Critique of Outlook Article

The article seems to justify a complex socio-economic issue in a country of 1 billion people by selective sampling of 5-6 students. When we already have a prejudice justifying any course of action by selective reference won't be hard. To be fair there are some pros and cons about the whole issue listed in the beginning. It would have been worthwhile if the authors would have proceeded to do some analysis along those directions.

The point of contention is that reservations which are supposed to have lapsed in 1960s have even after extension by half a century have not been efficient in delivering their stated goal of socio-economic justice. The very proof being the recent talk of extension of quotas. A policy howsoever inefficient will have a few genuine beneficiaries and that is not a justification for perpetrating for it, much less extending to hitherto untouched sectors.

The key point of similarity of all the profiled candidates are that they are from "poor and rural" background. These are economic barriers at best which besets candidates from all social strata. Did the reporters care to find out the economic profiles of the rest of the 99% candidates in the same institutions and find any siginficant correlation between caste and access to funds and educational tools? What is the percentage of the reserved candidates in the institutes who come from affluent families where in their parents and siblings have already utilized the reservation system? By personal experience, I have found the above correlation disproportionately high even among the so called dalits to justify extension to traditionally more affluent OBCs. One could easily follow a similar lopsided analysis by identifying the number of dalit/OBC students who are children of high ranking PSU, IAS, IPS and state government officials who are beneficiaries of the reservation largesse.

The other recurring theme in the analysis seems to be that reserved students don't show any greater propensity to "drop out". Again highly misleading and biased as hardly any one "fails" in the IIT/IIM system, the differentiator being the relative position in the graduating class. Did the authors find any significant statistical evidence supporting or repudiating their conclusions from the average performance of general and reserved candidates? What are the typical career choices of the reserved candidates after graduation? By personal experience I find that a significant number prefer to pursue avenues where they have a reservation advantage vice IIMs after IITs, Civil service or PSU jobs. To be fair this is a fairly rational decision on their part, one would be a fool in the cut throat competitive world not to exploit the last ounce of advantage one possesses be it caste, merit or simply wealth! But the very fact that this happens on a widespread basis is a failure of the social justice agenda of the reservation system. In effect we are undermining meritocracy to create a "wealthy oppressed" class.

No body be rich/poor, upper/lower caste, OBC/Dalit student relishes taking the IITJEE or IIM CAT or for that matter barriers of entry to greater socio-economic mobility. The fact that such barriers exist is to maintain the quality and standards of the said institutions. The aim should not be equal representation based on population percentages but making the barriers objective enough not to have any un-natural bias to a given set of populace. From that perspective a student from an affluent background from a metropolis with access to private coaching has probably a significantly more advantage compared to a poor student from a semi-urban or rural background irrespective of caste. A statistical analysis of number of IIT students from a handful of cities or rather from a select coaching institute will reveal the extent of such a bias and its wider ramifications. Unfortunately such pertinent matters will never see the light of the day due to entrenched vested interests.

The job of the government should be to ensure the quality primary and secondary components of education and tackle the issue of drop outs at those levels among the backward sections due to economic reasons. Merely reserving a couple of hundred seats in IITs and hoping that it will solve the so called caste based discrimination of populace of 1 billion is a flight of fantasy.

On Reservations : My take

As is the case with most of the well intentioned projects, the gap between the aim and reality is glaring in the case of the reservation system in education and public employment. The goal of social justice and opportunity for the downtrodden sections is a noble one. But unfortunately the efficiency of reservations in achieving these objectives is woeful, attested by the very fact that after 40 years of their designed lapse period we are thinking of extending it. There are numerous instances where one sees the effect of such a system is to just create an affluent class within the oppressed ones who enjoy the benefits at the expense of their not so affluent brethern. By personal experience I have seen enough cases where students from such reserved categories go on to pursue a degree in IIMs or a career in IAS using the quota benefits even after getting into the IITs. This apart from the cases where such benefits are exploited in an almost hereditary fashion. Unlike what many of the policy makers would like us to believe the ratio of such cases is unusually large in the actual cases making a travesty of the original aim of social justice.

While it may not be politically feasible to reform such a system the move to extend it without consideration about the ground reality, is against the best interest of the larger society. Furthermore increasing reservation in a handful of central institutions is hardly likely to enhance any social equity agenda beyond symbolic gesture, which is not yet been achieved by over 50% reservation in nearly all state level institutions and public sector jobs.

By getting embroiled in the debate over reservations we are missing the bus for the reform in the higher education sector in general. The intake process for IITs, where in currently one has to pay tens of thousands for specialised coaching in select urban centres, probably introduces more barriers to entry for poor and rural students than any caste discrimination. In certain cases the tuition charged by such corporate coaching centres is more than that one pays during the IIT education itself. Social injustice might have been a barrier to mobility in the past, when economic resources where tied down by caste considerations. But as is observed around the world, economic inequality would soon replace caste discrimination as the inhibitor to social mobility. In a country where we are hoping to become an economic superpower and where per capita incomes are doubling every 10 years justifying a reverse discrimination for access to education based on caste based oppression perpetrated generations back would be simply put backward looking. Societies around the world have forgotten far greater social crimes of apartheid, slavery and holocaust by being forward looking and gone on to build a better future.

Hence any progressive education initiative would seek to enhance participation at the primary and secondary levels of education and enable students from all sections of society and all areas of country to compete for access to tertiary education institutes. Meritocracy is inherently elitisit than egalitarian. The watch word for the government, which swears by liberalism in economic sphere, must be to ensure that the basis for elitism is talent based rather than caste based. By pursuing the current policy of reservation in the long run we would supplant the so called privileged classes of today by the oppressed classes as is seen by the emergence of a dalit political elite in TN, UP and Bihar. But the goal for developing a merit based society would be as elusive as ever.