Reservation, this one word will evoke a whole gamut of emotions in every Indian, whether he is either for or against the idea. Each one of us, Indians, have an idea about how this immensely important issue should be. Yet, i see no intense intellectual debate or rational reasoning put to use within our society, right from the street corner tea stall to the corridors or power in New Delhi. Rather, our emotion seems to take a lead leaving us with more agony, people digging their feet deeper into their beliefs however bigoted it might be without a chance for any form of compromise. The media, which always sensationalizes everything from a petty robbery and something as personal as marriage, has only fanned the flames of anger and passion.
Everytime the idea of Reservation comes up in the national conscience it brings up a passionate, though with either impractical or unreasonable, debate about what form Reservation should take. The most common and an idea that almost every educated Indian seems to agree is the idea of Reservation based on Economics. At this point, i agree that the current form of reservation is not serving those who really need it and it is for this reason i want to explore, open this question before you guys, to have an honest reasonable interchange of ideas on what should and could be done. I don't want some general vague talking points we see everyday on TV.
These are some of the conclusions i came to when i thought about Reservations based on Economics. Though, if there is a way to successfully implement this which is not a small task by any means, this idea might be one of the fairest, i couldn't see how this can be brought about. I want to just go through some of these issues that i can think of and to see if we can with a solution through this discussion. I am thinking of a practical solution, not some Utopian idea which should make everyone happy in India. That is impossible.
Firstly, how do we decide on some one's economic strata, when only a minuscule percent of the Indian population pays tax. Herein lies the biggest problem. When such a huge chunk of population depends on the agriculture and other small businesses where we don't have any form of accounting, how to formulate a solution where again a privileged few won't take advantage of the loop holes of the system?
Secondly, in the system how do we decide who become eligible for reservation? If we are going to make the decision based on the incomes of the parents, what if someone tells that he doesn't need any support from his parents, for that matter he has separated from them and expects to be eligible for reservation? If there is a tangible benefit, i.e., difference between a seat in IIT or some private college, in showing yourself to be economically disadvantaged then people will abuse the system. We all know that.
Thirdly, we all know that the true spirit for reservation has long been dead. In fact it died the day it was written. Think of the idea of reservation. It is for people who have for generations have been on the margins of the society, who without any form of help from the Govt in an apathetic society like ours will never be able to compete in the mainstream. However, whenever there is a debate on reservation, whether you watch NDTV or IBNLIVE or whichever channel, who do you see shouting at the top of their voice, its the people who are in the IITs, the AIIMS and other prestigious institutions.
I accept, they too are affected by the way politicians play with reservation as a tool to be in public memory whenever they get lost in the crowd. But have you ever seen these channels go to a remote corner of India, ask a villager who still fights daily to survive about what he needs and how this system has to be changed to bring him into the mainstream. No, i have never seen it. For the news channels its about money, viewership - the middle class and advertisements. For the politicians its about the votes. Much like the Africans (refer previous post) who have to be kept poor to display the benevolence and magnanimity of the rich, there is a huge population in India in who's name there is a struggle going on, but surely they wouldn't know what happened in the end, for they will be left untouched just as they were left untouched when Reservation Version 1.0 ran through its life.
I will post some of the ideas that i have seen that are not really based on pure economics in my next post.
C Karthikeyan
7 comments:
People from IITs, IIMs and AIIMS cry out loud because they feel cheated. Its unfair for them considering the struggle they put in to get through. Though they are right in their anguish, you are right about the media concentrating only on them.
Consider that I am naive with respect to Economy101:
How about using the pink and white ration cards?
Or how about following the US system of schools where everyone can study for free? That way, all classes of people get a fair chance when they graduate.
Hi,
I totally agree that Reservations bring is strong forte of comments and also generate unwarranted attention. As a Matter of fact I think Ours is the only Country where people are actually proud of being called "Backward". Come on guys.. Gimme it a rest guys...I think its soo demoralizing for every Indian who falls in the caste bracket.. its like telling them Ok we are giving you a break in the Admission System cause ur from a particular Caste Bracket. Hello!! what ru talking about ??? When a genuine Intelligent scorer applies for admissions it should be based on his marks and not his Caste.. I also think we really need a strong influx of young politicians with new ideas.. as this old ideas (from our Old politicians ofcourse) of gaining votes is really pathetic!!
Reservations are supposed to help people who are economically backward, not those who are intellectually backward. Now, the concept of economic inferiority is not as simple as it sounds. People who cannot afford good schools, good colleges and so on will be (atleast on an average) intellectually inferior to those who can.
Now, I think the failure of reservation system stems from this our lack to differentiate these two stratas. For instance I don't mind sharing my school bench or college bench or my class room with one who is economically inferior but intellectually qualified. Vice versa is not true.
As I see it, this problem has two possible solutions. One takes a long time to implement, but does'nt require anything new from the government. The other can be implemented relatively quickly, but would take a lot of resources from both the government and the people. This problem will solve itself with the growing economy, but as I said it will take a long time.
Now, the second solution is coming up with a way to separate candidates who are intellectually qualified but economically inferior. Again, there is no straight forward, hard and fast rule for this. Any one who can float such ideas will be contributing in leaps and bounds to this problem's solution!!!
Great topic and a poignant one as well. Before I do make my points, I would like to acknowledge that reservation has infact shown promise in the past - where some of our friends have been able to afford education only because of reservation and I know stories about of how those people were the first in their community to get professionally qualified. But as the post clearly brings out success stories like those are few and far between.
Firstly, I dont even know how well advertised the reservation scheme is? It has nt just reached enough people in the rural areas simply because their exposure to media of any kind is very limited. Anyways, Reservations based on economy has its own impediments as Karthik has pointed out. I have a slightly different version of economics based reservation.This starts from a slightly higher level than an invidual or a family's economic status. How about Reservation based on the literacy levels of districts of different states? Though individual financial position might not be available, it is relatively easy to collect the statistics of a particular district and give preference accordingly which ties to the respective communities economics. My reasoning is the following:
- Poor districts generally have poor literacy rates as well. This reservation will encourage them to establish decent schools in their districts and to improve their infrastructure. This might not even produce too many students in the first couple of years but I think is a great starting point.
- Once these literacy rates of districts are made public, we can atleast hold an MLA resposible (utopian, yes!!) on what he has done to improve the rates and why it has nt improved despite the reservations. It is better than asking why people belonging to a certain caste have little or no education at all.
- So what about people living in the cities? Great question. Reservation in my opinion has to increase the opporunity to get educated. This is the key. In cities, I would argue that an average family/individual has atleast more opportunity to get educated than people from the rural areas. Going by that token, people in the cities have to perform better.
Without further rambling about the positives of my(??) theory I do have quite a few questions on whether this is a practical solution . Please do let me know what you guys think and we will go from there.
Thanks guys for the response, i will post a new article responding to some of the ideas here as well as put forth some other ideas i have seen. I am already half done with a different article, so you might see a posting irrelevant to this issue next.
Good words.
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