During my brief layover in Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport, I figured getting online for about 30 minutes would be a nice way to wait at the gate for my flight to Chennai. 6 Euros and 2 minutes later, I was connected and going about some of my tasks when I chanced upon a headline on the BBC News South Asia.
India to implement caste quotas
I blinked for a second. I started feeling the rage build up inside me. Maybe this was something I was dreaming up? I looked at some other headlines popping up on Google News.
India to hike lower-caste quotas despite protests (Boston Globe)
India to hike lower-caste quotas despite protests (Reuters)
Govt to implement 27% quota for OBCs from June 2007 (Times of India)
Oh it’s happened alright. Inspite of ear-splitting level of protests in the country. Inspite of all the raging debates that clearly indicate the Government is implementing what is arguably the most idiotic and ineffective solution to a genuine problem without in the least giving a thought to whether it even makes sense. And to make things even more ironic, we have all the political parties in complete consensus! If there ever was a more blatant disregard for public opinion, this was it.
You’d think that given everybody, from the CEOs of India’s largest and most successful corporations to political analysts and economists to students in colleges, has made clear their opposition to the idea (and presented convincing arguments), it would make the Government stop and think. Perhaps engage in working out a solution that actually achieves what it aims to do instead of merely being an extension of 50 years of other such short-sighted laws passed “to correct historical wrongs.” [1]
But we forget that Indian politics is a dirty game of vote banks and divisive caste politics. How does it matter if all these people who’re protesting right now (mostly urban, educated elite that can’t take advantage of any quotas – a relatively small fraction of the population) are going to have an even slimmer chance of getting into the publicly-funded educational institutions? How does it matter that the Union Minister for Human Resources Development, Arjun Singh, who started all this is clueless about the actual percentage of the Indian population that will benefit from such a measure?
Now if you were a politician who only cares about being voted back into power (like Mr. Arjun Singh) when the elections come around next, would you give a damn about the protests from people who won’t make a difference to your re-election? Does it matter that what you’re doing doesn’t actually solve the problem of providing equal opportunity to disadvantaged classes at all? Does it matter that all this will only drop standards in these top institutions and further divide India along caste lines? Does it matter that you’re actually doing all this in a bid to mask the tragedy that primary education in India is and your complete failure in being able to fix it? Certainly not. You will do everything it takes to put yourself back in Parliament the next time round, sound logic and India’s welfare be damned.
Any way you look at it, the fact remains that reservations are completely the wrong way to undertake the cause of improving universal access to education. To quote Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who resigned from the Knowledge Commission set up by the Prime Minister, in his open letter to the PM:
As a society we focus on reservations largely because it is a way of avoiding doing the things that really create access. Increasing the supply of good quality institutions at all levels (not to be confused with numerical increases), more robust scholarship and support programmes will go much further than numerically mandated quotas. When you assumed office, you had sketched out a vision of combining economic reform with social justice. Increased public investment is going to be central to creating access opportunities. It would be presumptuous for me to suggest where this increased public investment is going to come from, but there are ample possibilities: for instance, earmarking proceeds from genuine disinvestment for education will do far more for access than quotas. We are not doing enough to genuinely empower marginalised groups, but are offering condescending palliatives like quotas as substitute. All the measures currently under discussion are to defuse the agitation, not to lay the foundations for a vibrant education system. If I may borrow a phrase of Tom Paine’s, we pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird.
Even 10 years from now, somebody that I meet, in their curiosity about India will ask me that same question, “Does India still have the caste system?” And I know that the answer will be no better than it is today. That, to me, is the saddest part.
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[1] A lot of different people have written about why reservations are the the wrong solution to the problem of providing equal access to opportunity to economically and socially disadvantaged classes. Of note are Atanu Dey’s recent pieces on the India Economy Blog.
