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The Bihar government recently decided to provide 50% reservation in subordinate judiciary — 21% to extremely backward classes, 16% to scheduled castes, 12% to OBCs and 1% to STs. There would be horizontal reservation of 35% for women and 1% for differently abled persons in all categories.By introducing reservation in judiciary after consulting the Patna high court and Bihar Public Service Commission, the Nitish Kumar government has removed the basic objections of the Supreme Court, which on March 14, 2000 had quashed Bihar Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services (for SCs, STs and OBCs) Act, 1991[State of Bihar Vs Bal Mukund Sah].The 1991 law had mandated reservation in judicial officers jobs up to 14% for SCs, 10% for STs, 12% for extremely backward classes, 8% for OBCs, 3% for economically backward women and 3% for economically backward. When India attained independence, the focus was to take the country towards an egalitarian society, a society that does not create castebased barriers. The Constitution abolished untouchability and provided reservation to backward classes ( SCs and STs ) who had been neglected by the society for centuries.For last 70 years, we saw political parties increasingly focusing on building caste-based vote banks. The Constituent Assembly in 1949 had pregnant discussions on reservations for backward classes in government jobs . Many members expressed apprehension about misuse of the term 'backward' without it being defined in the Constitution itself.H N Kunzru had said: "whether any class is backward or not should not be left to the law courts to decide. It is our duty to define the term." T T Krishnamachary had said: 'It does not apply to a backward caste... It says class. It is a class which is based on grounds of economic status or on grounds of literacy or on ground of birth?" Parties have forgotten class and replaced the word with caste over the decades.B R Ambedkar, as chairman of the drafting committee, had said: "We have to safeguard two things, namely, the principle of equality of opportunity and at the same time satisfy the demand of communireties which have not had so far representation in the state, then, I am sure they will agree that unless you use some such qualifying phrase as 'backward' the exception made in favour of reservation will ultimately eat up the rule altogether. Nothing of the rule will remain."Seventy years in the life of a country is a reasonable time to reap results of the ideas expressed by stalwarts of independence struggle in the Constituent Assembly which got concretised in the Constitution. We have achieved a lot. But, the caste system continues to torment the country.Irrespective of their ideology, political parties have failed to chalk out a strategy to put an expiry date on the system of reservation that alone would signal that India has become a caste-less society. As of now, nothing has changed since the Constitution came into force on January 26, 1950. Caste continues to be the sole identification factor for backwardness.The Constituent Assembly rejected the proposal to reserve constituencies for minority community.But, it provided for reservation of seats for the SCs and STs in the legislature for 10 years. After the expiry of a decade, this provision gets renewed for another 10 years to perpetuate reservation through politics. Probably this is the reason why we see there is a race among affluent communities to get branded as backward. They have spilled on to the roads in Haryana and Gujarat demanding backward status to get reservation in government jobs and admission to state-run educational institutions.The Constituent Assembly did not envisage this as a fall out of Article 16(4) that carved out an exception to the fundamental right to equal opportunity. The exception has now been perpetuated by the political class as vigorously as the caste-system was ruthlessly enforced in the dark ages. The report of the first Backward Class Commission headed by Kaka Kalelkar on March 30, 1955 had talked of reservation to socially and economically backward classes on the basis of caste hierarchy and their representation in government and industrial jobs. Immediately after submitting the report, Kalelkar had written to the President requesting its rejection saying reservation and other recommunimedies recommended on the basis of caste would not be in the interest of the society and country. Mandal commission report of December 31, 1980 had evolved 11 rough and ready indicators or criteria for determining backwardness under three major heads — social, economic and educational.The V P Singh government notified 27% reservation to backward classes (other than SCs and STs) in government jobs in September 25, 1991. This is the silver jubilee year of 27% reservation to OBCs. Have we achieved the goal of an egalitarian society? Those who were not considered backward in 1991 — Jats and Patels — are now demanding reservation.Caste has remained the identifying tool to determine backwardness. Class had lost its meaning. No scientific study has been undertaken to identify backward class. Ruling political parties neither had the will nor the resolve to do so.India has many eloquently vocal social scientists. It is time for them to sit with the political class and evolve a policy mechanism that would bring about a caste-less egalitarian society where equal opportunity would be an unqualified fundamental right.