Thursday, 18 May 2006

Homo sapiens – a class of castes ?

The Indian Constitution guarantees all citizens ‘Equality’. The intention and meaning is simple and straightforward. So let me not muddle it with unnecessary definitions. But wait, the same Constitution, a few pages later, advises the govt. to make necessary ‘provisions for the upliftment of the downtrodden and backward classes in the society’. Now this poses a few questions. How can special provisions be made for a section of the society without it being unfair to the rest? How do we ensure equality for all? The answer is simple, but it certainly isn’t ‘Reservation’.

Even after 58 years of Independence, our society is neck-deep in caste politics and, as though to sustain this forever, a large section of the population (known to psephomologists as ‘backward classes’) is still under-developed. To uplift these sections and to bring social justice to all, reservation is not the way. Reservation in education, I argue, goes against the right to equality our Constitution guarantees. Anything that provides a short-cut for a section of the people is definitely unfair to the rest. Before coming to the solution, let me discuss few more points, which explain the danger and ineffectiveness of Reservation.

To simply put it, Reservation is as ineffective as a ladder at the treetop. A student who secures admission to a professional course through reservation will find the going tough. He is under-prepared for the course demands and in most probability will lag behind meritorious students, if he hasn’t already dropped out after a year. This is not the student’s fault. He or she wasn’t given the proper training/schooling that would have equipped them to handle the course workload. If such students ‘somehow manage’ to complete the course, they end up as a curse to themselves and the society. Imagine the dangers half-baked doctors or ignorant engineers can do to the society.

The architects of our Constitution wanted special provisions for backward classes, with the aim of ultimately creating a casteless society. But today, the number of fake caste certificates being issued and the fight for caste-vote-banks is more prominent than ever before. There are many who cite the experiment of South Indian states with reservation as a success. There are reports, which suggest that the standard of education has gone down in most of these universities. Moreover, it is only a small percentage of the backward class population who benefit from reservation. The proposed number of reserved seats, though proportional to their population, is still only a small fraction of their population. Thus, while a minority among them climb up the prosperity ladder, others continue to support the ladder, hoping that one day they too can climb it. Even among the beneficiaries, a good number belong to the creamy layer whose ‘backwardness’ exists only in the caste certificate. Thus reservation as a means for uplifting the whole backward population is ineffective.

Instead of feeding at the finishing point, we need to start from the kindergarten level. Government schools with good facilities and teachers need to be set up in every nook and corner of our country. All sections of the population have to be made aware of the advantages of education. Once both these have been done, automatically we create a generation, who are equally well trained and differ from one another only to the extent of individual hard-work put in. The knowledge and exposure of all the students is same and this sets a platform from where admissions can be made to professional courses based only on merit. This is the solution and, unfortunately, the proposition government would least like to follow.

Reservation is a crooked short-cut harmful to the society; nevertheless a short cut. Creating excellent schooling infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country requires determination and is time consuming. It requires a large amount of money too. In comparison, reserving a percentage and increasing the total number of seats is easy and inexpensive. But if we consider the fact that the money required is little when compared to the thousands of crores being spent for Commonwealth Games preparation and also the reality that current resources in colleges are strained, my solution seems ideal.

As mentioned earlier, it will take same time before good government schools can be built everywhere. My younger brother suggested, as a temporary measure, adding 4 to 5 seats per division in each private school, to which admission would be only from the BCs. Mind you, the word was ‘addition’ and not reservation. But this won’t suffice to educate the whole population and ultimately it is the government’s duty to provide quality schooling to all.

I would like to go a step further and suggest means by which a student’s economic background can be made a non-factor in the admission process. Out of the total number of seats available, a few have to be reserved for sports, handicapped, Adivasis and other such categories. All the remaining must be filled under the general category with merit as the sole criteria. The fees for a course has to be fixed by the government, after considering all the expenses, and must be applicable to both private and government colleges. Students unable to bear the expense, should be supported by the government directly or in arrangement with financial institutions. A written undertaking must be obtained from such students, stating that the money spent on their education will be repaid over a period of time starting from the time he secures a job. This presents a win-win situation for both the parties concerned as neither is any student denied a chance to study nor is the government losing money as it tries to deliver social justice.

Reservation can never provide the self-esteem that the student enjoys when he/she gets admission through merit. Only when rulers realize this, and stop caste politics, will the backward classes’ true upliftment start.

The Last Ink Drop : I hope I live to see the day, when a student will have to fill in his admission form, besides Name, D.O.B, Parents’ Name and Address, only his Sex; because humans are only of two types – male and female.

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