision by Supreme Court which absolved the State from implementing reservation in appointment and promotion to public posts. Previously the Supreme Court had absolved itself from any responsibility of directing states to reserve jobs of positions for SC and ST community. Every time the BJP government pushes any anti-reservation policy, it is criticized for its Brahminical nature, and rightly so. It is true that the character of BJP government is Brahminical. Destroying reservation in Higher education and employment is one of the topmost priority for the Hindutva family. Top Hindutva leaders have repeatedly expressed their disdain for the system of reservation and have called for ending it, which they perceive as ‘injustice towards the upper-caste’.
3. The current version of Identity politics might save principle of reservation and representation in the political-electoral sphere, but it will certainly not be able to save and ensure social justice because neo-liberalism has become common sense across mainstream parties and politicians and the parliament is slowly but steadily abandoning its control over economic sphere.
But, this sustained attack on the system of reservation cannot be simply understood as an outcome of Brahminical ideology. We will also have to take into consideration the economic ideology/rationality which has become the guiding principle for organizing and imagining society in present times, that is, Neo-liberalism. It must be acknowledged that the principle and politics of Social Justice, of which reservation is just a part, has been under attack not only in India but globally which can be traced back to the early 1980’s.
