Do caste reservations still serve their purpose?

Reservations are quotas in public education, government employment, and legislatures for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, with a newer 10% category for the economically weaker sections (EWS). The debate is not usually about abolishing them but about whether they still reach the most disadvantaged, how long they should last, and on what basis: caste, class, or both.

The principle predates Independence: the 1932 Poona Pact between Gandhi and Ambedkar secured reserved legislative seats for depressed classes. The Constitution embedded reservations for SCs and STs (Articles 15 and 16). The Mandal Commission's recommendation of 27% OBC reservation, implemented in 1990, set off the violent anti-Mandal agitation.

In Indra Sawhney (1992) the Supreme Court upheld OBC quotas but capped total reservation at 50% and introduced the 'creamy layer' exclusion. The 103rd Amendment (2019) added 10% EWS reservation on purely economic grounds, breaching both the 50% cap and the caste-based logic, and in 2024 the Court allowed states to sub-categorise SCs to better target the worst-off.

• Caste discrimination remains measurable in jobs, housing, and marriage; representation in institutions does not happen automatically.
• Reservations have visibly diversified the bureaucracy, universities, and politics over two generations.
• Demands for a caste census reflect how little hard data exists on who actually benefits.

• A 'creamy layer' within reserved groups may capture most benefits, leaving the poorest behind.
• Critics argue quotas entrench caste identity rather than dissolving it, and raise merit concerns in elite institutions.
• The EWS quota suggests a drift toward economic criteria that sits awkwardly with the original anti-discrimination rationale.

Affirmative action exists worldwide but rarely as entrenched as India's. The United States used race-conscious university admissions until the Supreme Court struck them down in 2023 (Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard). Malaysia's bumiputera policy favours the Malay majority, and South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment targets the post-apartheid majority. India is unusual in reserving on the basis of birth-group within a single society and in writing the policy directly into its Constitution.

There is broad cross-party consensus on retaining reservations; opposing them outright is politically costly. The live fights are over a caste census, sub-categorisation, extending quotas to the private sector and judiciary, and whether the 50% cap should hold.

Strong support for caste-based redistribution reads on the Tradition axis as a progressive, social-justice stance; opposition framed around merit or economic-only criteria reads as more conservative. It also touches the Economy axis through its redistributive logic.