No one can deny a long history of injustices to certain castes. One can argue with reason in favour of affirmative action and reservations. But do we seriously believe that social justice can be achieved at a per-capita income of just $3,000 through government jobs?
The practice of lateral entry into GoI is hardly a radical new idea. It has been practised in different forms for more than five decades. Manmohan Singh is, perhaps, the most famous lateral entrant of all, first in bureaucracy, then in politics. There are others, mostly economists – Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Bimal Jalan, Vijay Kelkar, Rakesh Mohan, etc – recruited by UPSC and then absorbed into the system.
The Modi government, in its previous avatar, also recruited at least nine lateral entrants into joint secretary-level positions. Several others have joined NITI Aayog at different levels. In fact, unlike the past, the Modi government has hired laterally on a contract basis with no tenure beyond 3-5 years, as opposed to civil service where recruitment is a lifetime tenure.
There’s also no equivalence in numbers. Several thousands join the civil services every year where reservations are the norm. The number of proposed lateral entrants wasn’t even 50 or an annual exercise. It has always been a very small fraction.
A lateral entry system is good for government because it injects new energy, new ideas via people who come with a different mindset and experience from professional civil servants. It should be an attempt to improve governance and policymaking so that India can perform better.The shelved proposal could yet return with reservations, in which case about half of the 45 jobs will be reserved. But what major contribution can that make to social justice? The numbers are just not significant enough.There have been reservations in GoI jobs for SC/STs since Independence. If reservations in public jobs were sufficient to ensure social justice, there would be no need to agitate in 2024.
Everyone knows this. But they still choose to agitate. The fact is that while there are enough jobs being generated in the economy, there are not enough ‘good jobs’ comparable to government employment. A government job comes with a reasonably high salary (particularly at the lower rung), and benefits like healthcare, pension and lifetime security of tenure. It remains the ultimate aspiration for most Indians. And the political leadership reflects this.
Unfortunately, the number of government jobs is not going to grow at a rate to employ more than a small fraction of the workforce. At the lower rungs, they may actually decline. What needs to be emphasised is the importance of creating many more ‘good jobs’ outside government. Making manufacturing grow, with a special eye on labour-intensive industries, is key. Within manufacturing, it’s important to recognise the need for scale. Only very large firms generate mass high-quality employment.
For large firms to flourish, we need to act on three things:
Ease availability of land. Instead of tinkering with land acquisition laws, create a digital platform under the aegis of a bank or government agency where land can be bought and sold without direct human interface, eliminating middlemen. We already have a world-class digital infrastructure, and land records are digitised across most states. So, this is feasible.
Ease labour laws so that entrepreneurs are incentivised to hire in big numbers.
Make clearances faster. The best way forward is self-certification as per pre- defined guidelines. Government and regulators can audit, and penalise if guidelines are flouted.
We need to bake a larger cake, rather than distributing pieces of a small cake. That is the only path to social justice for all.