Aditi Phadnis: Reserved stance

BACKSTAGE

His colleagues don't know just what Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is up to. Saddled with the hot potato of job reservations in the private sector, Pawar has picked it up and passed it on to the prime minister and the Cabinet for further discussions.

Less than a dozen meetings of the Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to discuss the issue of job reservations in the private sector have been held"" members include Steel Minister Ramvilas Paswan, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and others.

Members of the GoM say that meetings have meandered on the subject of the legal issues involved.

As chairman, it was Pawar's responsibility to ensure each meeting concluded taking a decision. While the GoM heard the submissions of industrial houses, they also heard legal arguments being marshalled for and against a matter that was politically so sensitive that "what we put on the agenda and what was discussed were radically different," said an official of the social justice ministry.

It was finally Pawar and Social Justice Minister Meira Kumar's initiative that led to the report of the GoM being finalised. The final report said that Cabinet needed to discuss the issue before deciding whether the Fundamental Rights section in the constitution needed amendment. "The report was not assertive enough about what needs to be done. If such a big part of the population is excluded from the benefits of liberalisation and the market, what does political freedom mean for India?" asked Ramvilas Paswan, steel minister.

But Sharad Pawar, who has sought a consensus before doing anything drastic, has by his actions in the GoM, balanced politics. No one can accuse Pawar of being anti-dalit. In Maharashtra, when the Marathwada Vidyapeeth was to have been renamed Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathawada University, it was Pawar who stood firm and got the University renamed despite strong opposition. In a state where dalit politics has strong roots, it doesn't pay to go against dalits.

On the other hand, Pawar also has powerful credentials as a progressive businessman-farmer who must get the credit of leveraging the politics of co-operatives to create an unassailable political position for himself in Maharashtra. It was Pawar to whom the Bajaj family turned when arbitration was needed following a division of the family business.

As industry rails against any proposal aimed at mandatory caste-based recruitment, it is likely that Pawar will be asked to act as a bridge between the claims of the socially oppressed and India Inc, translating the language of one into words that the other understands.