Let’s take the caste issue first. Malkani stops short of questioning the caste-based reservation system—the bjp gave up its attempts at supporting an alternative, revenue-based reservation system in the mid-’90s, lest it should lose the obc vote. But the author introduces a very interesting nuance in saying that the "real mischief here is not reservations but the politics of reservation". For sure! Reservations do not make much of a difference since the quotas are limited, except in the administration where they are never filled up. By contrast, the politics of...

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