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.