Reservation Policy in India, Explained

Reservation is India's system of quotas that sets aside a share of seats in public education, government jobs, and elected bodies for groups identified as historically disadvantaged: Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), and, since 2019, the economically weaker sections (EWS). It is a form of constitutionally mandated affirmative action.

The roots lie in pre-Independence measures, including the 1932 Poona Pact securing reserved seats for depressed classes. The Constitution provided reservations for SCs and STs through Articles 15 and 16. The Mandal Commission report, implemented in 1990, extended 27% reservation to OBCs and reshaped national politics.

The Supreme Court's Indra Sawhney judgment (1992) upheld OBC quotas, capped total reservation at 50%, and excluded the better-off 'creamy layer'. The 103rd Amendment (2019) added a 10% EWS quota on economic grounds, and a 2024 ruling permitted states to sub-categorise SCs to target the most deprived among them.

Central reservations stand at roughly 15% (SC), 7.5% (ST), and 27% (OBC), plus 10% EWS, pushing the total past the old 50% ceiling, which is itself under challenge. Live policy fights include demands for a nationwide caste census, extending reservation to the private sector and judiciary, and how to implement SC sub-categorisation.

• Supporters point to persistent caste discrimination and the visible diversification of institutions over two generations.
• Critics argue benefits are captured by a creamy layer, that quotas entrench caste identity, and that the EWS category signals a drift toward economic criteria.

Affirmative action exists globally but rarely as entrenched as India's. The United States ended race-conscious college admissions in 2023; Malaysia favours its Malay majority through the bumiputera policy; South Africa pursues Black Economic Empowerment. India stands out for reserving by birth-group within one society and writing the policy into its Constitution.

Reservation connects to the caste-census debate, the merit-versus-representation argument in education, and broader questions of redistribution and federalism, since states run their own reservation regimes alongside the central one.