‘Boatmen’ row suggests end of OBC sub-division in UP

NEW DELHI: The UP government’s decision to include 17 OBC castes of ‘boatmen’ in the Scheduled Caste list seems to suggest that the BJP-ruled state may have junked its plan for sub-categorisation of the backward castes list.
Amid political brouhaha, the Centre last week took the step of censuring the state in Parliament by calling its move “unconstitutional”.But the principal question remains as to what made the state virtually amend the SC list that is the exclusive domain of the Centre. The 17 castes fall in the informal bracket of ‘Most Backward Castes’ among the OBCs and would be the prime beneficiary of sub-categorisation of OBCs.
UP had set up a committee on sub-division of backwards and the panel submitted its report a few months ago.
The 17 castes are Mallah, Kashyap, Kumhar, Dheemar, Bind, Prajapati, Dheevar, Bhar, Kewat, Batham, Kahar, Machhua, Rajbhar, Nishad, Turha, Manjhi and Gaudia.
Sub-categorisation is designed to meet the demand for equitable distribution of reservation benefits. Under this scheme, the OBC list is divided into groups of castes according to their socio-economic status and the 27% Mandal quota is apportioned among them in proportion to their share in the backward population.
The ‘boatmen’ MBCs have not benefited from affirmative action because they are unable to compete against the strong backward castes for the same 27% Mandal quota pie.
Experts argued that if UP wanted to help the MBCs, it should have taken the sub-categorisation route. That it has not done so appears to suggest that the BJP regime may have junked the proposal it had announced with much fanfare after the Adityanath government took office two years ago.
The case of ‘boatmen/machhua’ castes is an old one, with SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav having tried to include them in the SC list twice during his governments in 2005 and in 2017 when his son Akhilesh Yadav was CM.
While the Centre blocked the move in 2006, it was struck down by the high court the second time. Interestingly, the Registrar General of India rejected UP’s proposal in 2005, contending that the 17 castes did not pass the test of “untouchability” that is indispensable for a community to be declared as SC.
Later, the state submitted a research report on the 17 castes to bolster its case. However, the RGI again rejected the proposal, concluding that the study done by UP did not establish untouchability among these communities.