by Haseeb A Drabu
Jammu and Kashmir’s 70 per cent reservation framework is politically engineered, constitutionally questionable, and regionally biased. A region-specific quota model is proposed to restore meritocracy, legal compliance, and balanced socio-economic representation.
Kashmiris have come a long way indeed. From the struggle for government jobs in the 1930s, here they are, almost a hundred years later, still fighting for government jobs in 2025. Earlier, for representation. Now against reservations. This speaks about the strategy of economic development, especially in the post-independence period, which has focused on output and not employment in the economy. It is also a comment on the lack of dissemination of developmental gains and upward socio-economic mobility of the majority over the last ten decades. A tellingly tragic tale that the Valley-centric political leadership should ponder over.
The current reservation row, stemming from amendments in 2023-24 to the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004, to increase the reserved category quotas to 70 per cent, is yet another episode in the long record of rebalancing the power relations in the polity of Jammu and Kashmir. This battle is neither the first nor will it be the last. It is also not unique to Kashmir. It happens all over the country and across countries as well. More than two-thirds of the countries in the world use some types of quotas for ethnic groups.
Beyond the merit versus non-merit debate, the legitimate articulations of meritocracy, there underlie many a fault line; some generic and some specific. In the case of reservations, many issues, constitutional, legislative, administrative, regional, social, and economic, are cooking in the cauldron of electoral politics. The arithmetic of reservation is the result of these pulls and pressures of power play.
With the total employment pie being finite and fixed, every percentage point increase or decrease in one category will be at the expense of some other. This makes handling the reservation issue a zero-sum game for political parties driven as they necessarily are by electoral compulsions. All political parties face a competitive environment where the gain to one stakeholder necessitates the loss of another one.
The social base of political parties constrains their rational public policy stance, especially for those in power. Being a deeply political issue, opposition parties can and are, quite legitimately, making political capital out of it. In such a situation, an acceptable solution can be found through a consensual rather than a confrontational approach based on the political economy of the reservation.
Reservation Matrix
Even though reservation in political representation in Jammu and Kashmir was first mooted by the Glancy Commission in 1932, reservation in employment in Jammu and Kashmir came up for the first time only in the mid-sixties. Till then, starting from the thirties, the Valley was all about the representation of the majority in government jobs. Jammu, on the other hand, saw an intensive political struggle of Dalits for political reservation.
Despite this, the policy for reservation for jobs was formulated only in the mid-sixties. In July 1966, the government announced its plans to reserve certain posts for the Scheduled Castes. A government circular issued by EN Mangat Rai, then Chief Secretary, estimated the Scheduled Caste population of Jammu and Kashmir at 7.96 per cent. In the Jammu Division, it was estimated to be more than double, at 18.07 per cent.
Two years later, in 1967, the Gajendragadkar Commission was constituted to formalise the need for reservation in government services and in educational institutions for Scheduled Castes as applicable across the country. Earlier, in the mid-fifties, the Jammu and Kashmir government had not accepted the recommendations of the First Backward Classes Commission (and later the Mandal Commission too) by invoking Article 370.
Basis the Gajendragadkar Commission recommendations, a committee under the Chairmanship of Justice JN Wazir was appointed to draw up the list of Backward Classes of Jammu and Kashmir based on criteria relating to social, educational and economic backwardness in 1969. The Wazir Committee report became the cornerstone for the affirmative action framework. About a decade later, a committee under the Chairmanship of Adarsh Sen Anand, 1977, suggested two broad categories viz (a) Weak and underprivileged classes; (b) Residents of Backward Areas. The latter included Bad Pockets (RBA) and Areas adjoining the Actual Line of Control (ALC).
Jammu and Kashmir, under its own Constitution, had various constitutional provisions related to safeguards for protection and development of SCs, STs and Other Backward Classes like Section 13, Section 21, Section 23, Section 24, Section 25, Section 49, Section 50, Section 139 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.
The distinguishing aspect of the reservation framework of Jammu and Kashmir, unlike the Centre, was reservation based on regions; for Residents of Backward Areas (RBA) and residents of Border Areas, i.e. people living around the LoC as well as the international borders.
This last operating position was defined in the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Rules 2005, which came into force under SRO-294, dated October 21, 2005. The cumulative reservation of 56 per cent was distributed across categories as given in the accompanying Table I.
Table 1: Reservation Categories in 2019 and 2024
| Category | 2019 (%) | 2024 (%) |
| Vertical Reservation | 46 | 60 |
| Scheduled Castes | 8 | 8 |
| Scheduled Tribes | 10 | 20 |
| Other Backward Classes | 4 | 8 |
| Resident of LAC & IB | 4 | 4 |
| Resident of Backward Areas | 10 | 10 |
| Economically Weaker Sections | 10 | 10 |
| Horizontal Reservation | 10 | 10 |
| Ex-Servicemen and Persons with Disabilities | 10 | 10 |
| Total Reserved | 56 | 70 |
Source: Government Reports and Notifications
With the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, the existing reservation framework was, quite expectedly, superseded and aligned to the national framework. Indeed, one of the many raisons d’etre of abrogating Article 370 was that it had impeded social justice and equity to the most marginalised sections of society.
Accordingly, the Jammu and Kashmir government amended the Reservation Rules, 2005 on April 20, 2020, to grant 4 per cent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for Pahari-speaking people under the Other Backward Classes category. This resulted in the reservation of the OBC category being doubled. However, it did not meet the expectations of the Paharis. Given the focus, for obvious political reasons, on Paharis, the third largest linguistic group, after Kashmiris and Dogri, the deal was made sweeter.
In November 2022, based on the recommendations of the Registrar General of India and the Justice GD Sharma Commission, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes approved the inclusion of the Pahari linguistic group in the Scheduled Tribe list for Jammu and Kashmir. A year later, Lok Sabha passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill in December 2023, providing reservation to Paharis in jobs, educational institutes, and the J&K legislature under the Scheduled Tribes category.
After this, the Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Act, 2024, included the Paharis, and notified the amendment of J&K Reservation Rules of 2005. The notification stipulated that Paharis and other newly added groups would receive an additional 10 per cent reservation, over and above the existing 10 per cent reservation for Gujjars, Bakarwals, and other communities. This decision increased the total ST reservation in Jammu and Kashmir from approximately 10 to 20 per cent. The Gujjar and Bakarwal reservation remained at 10 per cent, alleviating concerns among both Gujjar-Bakarwal as well as satisfying the Pahari communities.
Further, the administration sanctioned the inclusion of 15 more castes in the OBC category, while enhancing the overall reservation for OBCs to 8 per cent and reducing the Reservations for Residents of Backward Areas (RBA) from 20 per cent to 10 per cent. This marked a significant policy shift in Jammu and Kashmir’s reservation matrix. With these changes, the reserved category for educational institutes and government jobs in Jammu and Kashmir has become nearly 70 per cent. This policy is under legal challenge, and the court has sought a response from the Jammu and Kashmir government.
The Reservation Framework
Reservations, historically, the world over, have been framed as effective affirmative action measures to uplift the marginalised communities and to establish an egalitarian society. However, in Jammu and Kashmir, the current reservation policy is meant to do more; it is being used for purposes other than social justice and upliftment.
Extraneous purposes, besides electoral politics, have been the real intent for granting reservations. For instance, in April 1991, Gujjars and Bakarwals were declared as Scheduled Tribes by the Union government. The purpose was an outreach to this community to build a civilian deterrent and resistance against militancy, especially in the border areas. Similarly, the inclusion of Paharis in the Scheduled Tribes in 2020 is another case in point. It was done to secure their votes. Social justice was not the primary cause of reservation, even though social mobility upwards can be a consequence.
This disconnect between the stated objectives and the unstated intent is an important distinction that underlies the flaws in the design of the new affirmative action framework. The infirmities and inadequacies range from conceptual to methodological to political. These are bound to result in discrimination and erosion of social capital.
During the last five years, in the process of aligning the regional reservation policies with the national affirmative action framework, a major error has crept in. The new reservation framework is an amalgam of two different yet not mutually exclusive reservation types: the functional reservations adopted by the Centre (e.g. caste, tribe) and structural reservations embedded in the institutional framework of Jammu and Kashmir since 1966 (area, economic). The latter addresses social and market rigidities. Functional reservations, on the other hand, are supply-side interventions that are designed to address market failure. The hybrid framework has emerged because the national policy of reservation was applied over and above the existing state reservations. With a linguistic reservation thrown in, in a hurry to shape political power dynamics.
Infirmities
By combining the two reservation strains, the quantum of reservation has gone to an unprecedented, unacceptable, unconstitutional, and perhaps even unintentional, level of 70 per cent. Arithmetically, it has squeezed the open merit category to just 30 per cent. This is at the design stage. At the implementation stage, it turns out to be fundamentally discriminatory to the majority of the population.
A good example of this is the case of Paharis, who were given a reservation of 10 per cent. Paharis live predominantly in the areas near the Line of Control (LoC). In Jammu and Kashmir, the Pahari-speaking people primarily reside in the hilly regions of Pir Panchal i.e., Rajouri, Poonch, and North Kashmir districts of Baramulla and Kupwara. In the existing system, they were covered by the RBAC and RLOC.
This has resulted in a coverage overlap. To the extent that reservation has been provided to the Residents of Backward Areas (10 per cent) and those along the Line of Actual Control/International Border (4 per cent), it does cover almost entirely this linguistic category, which is concentrated in these sub-geographies. The Pahari reservation, in its focus on linguistic identity, is more about political power-sharing than socio-economic upliftment through this route.
Besides these serious infirmities, there is also a conceptual problem: Paharis are a recent entrant to the linguistic grouping. Indeed, till 1961 it was not even recognised as a language. It was considered and classified as a dialect of Punjabi by the government.
The real problem with giving a linguistic category like Paharis reservation is that they are not a homogenous ethnic tribe; they have socially upper-class Muslims and upper caste Hindus, who are relatively more affluent. They are also better educated, with a 68 per cent literacy rate in Poonch and Rajouri compared to 50 per cent among Jammu and Kashmir’s STs, according to the 2011 Census.
There is no explicit precedent in India for granting reservations solely to a linguistic group, be it on its own or under the ST or OBC categories. Even globally, reservations or affirmative action based explicitly on linguistic groups are rare. If indeed it is done, like in Canada for the Francophones outside Quebec, it is priority hiring to ensure linguistic representation and/or protect linguistic identity. Unlike this, the Pahadi case is tied to socio-economic upliftment.
What complicates granting Pahari an ST status is that even though the latter is not formally codified in law, it is based on multiple quantitative and qualitative criteria, like geographical isolation, social backwardness, economic backwardness, and prevalence of indigenous practices. Nowhere is language one of the main criteria, let alone the only criterion. This is bound to result in adverse beneficiary targeting.
Implications
The reserved percentage of reservation stands in stark contrast to the 2011 Census data, which indicates that the open merit category constitutes 69 per cent of the population. This is a serious population anomaly: 69 per cent of the population is competing for 30 per cent of the jobs. The concerns over the narrowing space for merit-based opportunities are completely justified. Contrast this with the reservation in educational institutions, and jobs of 70 per cent are left for 31 per cent of the population. This is so assuming that no reserve category person qualifies in the merit category. If they do, the situation is even more skewed.
This design of the operative reservation framework gets even more distorted and discriminatory when the element of geography is added to it in actual implementation. The concentration of reservation beneficiaries in the Jammu region makes the existing regional divide even sharper. Indeed, it becomes a vicious fault line. Blanket reservations without evidence of uniform disadvantage are bound to exacerbate inequities and strain social cohesion between the two regions of Jammu and Kashmir.
As tabulated in Table 2, official data presented in the last budget session of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly exposes the stark regional disparity in the implementation of the Union Territory’s reservation policy, favouring candidates from the Jammu region while sidelining Kashmir.
Table 2: Reservation Beneficiaries
| Category | Total Number | Jammu (%) | Kashmir (%) |
| Scheduled Category | 67,112 | 100 % | 0 % |
| Scheduled Tribes | 5,39,306 | 85.2 % | 14.8 % |
| Economic Weaker Sections | 29,693 | 92.35 % | 7.65 % |
| RLAC and RIC | 835 | 98.08 % | 1.92 % |
| Total Beneficiaries | 6,36,946 | 87.11 % | 12.89 % |
| Total Population | 12,267,013 | 43.61 % | 56.39 % |
| Beneficiary/Population Ratio | 1:19 | 1:10 | 1:84 |
Source: Government Reply to a question by MLA Sajad Lone in the J&K Assembly
While for Jammu and Kashmir, for every 19 people, there is one reservation beneficiary, for Jammu, it is one beneficiary in every ten people. Contrast this with Kashmir, where there is one reservation beneficiary in eighty-four people. Every single Scheduled Caste beneficiary hails from Jammu. The Economic Weaker Section category also exhibits a stark skew, with 92.3 per cent of beneficiaries from Jammu and only 7.7 per cent from Kashmir.
The above analysis suggests that it is not as simple a matter as is being made out by the opposition parties. Equally, it is not as complicated as it is being made out to be by the ruling party. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.
Towards a Solution
The analysis highlights three critical issues in Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) reservation policy:
First, the current reservation level of 70 per cent – 60 per cent vertical and 10 per cent horizontal, exceeds the Supreme Court’s 50 per cent cap, rendering it unconstitutional. Tamil Nadu’s 69 per cent reservation, protected under the Ninth Schedule, is an exception due to its immunity from judicial review. As BR Ambedkar emphasised, reservations “must be confined to a minority of seats” to avoid making meritocracy the exception and reservation the norm. Such high quotas raise reverse social justice concerns, transforming a social engineering tool into a political instrument.
Second, along with this unprecedented quantum of reservation at the state level, is a concentrated distribution that is prejudicial to the majority population and discriminatory to a region, Kashmir. In the interaction of level and distribution, a third issue of overlapping and the consequent adverse beneficiary targeting results in a moral hazard.
Essentially, the Valley is getting penalised for being a socially egalitarian society. It raises deeply disturbing questions, not only of politics and policy but also profoundly philosophical ones: Is an affirmative action framework meant to reward social disarticulation or ensure economic justice for the underprivileged sections?
Prescriptive Proposals
The basic principle of modifying any reservation policy to make it non-discriminatory has to be to align it with population proportions and contemporary socio-economic realities. The architecture of region-specific quotas can be designed to ensure more equitable distribution of opportunities by aligning reservation benefits with regional population proportions. In the process, it will also restore the open merit access.
Further, for any sectoral or functional policy to be successful, it is imperative that it fits in with the broad direction of governance. Over the last decade or so, to address the growing demand from Jammu for a separate statehood, there has been a conscious effort to provide the Jammu region with a greater administrative apparatus. Over time, the functional administration has been split vertically down the line between Jammu and Kashmir. This is one of the reasons for a bloated bureaucracy. The developmental administration was already divided. Almost every administrative department has now been divided into divisional geography.
Rather than take the gerrymandering route as was done in delimitation, and now social engineering, to discriminate against the demographic majority, it will be cleaner and less contentious to have reservations on a region-specific basis. Both regions will prosper. As such, a region-specific reservation model can be advocated as a potential solution to address the ongoing reservation row in the Valley.
Indeed, there is a historical precedent to this model. In Jammu and Kashmir, a region-specific reservation, where recruitment policies prioritised local candidates for certain posts, was in practice. Reformulating this model to the current affirmative action framework could restore regional equity without violating constitutional norms.
There is also precedence for such interventions in other states. Maharashtra, for instance, implemented region-specific considerations in its reservation policies. It was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2021, not for being region-specific but for breaching the 50 per cent cap. Andhra Pradesh has had a local quota system since 2018, which allocates jobs to candidates from specific geographies. This ensures representation from backward regions like Rayalaseema. Telangana grouped homogeneous sub-castes to ensure equitable distribution of reservation benefits. This approach addresses intra-category disparities, like Jammu and Kashmir’s Gujjar-Bakarwal vs. Pahari case in J&K. States like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have used sub-regional quotas in recruitment to address local disparities.
Region-specific quotas can be calibrated to adjust reservation percentages to reflect local demographics, potentially increasing open merit opportunities. By allocating separate shares for different communities based on their regional presence, it will reduce intra-community conflicts. By tailoring reservations to regional demographics, the policy will address complaints of “reverse discrimination” against the unreserved category, particularly in Kashmir, where the lack of SC representation results in Jammu-based candidates filling reserved posts.
Table 3 is a comparison of the current reservation distribution in Jammu and Kashmir with the proposed region-specific quota model. The current distribution is based on the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004, as amended in 2024, while the proposed model suggests adjustments to align quotas with regional demographics: Jammu having around 45 per cent and Kashmir about 55 per cent of the total population of Jammu and Kashmir, according to the 2011 census.
Table 3: Reservations – An Indicative Distribution
| Category | Current Reservation (%) | Proposed Jammu Reservation (%) | Proposed Kashmir Reservation (%) |
| Scheduled Caste | 8% | 8% | 0% |
| Scheduled Tribe (ST) | 20% | 15% | 10% |
| Other Backward Classes | 8% | 8% | 8% |
| Residents of Backward Areas | 10% | 10% | 10% |
| Economically Weaker Sections | 10% | 7% | 7% |
| Actual Line of Control | 4% | 2% | 2% |
| Open Merit# | 40% | 50% | 63% |
| Total Reserved## | 60% | 50% | 37% |
Notes and Sources:
- # Effectively 30 per cent after horizontal reservations
- ## Effectively 70 per cent after horizontal reservations
- Current Quota: Reflects the existing policy with over 60% reservation, criticised for exceeding the Supreme Court’s 50% cap and marginalising open merit candidates, especially in Kashmir.
- Proposed Jammu Quota: Maintains SC reservation (concentrated in Jammu) but reduces ST and EWS slightly to fit within 50%, reflecting Jammu’s demographic weight (~45%).
- Proposed Kashmir Quota: Eliminates SC reservation (due to negligible SC population) and adjusts ST and EWS to prioritise local communities, increasing open merit share to 63%.
- Data Source: Based on 2011 census demographics, 2023 reservation beneficiary data, and policy discussions from 2024.
Importantly, it adheres to the overarching Supreme Court’s cap of 50 per cent. The proposed model aims to balance regional equity, reduce discrimination against open merit candidates, and comply with legal limits. The Supreme Court judgment of 2024 is benign to tailoring reservations to specific regions (and/or groups). This can be a legal basis for the proposed region-specific reservation reforms.
Challenges and Side Effects
This is an indicative model and not a complete, self-contained solution. To maximise effectiveness, region-specific quotas will need to be complemented by broader long-term reforms, such as applying the creamy layer criterion, to ensure benefits reach the most disadvantaged.
What also needs to be ensured in implementation is alignment of it with Articles 14, 15, and 16 of the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings like Indra Sawhney (1992) and M. Nagaraj (2006). Otherwise, these may face constitutional challenges under Article 16(2), which prohibits discrimination in employment based on place of residence. While Article 16(3) allows Parliament to prescribe residence-based requirements, intra-state divisional quotas lack clear parliamentary backing in Jammu and Kashmir.
Adjusting quotas is bound to alienate some communities currently benefiting, such as SCs and OBCs in Jammu, or newly included ST groups like Paharis. Political parties, with their social base, will have to navigate their electoral compulsions.
Given the fact that the elected executive in Jammu and Kashmir is operating in a transitional federal context, with constrained powers, it is better to take a legislative route rather than a pure administrative one. For it will require amending the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004, to incorporate region-specific quotas, ensuring alignment with constitutional provisions and Supreme Court rulings. Depending on how it is designed and formulated, parliamentary approval under Article 16(3) might be required since data that is needed to back it up is not in the public domain. And, of course, it will finally require the approval of the Lieutenant Governor. But at least, the elected government would have shown its inclination, intent and intrepidity.
Technical Appendix
Pending a statistical exercise to assess multicollinearity, where reservation categories overlap, it’s clear that RBAC and the Pahari category significantly impact the reservation process. Reservations for residents near the LoC/IB need streamlining, as many already benefit from the 20 per cent ST quota for Gujjars and Paharis. Introducing a creamy layer concept, first within the Pahari group and later across SC and ST communities, is essential. Principal Component Analysis can identify affluent individuals for exclusion, ensuring marginalised rights remain intact.
This statistical approach will improve the reservation benefit distribution. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Indra Sawhney v. Union of India supports this, with Justice Gavai emphasising that states must identify the creamy layer within SCs and STs to exclude them from affirmative action benefits. Such sub-categorisation will expand open merit, as meritocracy is the norm, and reservations are an exception, ensuring fairer access to opportunities.
(Former Finance Minister of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir, the author is an economist. The paper appeared first in Greater Kashmir.)
