15 June 2024

MAINS DAILY QUESTIONS & MODEL ANSWERS

Q1. Caste based census provides data that will help further streamline affirmative action and ensure the welfare measures reach the people who truly need it. Critically analyse.

GS II – Government Policies and Interventions

Introduction:

• Every Census in independent India from 1951 to 2011 has published data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but not on other castes. Caste Has Important Position in Indian Society, while census data has been captured for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, religions and linguistic profiles, there has been no profiling of all castes in India since 1931.
• The 2021 Census of India, the 16th Indian Census, will be taken in 2021. But the growing demands for a caste census from various sections of society have once again surfaced the issue like its immediate need and long-term repercussions.

Merits of Caste Census:

• Benefit in Policy Making: The purpose of a caste census is not merely geared to the reservation issue; a caste census would actually bring to the fore the large number of issues that any democratic country needs to attend to, particularly the number of people who are at the margins, or who are deprived, or the kind of occupations they pursue.
• A caste census, which will generate exhaustive data will allow policymakers to develop better policies, implementation strategies, and will also enable a more rational debate on sensitive issues.
• Enumerating the marginalized: A caste census would actually bring to the particular the number of people who are at the margins, or who are deprived, or the kind of occupations they pursue, or the kind of hold that institutions like caste have on them.
• Also Reveal Privileged Section of Society: Caste is not only a source of disadvantage; it is also a very important source of privilege and advantage in our society.
• We have to stop thinking of caste as being applicable to only disadvantaged people, poor people, people who are somehow lacking.
• The opposite is even truer: caste has produced advantages for certain communities, and these also need to be recorded.
• To Address Prevalent Inequalities: Unequal distribution of wealth, resources and education has meant an acute shortage of purchasing power among the majority of Indians.
• As a democratic nation, we cannot forcibly overthrow the system,but we need to address it in a democratic, scientific and objective manner.
• Constitutional Mandate: Our Constitution too favours conducting a caste census. Article 340 mandates the appointment of a commission to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes and make recommendations as to the steps that should be taken by governments.
• Caste doesn’t marginalize: We need to do away with the idea of caste being applicable to only disadvantaged people, poor people, people who are somehow lacking.
• Rids away caste rigidities: Counting of caste doesn’t necessarily perpetuate caste or the caste system. Myths of caste elitisms can be debunked through a caste census.
• To Burst the Myths: There are a lot of myths which actually deprive a large number of people, particularly on the margins.
• : In Karnataka, for a long time, there were claims that among the castes, the Lingayats are the most numerous.
• But a lot of other studies have brought out that this may not be true, and these kinds of myths lead to the argument that given that this is a caste which is numerous, it has to be constantly placated. These myths can be debunked through a caste census.
• Reduce Inclusion and Exclusion Errors: With accurate data of castes, most backward castes can be identified.
• Some have benefited so much across the years, while there are people in this country who have not benefited at all.
• The Supreme Court has time and again asked governments to provide the data related to castes; however, this has not been possible due to the non-availability of such data.
• As a result, our national life suffers from mutual mistrust and misconceptions among different castes.
• All such commissions have had to rely on data from the last caste census (1931).
• Data for Policymaking: This information is absolutely necessary for any democratic policymaking.
• Judicial backing: The courts in India have often emphatically said that it is important to have adequate data with regard to the reservation.

Associated Challenges with Caste Census:

• Repercussions of a Caste Census: Caste has an emotive element and thus there exist the political and social repercussions of a caste census.
• There have been concerns that counting caste may help solidify or harden identities.
• Due to these repercussions, nearly a decade after the SECC, a sizable amount of its data remains unreleased or released only in parts.
• Caste Is Context-specific: Caste has never been a proxy for class or deprivation in India; it constitutes a distinct kind of embedded discrimination that often transcends class. For example: People with Dalit last names are less likely to be called for job interviews even when their qualifications are better than that of an upper-caste candidate.
• They are also less likely to be accepted as tenants by landlords. Thus, difficult to measure.
• Marriage to a well- educated, well-off Dalit man still sparks violent reprisals among the families of upper-caste women every day across the country.
• 50% breach: It is argued that a Socio-Economic Caste Census is the only way to make a case to breach the 50% cap on reservation and rationalize the reservation matrix in the country.
• Rising assertiveness: More the State ignores out caste, the more is the tendency to preserve caste, protect it. This has been observed in many states.
• Chaos: Data gathering itself is a big problem because it can become very, very invasive. But we need to actually balance it with enabling people and asserting citizen equality.
• Social friction: Caste identification can lead to friction amongst various classes.

Way Forward:

• India needs to be bold and decisive in tackling caste questions through data and statistics in the way the United States (US) does to tackle race issues, by collecting data around race, class, language, inter-race marriages, among other metrics.
• This data provides a mirror to the State and society of the US in which they can see themselves and take decisions to do course corrections.
• Creation of National Data Bank: The Sachar Committee Report recommended setting up a national data bank.
• The Justice Rohini committee was appointed in 2017 to look into the sub-categorisation of the OBC communities; however, in the absence of data, there can be no databank or any proper sub-categorisation.

Conclusion:

• With every passing day and increasing social awareness, the urgency to do away with the caste system is being sharply felt. Dr. BR Ambedkar stated that if India had to attain a place of pride among the comity of nations, caste would have to be annihilated first.

• The most important thing is improving existing databases is more crucial to this than getting into the debate of whether to do a caste count or not. Accurate and timely data is central to India’s effort to tackle poverty. Poor data diminishes the efforts to design welfare programmes.

• The 21st century is the right time to solve India’s caste question, which would otherwise extract a heavy price, not just sociologically, but also politically and economically, and make us fall behind in the development index.

Q2. Global competitiveness will be increasingly determined by the quality of science and technology, which in turn will depend on dynamicity of research and development ecosystem aided by budgetary allocation. Analyse.

GS III – Science and Technology

Introduction:

• India spends only 0.66 percent of its GDP on Research and Development as per latest figures. This is below the expenditure of countries like the US (2.8), China (2.1), Israel (4.3) and Korea (4.2). A quick analysis of the allocations to various R&D organisations in the recently presented 2022-23 budget shows continued stagnation. This does not augur well for the future.
• Government expenditure, almost entirely the Central Government, is the driving force of R&D in India which is in contrast to the advanced countries where the private sector is the dominant and driving force of R&D spend.

Link between R&D vis-a-vis nation’s development and competency:

• Research and Development of new products are key drivers of economic performance and social well-being. Solutions to diseases, new technology to overcome obstacles in various sectors are hallmark of having good ecosystem.
• It is important to inculcate scientific temper among masses in order to fight superstitions, distorted truth and religious fanaticism that has been crippling India
• Innovation and technological improvement have become essential to combat and adapt to climate change and promote sustainable development.
• It is imperative for combating national security threats ranging from cyber warfare to autonomous military systems such as drones.
• Investing in research and providing adequate incentives leads to creation of jobs, especially for the pool of engineers and researchers in the society. Under the ‘Make in India’ program, the government has targeted to create 100 million jobs from the manufacturing sector by 2022.

Improving R&D ecosystem in India:

• The growth in research and development (R&D) expenditure should be commensurate with the economy’s growth and should be targeted to reach at least 2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2022.
• The line ministries at the Centre could be mandated to allocate a certain percentage of their budget for research and innovation for developing and deploying technologies as per the priorities of the respective ministries.
• To stimulate private sector’s investment in R&D from current 0.35% of GDP, it is suggested that a minimum percentage of turn-over of the company may be invested in R&D by medium and large enterprises registered in India.
• To help and keep the industry enthused to invest in R&D, the weighted deduction provisions on R&D investment should continue.
• The states can partner Centre to jointly fund research and innovation programmes through socially designed Central Sponsored Schemes (CSS).
• The report also pitched for creating 30 dedicated R&D Exports Hub and a corpus of Rs 5,000 crore for funding mega projects with cross cutting themes which are of national interest.

Conclusion:

• There is a need for greater participation of State Governments and the private sector in overall R&D spending in India especially in application-oriented research and technology development. There is a need to encourage investor-led research. In this direction, the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) has already been established. It is a promising start that needs to expand with more resources and creative governance structures.