The dictionary defines “oversight” as “an unintentional omission or mistake”, also “watchful care or management; supervision”. Regardless of which definition one adopts, the oversight committee on the implementation of the new reservation policy in higher educational institutions (hereafter the Moilly report) did not undo any previous “oversights”.

The most important error of commission the new reservation policy the Moilly committee was not even asked to correct - namely, the share of the population of the other backward castes (OBCs) in India. The original (before the oversight) policy recommendation was to allot OBC's only half as many reservations as their share in the population i.e. their share in the population was assumed to be 52 percent and the proportion of seats allotted - 27 percent. In reality, the share of non-Muslim OBC's in the population, according to government's own NSSO data for 1999/00, was only 32 percent. Thus, simple math suggests that the reservations for OBC's would mean that almost every OBC high school graduate would be guaranteed a position in college. In 1999/00 there were 12.9 million college seats and 3.94 million OBCs (ages 19-25 years) had graduated from high school; 27 percent reservation would mean that an OBC will have a 90 % chance of gaining college admission.

The only "governance" organization left in the country, the Supreme Court, had asked the government to answer the simple question above: how many OBC's are there, 32 percent or 52 percent? I do not know if the Moilly report constitutes contempt of court; but if it does not even mention the fact that the government's OBC population estimate is fictitious, then what does constitute contempt?

But this is not the only oversight that remained an oversight with the UPA government's report. This Congress led government ascended to power on the claim (promise?) that it believed in social justice, secularism and inclusive growth. So far, it has just been cheap talk. The sad reality, and one which merits discussion and involvement by the Supreme Court, is the discrimination faced by Muslims. In 1999/2000, Muslim youth (age 19 to 25 years, the category for whom the reservation policy is relevant) were the worst off among all the social groups in India, even behind the SC/STs, and considerably behind the non-Muslim OBCs. In 1999/00, only 6.3 percent of this cohort was in college (and/or high school), compared to 7.6 percent for the OBCs, and 7.1 percent for the SC/STs (unless otherwise stated, all data are from the NSSO large sample surveys for 1983 and 1999/00).

The NSSO data also sheds light on the job situation for Indian youth. Muslim youth have more than twice the unemployment rate of the OBCs, 15.9 % versus only 7.4 % for the OBCs and 7.7 % for SC/STs. Note, that this is the rate for 19-25 year olds, not for the entire labor force. This group is likely to have a higher unemployment rate than average, because of frictional unemployment, looking for first job etc. What is relevant about this data is the much higher level of unemployment of Muslim youth.

Since the above data are for a point in time, it tells us very little of the rate of progress in education in India. It could be that Muslims started off from a lower base, and have increased their educational attainment faster than the average Indian. This is not the case; Muslim youth have increased college attendance by 50 percent between 1983 and 1999/00, compared to an 80 percent increase for the average Indian youth. Data for OBCs are not available for 1983; the rate of expansion of college attendance for SC/STs between 1983 and 1999/00 was over 115 percent.

The above data strongly support the conclusion that there is no moral, philosophical, or economic basis for reservations for OBCs in either college education or employment. Indeed, there is no case for any affirmative action at all for OBCs, especially if a much more deserving community, the Muslims, are so far behind even the presumed worst off Indian, the SC/STs. If there is any social group that is deserving of affirmative action in India, it is Muslims, not SC/STs and definitely not the OBCs.

It could be argued that "culturally" Muslims do not have as great a demand for education as the Hindus, and therefore their rate of progress has been lower. But perusal of data for other Muslim countries suggests that this is not the case. Every (predominantly) Muslim country has a higher rate of improvement than India, excepting Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh. The first two have considerably higher levels of educational attainment: 5 and 6.9 years for population above 15 years of age. Bangladesh is a real outlier, at least according to the international data compiled by economists Barro and Lee. In Pakistan, there has been an 84 percent increase in the average level of education, almost twice the rate of increase of the average Indian Muslim

The net result is that, all things considered, there is only one community deserving of any affirmative action in education and employment in India - the Muslims. There are no data to substantiate that the relatively privileged OBC's should get any additional benefits; indeed, the data suggest that the Indian government should make an all out effort to bring the Muslims at least up to par with the SC/STs before any passage of any legislation for any other communit