My reservations regarding Reservations

Its been quite sometime since my last blogpost, and maybe a little late for this topic. However, this is something I have been thinking about for the past few days, and it was an article in the TOI by Gurcharan Das (Sundays' paper) that filled in the missing piece in the jigsaw, completing the picture.

When the HRD minister Arjun Singh announced the now infamously dubbed "Mandal-2" policy, I was as enraged as any other General Category (GC) student. Any person who has spent a full year or two (or three) preparing for an exam single-mindedly would surely protest against this move. After all, its no easy task to have your nose to the grindstone for such a long time, and then find that a person who has scored half as much as you ends up with the laurels, while you are left stranded.

So, it appears that the protests are justified. Merit must prevail, and the better man/woman must win, full-stop. Reservations just seem to just dilute this ideal by offering undeserving candidates the chance, simply because they were born to a certain family that can trace back its origin to a certain historically oppressed group in some god-forsaken corner of India.

Now, just for a moment, assume that the Backward classes (BCs) were really that... ie. backward, and that they did constitute some 50-odd percent of the population (this may still be true, though in the face of conflicting figures from various orgaizations). Would the protests have occurred? If yes, on what grounds, then? The seats are still down from the original figure by a huge percentage (atleast one third of the ones available). Would we, the affected ones, still be "magnanimous" enough to accept this and sit quiet for the betterment of the nation? An intriguing question, requiring some soul-searching, I would say. And I dont know my answer to this yet.

The Mandal Commission report (ref: Wikipedia for a nice summary, and google/yahoo [:P] search for further comments) is quite a revealing piece of work. It lists around 12 points according to which classes that are backward are identified, and suggests means to improve their quality of life.

I say revealing, because most of these are reasons that a city-bred person like me would never have come across. Most of the SCs/STs/whatever other caste - people I have met are just as affluent as me or, in many cases more so. And so it is that we spontaneously rise against the move to reserve seats for __these__ people. However, the ground realities might just be quite different. Insulated as we are from the life and times of most of rural India, we are never exposed to what it might mean to belong to a lower caste there. Recall Swades, the movie by Ashutosh Gowariker. Most would agree that the guy has his brains in the right place and made a sensible (tho maybe a bit preachy) film. The movie, just like the Mandal report, showed a social structure in the village that has been broken and trampled upon. More importantly, the divides (exist, and) are unfortunately factored along CASTE. And so it is that we may forced to grudgingly accept that a majority of India's populace is a fragmented one, and there are people who are oppressed. Caste does happen to play a major role in this, try as much as we may to deny it. Things may have improved a bit since the report in 1980, but anyone who knows(and who doesnt) the red tapism prevelant in the Govt. offices would think twice before vouching for any path-breaking steps taken in this direction.

So the major question is what is the right thing to do in such a situation? Appropos Das's article, the problem boils down to defining merit in such a society. The quality or state of deserving well, is what merit is. So, Amartya Sen would rather have, say 10 seats reserved for the dalits out of a 100, and say that such a move is meritorious since it helps them come forward... Affirmative action. The GC student would say that awarding the seat to a person who has worked for it, and has deservedly got more marks is the way to go. Resolving this isnt easy, if we have a conscience, more so if we are the student.

The major point in all this being that the Government is parading (or atleast tried to parade) reservation as the solution to all these woes. Championing the BC's cause, so as to say. Delving deeper shows us what a load of crap that is. And the claims of spending crores to increase seats all over-- we easily and rightly must dismiss that as hand-waving, nothing more. Reservation is just one point in the Mandal report, and there are loads of other things to be worked on.. for instance, land reforms. What this means is that in any case, reservations would not be effective... what does the poor (OBC) boy in the village who cant go to school care about seats reserved for him in an IIT ( I would be blessed if he has even heard of it!)? As a person on the Mandal commission rightly said (forgot his name).. by choosing reservations, the government is concentrating on the Fruits of the tree, but neglecting the roots. The decay is sure to set in.

A more apt analogy would make the point clear, I guess. What do you do to a person who comes in with a fractured leg? Obviously, the right thing to do is to fix his leg first, put it in a plaster.. and wait for it to heal or whatever. But wait... the Government would not do that. Its igenious idea is to hand him a brand new pair of crutches right away! Blind to the more painstaking(on the part of the Govt) path to be taken, it offers an instant solution, and what damage it causes! The poor guy would suffer forever with his broken leg, and would be on crutches all his life.

This is exactly what the Govt. is doing here with the fractured Indian social structure that it is presented with. More disappointing is the fact that the representatives of these BCs are also hand in glove, doing things for their own vested interests. By handing out the crutches to these oppressed people without mending the "bones", the Govt. has ensured that India will always remain the follower... It will be hobbling along on crutches with broken bones to contend with, when the need of the hour is to forge ahead like in a hundred metre dash. And then it just might be too late to put things right.

I dont want to sound pessimistic here, and I am thankful that the protests have made some effect. It will require a dedicated, untiring effort on the part of some very level-headed people to set the record straight. Difficult, and sounds improbable.. yes, though not impossible. Thats the way the Indian papad crumbles.. :D.


P.s.: the last part is a little more rushed through than I it wanted tobe ... am hungryyyy.. [:)] will edit it later and add a few more points when i get time.