Signs of the reservation system running aground are coming into plain sight with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s outlandish and unworkable suggestion favouring quotas for various castes in proportion to their respective share in the population. It recalls the divisive idea of separate electorates – minorities voting their own representatives separately – that threatened to come into vogue during the British Raj. Already, Jats are on the warpath in UP demanding a separate quota for themselves, unhappy with the 10% forward quota.

In time, more caste groups are certain to echo the Jats. Meanwhile, the caste census demand is gaining strength given the OBC grouse – articulated by RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Apna Dal’s Anupriya Patel and Nitish – that OBC quota is disproportionate to their population. Having built political capital around their success in getting VP Singh to implement the Mandal Commission report, the forward quota has given contemporary socialists just the opening to push for Mandal 2.0.

Meanwhile, the Justice G Rohini Commission on sub-categorisation of OBCs that may identify dominant groups cornering a larger share of OBC quotas has been conveniently given time until May 31, past the Lok Sabha elections, to submit its report. What was this government’s political tack becomes the next one’s cross to bear. Amid political obsession with carving up the finite employment and education pool, the pressing task of upgrading universities to meet global standards and creating new jobs remains unaddressed. A new education financing model, offering scholarships and loans at nominal interest rates, and meeting twin aims of access to higher education and preserving financial autonomy for universities, must replace quotas. That is, if the quota system doesn’t break India first. The precedent of 1991 where crisis became the harbinger of economic reforms raises hope.