The Great Quota Debate - My Take

The Quota Debate

Our country might have a hundred good ornaments, decorating its ancient and rich cultural visage, but there’s one deep scar that simply refuses to vanish. It is the scar of Casteism and Caste Politics. The wound given to us by thousands of years of slavery under foreign rule and subjugation; where the foreign masters used the policy of Divide and Rule to completely dominate our ignorant and conservative population. The scar still persists, and raises its ugly head from time to time; the prime examples being the Mandal Commission 1992 and the OBC Reservation Bill, 2006.

Dr. B R Ambedkar was a visionary. He envisioned an India where an upper-class Brahmin and a traditionally lower caste Harijan/Dalit could together, hold aloft their hard earned degrees and disappear into the professional and social fabric of society. Mind you, on the basis of their employment and financial standing due to their degree, and not their pedigree! But something went seriously wrong. Politics. He wrote the reservation law keeping in mind certain ideal conditions of humanity and society. But alas, where the Indian Mind is involved, nothing hardly remains ideal, does it?

We need to first look at what the reservation policy has actually accomplished. For that, we need to delve into the realm of speculation.

How was the society in the infant years of free India? Three-fourths of the population uneducated, living in a frame of reference webbed by gross misconceptions and social evils. It was a time when our economy was in doldrums. Most of the people would rather work menial jobs and feed themselves and their families rather than sit in a school for six hours and go hungry. Girl children weren’t even allowed to study. People still looked up to and stayed under the thumbs of power-hungry, arrogant, mean and tyrannous Thakurs or Zamindars or Saucars, who like true Barons of yore, ground their serfs to the dust. A man’s mind is conditioned by the society in which he lives and by the basic education he receives. Our poor economy and corrupt, greedy political machinery made sure that this quality basic education never made its way to the poorer sections of the population. Thus, at the first step itself, the Great Indian Dream of a medical or an engineering degree died a silent death.

Urban India was totally alienated from rural India. The Good western ideologies of liberty, freedom, progress, education etc hardly reached the villages. Actually, people did not want to change. When someone has a mind-block against change, he ceases to grow. The ones who did get ‘enlightenment’ were the ones who ventured out of their dark wells into the lush green meadows of the city. Or, the upper class people. Point to be noted.

Let us look at some more aspects of the education divide between the rural backward classes and the urban classes. Professional education is more of an Urban phenomenon. That itself has two basic causes, stemming from a stagnant mindset.

a) The poorer sections fear education on account of losing out their daily bread, and are hence apathetic towards demanding better education.

b) The legendary entrance exams. Yeah, that’s actually the bane of our education system. My dear friends, I’ll rote five books and top the exam. What’s the guarantee that I won’t kill a patient due to an attack of heebie-jeebies at the operation table?

Then there are four factors which greaten the Urban-Rural divide –

a) General environment throughout history, as illustrated above

b) Corrupt Bureaucracy

c) Resultant rotten basic education

d) Lack of awareness, stagnant conservative mentality, education among the backward classes who are economically weaker

Until and unless we have equally strong English based education at the grass roots level among the economically and culturally backward classes in both rural and urban areas, which reach out to all castes, they in no case can match the sensibilities of the upper classes which are educated. I mean those classes which have access to basic education. It has got nothing to do with Caste. Absolutely. It is simply a case of mental training. In the end, it all comes down to your mental structure and ideologies.

Let’s face it; with the kind of environment the economically lower and the rural classes live in, they simply do not possess the same passion, drive or interest as the more open minded Upper classes.

Now ask me where casteism comes in here? I’ll tell you. I had stated a few lines above that it has got nothing to do with caste. Yes, at a basic level, it has got nothing to do with caste. Go to a city and have a look inside a college. You’ll have students from all castes studying together. But the difference comes in here. Among the economically lower sections, the weakest ones are the backward classes. That’s one reason why our Government has designated ‘Other Backward Classes’ and ‘Scheduled Castes / Tribes’ as separate entities. I don’t need to harp on the situation of the tribal people, do I?

Let’s talk a little on the mentalities of the OBCs and SC/STs as designated by the Government. Please note, I am not being politically wrong. If I can’t call a dog a dog, what shall I call it, eh?

Make a survey of Govt. offices and check out the totally uncouth behaviour and cavalier attitude of those people who get in through quotas. Or check out how the quota doctors go about their business. Damn it, even if you don’t know your business, the least you can do is to refer to a different doctor and be polite enough and admit it. An ex-neighbour of ours is a scientist who has come in through the SC/ST quota. He has neither gained a promotion, nor done any significant work in the last ten years I’ve seen him. His daughter has failed her 12^th Grade twice and both his sons have failed their 10^th Grade. And this is their state after living in Delhi! Did I mention his wife is an illiterate who is really disgusting? Who made her sons use a stone and scratch designs on the bonnet of our brand new car because that day dad had parked the car before her husband could come home and park his scooter?

In a free country, you cannot deny the right to a hard earned seat to an Upper Class fellow earned purely on merit, due to reservations for the backward classes. That is simply ridiculous. Ask college students and teachers and they’ll tell you that practically 90% of the Quota candidates are lousy students. Why?

a) They’ll know that they’ll anyways get into a college through reservation, get a job through reservation and will be settled in life. That simply sucks out the value of hardwork from them and they become lax and careless.

b) On the other hand, even if someone wants to study higher education, he won’t be able to cope up with the demands of a professional education because of poor basic background and the general mentality and environment of his house and society.

The irony of our country’s mentality is that we take pride in false pretences. AIIMS prides itself on the fact that it turns out only 35 Doctors an year; but damn good doctors. What if the Doctor : Patient ratio in the country is nearly 1 : 2000 in Urban areas? What does it matter that these ‘Good’ doctors are chosen on the basis of their performance in an entrance exam which only tests their roting skills? Our dynamic and highly intellectual President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam once remarked that our country has become a country of exam crackers, and not a country of independent thinkers or innovators. The Delhi University Department of Genetics admits 5 students per year to the M.Sc programme. There are approximately only 500 seats per year for an MD Programme all over the country. Only. And then we cry that we don’t have good scientists or doctors to do good work at the higher levels. And then we introduce reservation. Nice. Lagey raho India!

Mr. Arjun Singh is a clever man. He violated a poll code which says that when elections are going on in any state, the Parliament cannot pass any Bill. He presented the bill at the precise time when elections were on in 4 states. He knew that no one would veto the bill. Why? Because our mighty politicians depend largely on the vote bank of the lower class people, who are easily lured by false promises of money and jobs. Mr. Arjun Singh is a bachelor, going on 77, and his life is at its dusk. But there are thousands of students who bang their heads over their careers everday. Maybe he’s deaf to those wailings. Quite unfortunate, isn’t it? And then our country is worried when an upcoming film star gets bitten by a dog or scratches her knee or breaks up with her boyfriend.

It has been 59 years since the Quota system came into effect. It has been 14 years since the Mandal Commission paved one road with pork and one with hot coals. But still, majority of the backward classes still remain backward. 21% of the population still remains below the poverty line and 44% of the population is still illiterate. And the recent census shows that the most illiterate states are Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Orissa etc where Caste Politics play a MAJOR role. Remember Laloo’s ‘Laloo is a yadav, you are a yadav, vote for Laloo Yadav’? These are states where awareness hasn’t reached the backward classes and the rural pockets, where the political machinery hinders development. What does this imply? That reservation has failed? But Mr. Singh begs to differ, as apparent from a recent interview on a news channel. Then why more reservation? No Answer. Strange. And here I was thinking that this man had done all his groundwork.

The only solution that seems plausible is to increase the number of seats at the centres of higher learning. But then, my dear friends, we can’t take false pride in maintaining quality by turning out only 35 doctors, no? Another solution is to give credibility to private universities and allowing the corporate world to an invested interest (pun intended) in education. But here again, it won’t work. Know why? Because of the famous Indian Mentality against private institutions. Even though now we earn enough to spend and save, we think backward when it comes to going to a private institution which charges for it’s updated and modern infrastructure and facilities, which the age old institutions with Gigantic names, lax quota professors and stinking toilets can’t manage to provide.

Looks like Mr. Singh has taken quite a hasty decision eh? But then, when was our government ever known for planning? When Mrs. Gandhi was asked what to do of the 20-point programme, she said, condense it into one – Work for my son Rajiv.

Are you listening, Mr. Manmohan Singh, Dr. Kalam and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi?