I've been following the anti-reservation protests in India, thanks to our desi television channel Headlines Today that's available in Canada. I've read several of the news articles on the internet. Yesterday I got an email that talked about the movie 'Rang De Basanti', linking it to the likes of the ongoing protests. And only once did I hear anyone say the most meaningful thing, and they were cut off by the interviewer, because they were running short on time. Now, I'm compelled to express my view. While I'm not as educated on this topic, I've read books like India Unbound, and understand the need for reservation.

In almost 60 years, the Country has made attempts to give an equal opportunity to the under-priviledged, by economic and other means. These would include free electricity, housing, jobs, and reservation in education and jobs in the government and public sector enterprises. Now the ongoing protests are about reservations in post secondary education. Selection for most graduate and post secondary levels is largely on merit (common entrance tests). At present, government-funded colleges have to allocate 22.5% of their seats to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and the proposed 27% reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) students with the existing 22.5% would take the total seats under the quota category to nearly 50 percent, leaving only half of the total seats for the General category students.

I have the following 3 points to state.

1. It seems to be that SC/ST/OBC students who have reached the post secondary level are not as academically strong enough as the general category students, and thereby the government provides quotas for them, bypassing the merit based system. But one basic point worth highlighting is that if a student is not meritorious enough after being provided complete primary, secondary and higher secondary education under a reserved quota, then the government is missing something somewhere. I should quote a report from the prestigious IITs to prove this. The report said that only 50% of SC/ST reserved seats are actually filled in the IITs, the other 50% quota goes vacant, thereby denying deserving general category students those seats. Of the 50% of the SC/ST seats that are filled, only 25% of the students actually walk out of IIT with a degree in 6 years, when the course is for 4 years; the rest 75% drop out or fail. These are the same prestigious IITs that produce the countries best brains, who have made the Country proud, bringing the global recognition to India. The crude way to say this is, if at every step you tell a person that you have a quota and you don't need to be as good as the general category to get what they get, the person will pretty much get used to this quota, and only 25% of the time will ever be up to the mark as the general category person. It's like breeding incompetence. The next thing the government will do is introduce quotas in private sector jobs.

2. While I have been following the protests on television, all the coverage has been of the student protestors, who are against the quotas. Not one time have I seen any non-political student representative of the SC/ST/OBC making a point about why the quotas should be there. Maybe if the government or those who seek the quotas opened up the communications channel and told the general public about the story behind, things would make more sense.

3. Like I said, I understand the need for reservation. But I also opine that the quota system should be gradually phased out, or at least such a plan should now be formulated. The past and present governments have implemented many initiatives to provide for the under priviledged, including guaranteed jobs, free food for children going to school and free primary schooling, and the quotas seem to work hand in hand with the governments objectives to work towards the upbringing of these people. However, at some point the system will become unsustainable, because the government is only increasing the quotas, which will result in the number of people in this quota only growing, never reducing. In a crude way, for how many generations does the government intend to keep a backward family backward, will the government never achieve its objectives of raising them from their status to the general category?

Whew! What a spew.

These views are my personal views, and while I try to be accurate with any quotes, I could be wrong. If you find any errors, please do add a comment to this entry.

Cheers
Mayur Poddar