The Nair Service Society (NSS) has called caste-based reservation “unconstitutional” and accused political parties demanding caste census of playing vote-bank politics. “The clamour for caste-based reservation and caste census are all part of the appeasement policy adopted by various political parties yielding to the pressure tactics of caste groups that are vote banks,” it said in a statement. The NSS is an influential organisation of the Nair community, a dominant caste group in Kerala. The statement cherry-picks Supreme Court orders and parts of the Constitution to make its argument against the caste census.
Terming caste-based reservation as “unhealthy”, the NSS said, “It poses a challenge to the integrity of the country itself. The fact that reservation, which was started 10 years after independence, has not been able to achieve its goal even after 76 years, reveals its unscientific nature.”
The NSS also accused various Union and state governments of overriding Supreme Court judgements by continuing to implement reservation. It said, “The Supreme Court itself has held that caste reservation is violative of Article 15(1) of the Constitution of India.” Article 15(1) states that the “State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.”
It is to be noted that NSS does not mention Article 15 (4) of the Constitution, which states that the “State is permitted to make any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.”
The NSS made these remarks in a statement signed by its general secretary G Sukumaran Nair, issued on Tuesday, October 10. The statement came a day after the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution welcoming the caste survey conducted in Bihar. “The disparity between representation and share in population revealed by the final figures of the survey highlights the urgent need to take effective steps to ensure social justice,” the CWC noted, promising that a government led by it will “conduct a nationwide caste census as part of the normal decadal Census which was due in 2021.”
The CWC said that a nationwide caste census will “reveal an accurate picture of the socio-economic position of communities across the country and provide a sound, data-driven basis for policies to strengthen the foundations of social justice and ensure inclusive development.”
Countering this, the NSS statement claimed, “Reservation, which did not exist when the Constitution came into force and was later implemented through constitutional amendment, does not say that backwardness is on the basis of caste. Even Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as enshrined in the Constitution are not based on caste, religion, creed, custom or tradition. But why is the argument for caste-based reservation gaining strength and being nurtured by political parties? It is clear that vote politics is behind it.”
This argument of the NSS too is factually incorrect, as Article 341 (1) of the Constitution states that the “President may … specify the castes, races or tribes, or parts of or groups within castes, races or tribes, which shall … be deemed to be Scheduled Castes.”
The NSS also claimed that caste-based reservation is the reason why reserved castes and non-reserved castes have become “mutual enemies''. The NSS’s solution to this is simplistic and unrealistic— end caste-based reservation and “introduce a beautiful alternative system that sees everyone as equal regardless of caste and religion.”