Desai calls for reevaluating caste quotas in India
As incentives for government jobs become more lucrative, the percentage of individuals who identify themselves as belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC's) in India has steadily risen in recent years. Given the absence of usable data, identifying individuals who are both eligible for this category and subsequently worthy of special benefits has proved difficult.
Faculty associate Sonalde Desai, in her article for The Hindu, offers three solutions to this growing problem: 1) The inclusion of caste based questions in India's 2021 population census, 2) A re-evaluation of the eligibility of various groups for inclusion in reserved categories, particularly through an updated analysis of the relationship between caste and occupation, 3) Ensuring that the program rotates which families receive benefits, so that benefits are not concentrated among a selected few. These measures may help the reservation policy be phased out in coming decades.