The Reservation Debate: Reference Groups, Casteisation, Trinity Model, Social Mobility, Pluralism, Communalism, Division of Labour and Social Solidarity

        Much has been written on reservation in post-independent India especially post Mandal era and recently post the inclusion of the EWS criteria for reservation. This column is a sociological effort to understand the plural causes of reservation, its consequences for a social system synchronizing the best of both Weberian and functionalist methodologies.

      

    There can be no doubt that Merton's theory of relative deprivation of a social group when comparing them with a 'reference group' is the root cause of demand for reservation. When community X or Y has less jobs, education, positions of power compared to community A or B, naturally there comes a demand for affirmative action to correct this system social strata that is building up.

    Now, for long this has been largely based on Caste alone and several scholars like Louis Dumont conceded caste and caste alone is the prism through which Indian society needs to be analyzed. Reservation thus came to be an Ambedkarite step whereby politico-economic empowerment of socially backward and historically discriminated came to be the main goal of affirmative action in post independent India.

Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry with PM

        

        Inadvertently and unfortunately, this led to a surge in caste consciousness in India as Ghurye contends especially post Mandal era wherein the casteisation of caste that Gandhiji pointed to as danger of reservation has seeped through the Indian society. 

    Yet, it is beyond doubt that affirmative action has been a remarkable tool of social mobility for hitherto oppressed sections whether it be education, jobs, income or political power. The scaling up along the secular hierarchy of the Sanskritization ladder as Srinivas would call it became the positive fallout of reservation for the socially backward.

        Today, reservation has gone beyond the social parameter into the economic. This may be seen as an acceptance of the Weberian trinity model of stratification that details class, status and power as the three fulcrums of stratification. An individual's position in society is thus not solely determined by one rather is a composite sum of the three, each to varying degree.

Thus, a person may be of lower class position but may be superior by his status position (which in India is caste) and vice versa. Whether these stratas are overlapping or cross cutting, it is no doubt the duty of state to devise a fair method of determining the social position of the individual and appropriately empowering him or her through affirmative action which it is attempting to do in this case.

Status and class position as Weber denotes are gateways of power and power is the Ambedkarite essence of reservation, the end goal that shatters the chains of subordination, humiliation and defilement the vices of untouchability. It is thus only natural to assume that class is also recognized and considered when devising a method of affirmative action.

        The trinity model of stratification is wide enough that we can accommodate gender, region (think of the North-East) all in the status group beyond just caste and religion as it exists currently. Ironically, reservation then comes out to be a complicated business, just like Weber defines society, multi-dimensional, complex, incomprehensible in one go, thus what is required is a piece meal analysis, isolating each facet/ strata and understanding the need.

At the heart of this exercise is undeniably politics and power and rightly so, because this is the journey of society to find the Durkhmeian balance of division of labour, not in a dysfunctional, casteist manner but in a rightful, just, fair manner. In that way, it becomes an exercise for social solidarity to prevent conflict amidst the competition, the dearth of opportunities and the large demand.

Reservation can thus be interpreted to be an evidence of the pluralist model of power that Dahl put forward. No one pressure group has the power, each raises their voice, demands and the result is a bargain and compromise detailed out by the state in the sharing of the pie.

As sensitive a topic as it is, affirmative action is bound to be devoid of value consensus and communalism naturally arises as a dysfunction in the short term. Yet, this is not a Marxian revolutionary change, this is a slow paced evolutionary Parsonian change, effected by state, with sufficient backing by society to put in place a system that by differentiation and upgrading seeks to achieve an end goal of Integration in a longer period of time.

(Discalimer: The object of author's study is not to make a value judgement on the subject of reservation but to merely understand its relevance in the current social context through famous sociological teachings. Any hurt caused to an individual or community is purely unintentional)

Media in New Age: The Rallying 4th Estate, Economic Determinism, Micro Politics of Power, Stratas of Race and Gender, Enforced Collective Conscience, Labelled Non Deviance and Affective Social Action

          For long, the Media has been the 4^th Estate that calls out all other estates, a part of civil society that Gramsci noted has the power to hold governments accountable to the people. It would thus be assumed that if Weber were to create an Ideal Type of Media in yesteryear, it would ironically represent Parsonian power system where media becomes a collective faculty of power that is productive and positive for the entire society.

          Yet, media in the post truth world is best characterised by Michael Focault’s micro politics of power. Today, everything is about narrative or discourse, creating perceptions in minds of people, truth coming a far second. Media is everything about this part, about creating a discourse at whatever end of ideological spectrum, knowledge stemming from that and of course power to follow suit.

          Media’s role in the collective conscience of society is paramount especially in today’s age of social and digital media. It is able to create new norms and values with the enormous reach that it has and thus not only sustain collective conscience at times but also transform it and create a new collective conscience through the various discourse or narratives. The former being most recently illustrated through the ground reporting of the Hathras case that had deeply wounded the collective conscience of the nation.

          Media, in such cases becomes a precipitating factor of a social movement. We have seen this in several socio-political movements like the India Against Corruption Movement and the Nirbhaya movement where Media was one crucial resource that mobilized people and created a new value consensus against corruption or crimes against women. It thus fits perfectly into resource mobilization theory as a crucial resource in a social movement.

          That being said, the underlying character of today’s media is the role of social strata- race, gender and foremost of all class in production and consumption of news. The corporate ownership of media houses, the race to TRPs for advertising revenue and full page ads in print newspapers all point to a possible tale of Marxian economic determinism taking over media.          

Naturally what follows would be the leaning over to an Ideological State Apparatus that fosters false class consciousness and perpetuates dominant class ideology and class hierarchy. Yet, several media houses have continued to dwell on the last citizen in the line and social justice, which is heartening. 

           The Class divide in consumption of news overlaps with language too as upper and middle class English speaking citizens watch English channels while working class prefer to watch in local language and given the cheap rate of data in the country, social media is itself a news machine for them. TV media in appearance and presentation also oozes elitism in the way anchors dress and present news. Race also becomes a key stratum here as the number of dark skinned anchors are far fewer compared to fair skinned ones pointing to fact that race may be an entry bottleneck for this profession.

            While media generally has large number of women as active participants, one can notice the glass ceiling that Sylvia Walby noted in her theory of patriarchy in this institution too. The most reputed, famous journalist holding important editorial and ownership positions are inevitably male despite media houses employing such a large number of women. This is one glass ceiling that would hopefully be broken through soon. 

             

            The ironical aspect of media in a polarized world is it has become less and less about rationality and more about emotions. Thus what was once a Zweckrational or Wertrational Action has now become an affective action in the Weberian Thesis as people's emotion has been the fundamental receiving point of most news much less a rational logical analysis. 

             What follows from this is that many things which would have been labelled deviant by media themselves previously whether it is media trials, shouting in newsrooms, fake news reporting have all come to be a norm in this day and age signifying it is all just a matter of labelling as Howard Becker pointed out to Merton. Given the cut throat competition, the sub culture of deviance is also all the more visible to all of us. 

 

            As crowd funded news platforms come up and digital age takes off, media can be partly free of the danger of deviance becoming a norm and economic determinism in general. The 4th estate will undergo a fundamental transformation in times to come and 'We the people' have every power to determine whether for the worse or for the good.