Reservations - the real issue?

The problem or the symptom?

When you enter IIMA the first class teaches you the simplest, the most logical but the least common way to see things, and the simple discourse preacheth 'look at not the symptom, but focus on the problem and its solution'. Is the current issue of reservation really a solution? Will it solve the problem? To answer this, we first need to assess the problem. Is the lack of reservation a problem? May be as honorable minister of HRD would define, but is that really the problem?

The real problem?

Now that so much has been said in the media, so much written, so much thought of, the answer should be easily forthcoming. The way I see it, and my mind tells me, it is that a kid named Ramu from the exterior Chhapra who belongs to a downtrodden family, and is denied of good primary and secondary education can’t compete with his counterparts who are rich enough to have access to the best means of education, in getting into a coveted elite institution like IIT or IIM. Let’s also assume that he is from a backward caste. So, Mr. Arjun Singh comes up and says that 'Hey Ramu, you're from a lower caste, and since you studied from a crappy school and scored only forty two percent in your final year of engineering at Bihar institute of technology, and you couldn’t get elsewhere, I invite you to join IIMA. That's great Mr. Arjun Singh; you just improved the life of a downtrodden. But, what happens to Shamu and Deep. Now who are they?

Effects on others?

Shamu is a higher caste's poorer son and outclassed Ramu until class four before he had to quit school due his family's inability to pay the tuition fees. Ok. Ok. He doesn’t have the basic educational qualifications, but Deep? a Brahmin or any other higher caste poor son who cooks full time, while is able to study part-time only when the streetlight's working, and despite a 99 percentile amongst two lac students couldn’t get in because half of the seats were gifted by Mr. Arjun Singh for reasons best known to him and the ones that he has refused to divulge to the eager audience of the only interview in which he was implored about the same. (Ref: Karan Thapar’s interview of the honorable minister)

Rethinking…

Now is the lack of seats a bottleneck really? According to me it is the lack of educational opportunities for those who can’t afford fancy tuition classes that is the real problem. And why don’t they get those educational opportunities?

Because our primary and secondary schools cant accommodate the bulging population of the country. And why will it not happen? Ours is a country where schooling has become a profitable venture, filled with non-competitive teachers and we have no qualms in sending our children to the same teacher for a private tuition, because he teaches well in the private set-up. Do we recall any one good government school wherever in the country we have been to? And all the schools that exist, have we not heard of the deplorable state they are in, or that the teachers go on strike once every six months?

So, as I see, we don’t have good primary education that empowers everyone, and strengthens all not to just fight for the existing opportunities, but to create more opportunities galore. As an old Chinese saying says, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat forever”, we can either have reservations, have weak background people, not just in terms of caste, but in terms of their educational background, left to cringe and compete against those who are there after a fierce competition, thus encouraging broken strengths, and fuelling a spate of resultant suicides. It will be a different matter altogether that we would have tarnished the student quality and the image of the only few esteemed institutions in the country.

Proposed solution

As per the proposed brief by the Government today, the general quota seats will remain the same, despite the increase in the OBC quota. It is accepted however that the same will take 3-5 years at the least. However, what happens during the proposed time frame? Our country will continue to grow at 2.2% a year and the IIT/IIM wannabes at 22%, thereby making it only tougher for the students to enter the already “world’s toughest business schools to enter, etc.” There are other difficulties of the faculty non-availability, etc. too.

Ifs and Buts…

What if the government and the students would have concentrated this precious time wasted in supporting an archaic resolution, in the construction of a new business school and a technology school? We would have increased the current capacity of the premier schools by 50%, and added to the overall capacity of the country too. Yes, I agree that the faculty is not available despite the fact that almost 1200 MBAs, 1500 engineers and numerous doctors are made every year by the premier schools. Instead of wasting the precious tax-payer’s money in these archaic regulations, etc. the actual industry people can be drawn to the school to teach, and one day after 10 years or so, these institutes would develop a significant pool of people, who will come back to teach there, and a large corpus of funds will be created solely of alumni’s contribution. We can look at Harvard, etc. for cue.

In the same time, we can strengthen our primary education system, with a spate of ‘good schools” everywhere, managed privately, and subsidized education for those who can’t afford, we will be able to build people of the country who will create opportunities for themselves. But as I said, this is all ‘Ifs and buts’

A few unanswered questions?

Hence, I raise a few logical questions to the honorable minister – Are we going to get some reservations at Harvard, Oxford and MIT for the OBCs, leave aside Indians? If yes, how does he go about it? Dividing the country on the basis of caste, will he still preach secularism in a short period of three years when the country goes to the polls again?

The choice is ours…

We can either improve these people, but should we make them strong to create opportunities or rather give them the opportunities as charity? Do we want a country of broken people, a country infested with the same red tapism that plagues the current public sector enterprises? Do we allow the whims and fancies of all and the sundry who can’t even disclose the rationale of their decision? Do we want the country to be divided suddenly on the basis of caste and then re-elect the same government at the end of five years when it drowns the last five years of its failure into hues and cries of secularism et al? Do we want a long-term solution, or a short-term solution that will only create larger problems in the future? The future is ours and this choice is also entirely ours.

--- Vella Viks