Crème de la Crème

The mainstream society thinks reservations are against right to equality. It’s high time they are seen in the context of right to justice.

- Santosh Kiro

Supreme Court’s seven-judge constitution bench ruling on subclassification of Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Scheduled Caste (SC) categories required an exhaustive study and a report by a commission. In fact, many from the SC and ST communities felt the ruling itself should have been preceded by a database for the ready reference of the SC.

The message of the SC judgment is two-fold. First, the country should go beyond the parametres of the Constitution to ensure justice to the genuinely deprived. However, the creation of the concept of creamy layer or sub-categorisation of SCs and STs is not allowed by the Constitution. And second, the SC needs to know which sections are truly deprived. “Such a ruling of the constitution bench of the SC should have been accompanied by a proper database on the economic and social situation of the SC-ST communities. And for this, the government should have constituted a commission to study their situation and come up with an exhaustive report first,” opined Prabhakar Tirkey, the director of Jharkhand-based Centre for Tribal Studies. Jharkhand is known for its independent tribal opinions on socio-political and economic issues and has a long history of tribals fighting for their rights to political self-determination.

During the tenure of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs had prepared a draft for National Tribal Policy, which never progressed beyond. Tribal groups from across the country have been urging the present government to prepare and promulgate such a policy but no thought has been given to this serious demand yet at the government level.