The Karnataka government, which has been toying with a quota for Kannada-proficient locals in private sector, has done well to put a bill on hold while it considers the extreme opposition that the proposal encountered from industry stalwarts. It would do well to scrap the proposal altogether because the idea, revolutionary as it may seem, has no place in a nation that lays so much store by its unity and diversity and the freedom people enjoy in living (and working) in any part of the country as guaranteed by Article 19(1) (d).
It must be the height of irony that Karnataka’s capital city, which gave birth to the term “Bangalored” — but was despised in the US and elsewhere for taking away jobs — when it earned a universal name for IT capabilities, should impose conditions to get jobs for locals. The thought to create such an unprecedented quota soared to heights of absurdity when the chief minister revealed 100 per cent reservation in the lowest categories of employees as a norm to be imposed and then hastily withdrew an idea that was too shocking.
Principally, reservation in the private sector is a bad idea because that is one sector that has not only managed to keep afloat but also thrived as opposed to the public sector with its historical deficiencies and inefficiency that has cost the nation dearly for decades. Merit may not be the sole criterion that drives private sector industry, but it has coped to contribute immensely in terms of goods and services to the GDP and keeping the wheels of the economy rolling.
To ask the private sector to adapt to reserving 50 per cent in managerial jobs is to undermine the very basis of merit and efficiency that drives not only profitability but also creates millions of jobs that no government can generate and sustain. On this count alone, the proposal should be shot down and the politicians who thought this up thanks to their historical socialist baggage as a clever “son of the soil” concept should give it up totally.
The suspicion is any quota idea to expand on existing reservations, which have passed the 50pc-mark in some states, is only to serve sectarian interests and create bigger vote banks. Also, a bill like the Karnataka State Government Employment of Local Candidates in Industries Bill 2024 is unlikely to pass judicial scrutiny. A proposal by Haryana envisaging reservation for locals was shot down by the high court while other proposals like Maratha quota have reserved jobs only in government job recruitment.
In a country in which migration out of state of birth is about 40 per cent, it would be invidious to try and define “locals” and earmark a quota for them. States can help their residents more by upskilling the youth, an exercise that is going on at a considerable scale in many states that have accepted the problem of the unemployability of students with just school-level education who may qualify for the class of jobs that Karnataka was thinking of trying to reserve for them.
It is the duty of governments to make the economy flourish to offer the best possible opportunities for its people. It is a responsibility to educate people and teach them skills to facilitate their earning a living. But there is no place for shortcuts like tapping the private sector industry to make jobs available for “locals”. Karnataka would do well to bury this idea, which is against the word and spirit of the Constitution, forever.
