Religion, Caste And Tribe Based Reservation - 3

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>LAZY SHORTCUTS TO RIGHTING WRONGS</b>

<i>History shows that inequality is inherent to human society. The Indian
State should look for new ways to provide equal opportunities to the
disadvantaged</i>

By Himanshu Bhagat

there was something about the protesting medical students — who took
to the streets in their white coats — that irritated me. My heart did
not go out to the young doctor-to-be when I saw her cinematically
captured in the morning papers, getting drenched by police water
cannons. Doubtless, some of the young medicos' asinine modes of
protest — polishing shoes and sweeping college corridors — had
something to do with my irritation. And the fact that they had stopped
work leaving many poor patients, who could only afford to go to
government hospitals, in the lurch.

At the same time, I also felt a sense of irritation when I saw the
benign, bespectacled face of the eighty-plus-year-old Human Resources
Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh. I suspect his heart is not
exactly bleeding for the OBCs of India — the caste bracket he seeks to
benefit by implementing quotas recommended for them in the Central
universities.

This simultaneous irritation at both — the anti-reservation medical
students and the pro-reservation honourable HRD minister who was the
butt of their protests — might say something about my indecisiveness.
But I would submit that it is also indicative of something larger.

The idea of reservations involves a conundrum. It seeks to right
historical and societal discrimination, which no one argues with — we
are happy to see students from depressed sections of society in
colleges and universities. But it does so, perforce, by employing
reverse discrimination, which makes us uneasy. Our sense of fairness,
which makes us happy to see dalits and OBCs in colleges also makes us
feel for those 'general category' candidates who could not get
admission because of reservation.

The case of the Brahmin candidate who scores higher in the iit
entrance exam but has to make way for a dalit or OBC candidate who
scored less, does not really make anyone happy. We have to remind
ourselves that Brahmins, a very small segment of the population, have
lorded it over the rest for countless centuries and that the dalits
who have always formed a huge chunk of Indian society have had to bear
the brunt of exploitation all this time (and still counting). How can
we call ourselves civilised if we do not give the latter a leg up?

Given a magic wand and asked to wish for the ideal solution, most
would wish that both the candidates get into iit and have a chance to
develop their potential to the fullest. They can then face the world
on an equal footing because they have been given equal opportunities.
We are of course speaking about an ideal world where there would be no
prejudice against the young dalit engineer.

In the real world, though, there is plenty of discrimination,
prejudice and even overt apartheid against dalits and the backward
classes — the failing of Indian society, cutting across region and
religion. Also, in the real world, there are not enough engineering
seats to go around — the failing of the Indian State.

That most do blame the State is evident from the general scepticism
that has greeted the government's ad hoc declaration that it will
increase the total number of seats in all Central government-funded
institutions of higher education so that the total number of seats in
the non-reserved quota remains the same. Where it will get the money
for this huge expansion in seats is anyone's guess.

The declaration got the striking students back in the hospital wards
and classrooms, and the government heaved a sigh of relief. It is now
focusing its energies on how to buy more time before it has to
implement anything.

Some editors-in-chief and senior mediapersons have been holding
anti-reservation protestors as examples of Shining India's
thoughtless, upwardly mobile middle-class, which does not spare any
thought for those not carried by the rising tide of economic
prosperity. But I suspect that part of the reason why the students
were protesting is that their India does not have quite the same shine
as that of some of our editorialising senior journalists.

Anyone who has attended high school in the past three decades will
tell you about the Herculean effort it takes to get admission into a
medical college for an mbbs degree. Those who made it to the iits were
kings, but greater admiration was reserved for those who possessed the
mental stamina to get into a medical college.

But as many an mbbs will tell you, life after the five and a half
years it takes to get the degree is no cakewalk, specially when
compared to the kind of opportunities and salaries available to their
counterparts in the software sector or those with a good mba. What an
mbbs graduate aspires to in the age of super-specialisation is an md.
And the number of md seats available in government colleges is
laughably minuscule. One can imagine then the plight of these students
when Arjun Singh tells them all of a sudden that half these seats will
not be available to those who belong to the upper castes. Unlike not a
few senior mediamen's wards I suspect, these students cannot ask daddy
to pay for a degree in the US or UK.

As Bibek Debroy and others have pointed out in this space, by not
giving up its stranglehold on higher education, the State perpetuates
the artificial scarcity of good institutions of higher learning. In
his piece, former Prime Minister VP Singh, the man who uncorked the
Mandal genie, says, "Increase the supply side," — as in, open more
schools and colleges. "Backward classes should be allowed and
encouraged to open their own institutions." I take this as tacit
acknowledgement that private funding of schools and colleges is
essential, for Singh does not mention where the government will get
funds for more schools and colleges.

Indeed, the problem facing our education system today is not
caste-based discrimination; it is the failure of the Indian State to
fulfill its obligation to provide its citizens with good education.
Most colleges and universities in India are a joke — hardly providing
any education to speak of. The less said about government-run schools,
the better. Even poor labourers, with barely enough to eat, are
desperate to get their children into private schools. Slums all across
India are full of tin-shack private schools, often of dubious quality,
because no one wants to have anything to do with government schools'
sham education.

What we need is an end to the License Raj in education. We should, in
the not too distant future, be able to look back at the current state
of our colleges and universities, with the same incredulity with which
we look upon the pre-liberalisation days when one bought Bajaj Chetak
scooters in the black market and waited for two years to get a new
Ambassador car.

Inequality is inherent to human societies — human history bears this
out. Even if everyone were made equal and given the same
opportunities, inequalities will creep in by the next generation. Some
are more able than others and they will pass on the socio-economic
advantages accrued to them to their progeny.

This is not to argue that the upper castes enjoyed centuries of
domination over others because of 'merit'. That was the result of
aggression, violence and sheer power exercised in myriad ways, aided
and abetted by self-serving religious beliefs. The point is that we
have to take an unequal society as a given and then look for ways to
provide equal opportunities to the disadvantaged.

Arjun Singh-style tokenism — pretending that reserving a thousand-odd
seats in a few colleges is going to make any difference to OBCs in
India, who number close to half a billion — <b>is a shoddy substitute for
genuine affirmative action. It only plays with the careers of
deserving students who happen to belong to the 'wrong' caste.</b>

The good sense that prevailed when we decided to throw off the
stranglehold of the State in many sectors should be carried to its
logical conclusion. Greater private initiative and enterprise is
crucial for education at all levels. The State should regulate and
step in where private initiatives do not work.<b> After all, there can be
little argument about what fifty years of welfare statism has achieved
for dalits, OBCs, and the upper castes for that matter.</b>

For all the backward-forward divide that reservations are said to
create, people can see through things. Noticeable this time around has
been the relatively muted support that protesting students got from
those who were very vocal in opposing Mandal i — there was more of
that irritation about closed hospital wards. Perhaps it has something
to do with the Shining India guilt trip. By the same token, I have yet
to see OBCs hailing Arjun Singh as Mandal Messiah ii. This has much to
do with the fact that reservations announced this time around are on a
limited scale. But still, it is heartening to hear that the Congress'
munificence is unlikely to transfer into more OBC votes.

People know that reservation has limited efficacy at best, it is time
to rethink education policy and act on it.

Readers are invited to respond to the ideas put forth by VP Singh,
Purushottam Agrawal, Amit Sen Gupta, Bibek Debroy, Jitendra Kumar,
Dhiraj Nayyar, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, Lalit Kumar Das and Richa
Burman.

Send in your views and replies to peoplepower@tehelka.com.
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