In 2006 following BJP ideologue Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi’s providentially aborted move to pack the boards of the IITs two years earlier, his successor Union HRD minister Arjun Singh proposed an additional 27 percent quota (i.e in addition to the reserved quota of 22.5 percent for scheduled castes and tribes) for OBCs (other backward castes) as recommended by the long-forgotten Mandal Commission Report (1980) in all Central government-funded universities and institutes including the IITs. Excerpts from the EducationWorld coverage of the issue at the time (May, 2006 and May, 2008).

“On April 5 (2006), Union human resource development (aka education) minister Arjun Singh — often described as India’s perpetual prime minister in waiting — grabbed headlines and prime-time coverage in the national media with a bombshell announcement that the 17-party coalition United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre has approved his ministry’s proposal to reserve an additional 27 percent of capacity in all Central government-promoted universities and institutes (JNU, IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, etc) for OBC (other backward castes) students. “The decision was taken by the prime minister and the cabinet. Parliament has passed a law; we are implementing it,” Singh told a television news channel.

• Now as five states prepare to go to the polls in April-May, Arjun Singh has suddenly invoked the Supreme Court’s judgement in Indira Sawhney vs. Union of India (AIR 1993 SC 477) to justify reservation for OBCs (within the total 50 percent ceiling imposed by the apex court) in Central government institutions of tertiary education. Hence the gathering storm in middle class India for whom the open merit quota will be reduced from 77.5 to 50.5 percent, if the proposal is accepted by Parliament.

• “Such political opportunism masquerading as social concern deserves to be strongly attacked because it has the potential to greatly undermine even the modest gains made in higher education in India. Instead of helping the institutions of excellence to grow and compete with the best in the world, the political class has just transferred upon them the burden of its own failure to deliver good quality education to all children at the primary and secondary level,” comments the Indian Express editorially (April 17).

“It is mistimed in the sense that after 12 years of bad education, you want to help the student get into a centre of excellence. He or she needs help at the beginning and during schooling. Do something there,” adds Dr. P.V. Indiresan, former director IIT-Madras.

• On April 10 (2008), one of Arjun Singh’s master strategies — to win the support of OBCs (other backward classes/castes), a massive segment of the country’s population whose vote bank is estimated at 200 million citizens — paid off spectacularly. Delivering its long-awaited verdict in Ashoka Kumar Thakur vs. Union of India & Ors (Writ Petition (civil) 265 of 2006), a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and comprising Justices R. Raveendran, Dr.Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakker and Dalveer Bhandari, approved the 93rd Amendment to the Constitution of India and the consequential Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006. This enabling legislation (engineered by Arjun Singh) reserves an additional (i.e in addition to the 22.5 percent reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) 27 percent of seats in all of the country’s 85 Central government-promoted institutions of higher education for OBC students.”