Affirmative Action In India

Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh says the UPA will be quick to implement the law that gives members of Other Backward Castes (OBC) 27% of seats in elite public education institutions like IIT and IIM after the Supreme Court ruled the law was not unconstitutional. The law is odious because it institutionalizes discrimination against another group while supposedly protecting another, but the UPA government is not stopping there:

Singh told HT that a bill to regulate admissions and fees in private educational institutions “will be taken up” once the current “priority of implementing the SC order,” is finished. “I have not moved away from it,” Singh said. He said his ministry is interacting with central institutions to implement the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act cleared by the apex court on Thursday, after excluding the creamy layer.

Forcing private institutions, who do not rely on government funding of any kind, to implement such an immoral policy is a classic example of socialist high-handiness the UPA is still known for.

Do private institution even quiz applicants on their caste? Do they even care? If the government forces them to set aside seats to OBCs, they will be forced to ask that question. This will only increase resentment, and discrimination, against OBCs by affected groups who are already shutout from public institutions.

The only good thing to come out of this (if you want to call it that) is the fact that the Supreme Court has rightly excluded members of the 'creamy layer' from the quota. Plus, the Supreme Court will reevaluate the law after five years to gauge its effectiveness.