"Proper" English & Reservations-of-a-Different-Kind

A couple of years back, an alumnus who had graduated more than 30 years back from the B-School where I teach, had shared a personal episode with me. After joining the institute, within first term he realised that he could not cope up with the place. This was not so much because of the academic pressures, but because all teaching was done in English, and he was not at all conversant in the language.

Deciding to call it quits, he went to the then dean, and told him about his decision. "But you can't leave just because you don't know English!!", the jesuit priest told him... and then spent next six months, daily two hours, teaching him English!

When I met him, he had already worked with some of the leading Indian and foreign corporates for a couple of decades, had raised a family of very mature children (I met them), had decided to branch out on his own, and was operating his business.

Why did I recall this incident today?

...Today, I chanced upon a report (tip: Uma's blog) about Garima, the 16-year old daughter of a Delhi police constable, who had topped her class X (in the government-aided DAV Dwarka) by securing 97.6% marks in the CBSE exams - and a perfect 100 in science. Belonging to one of the Delhi villages, when she applied to DPS Dwarka (New Delhi), she was not selcted.

According to the school principal: "This year, we had around 200 applications for 28 seats. In the admission process, the Board exam score is not ignored, neither is it the only criteria. We take in students on relative merit, on the basis of an entrance test, an interview, and the board exam marks."

Garima ranked 12th out of 80 students selected in the written test, and made it to the interview, where she failed to make the grades. DPS' explanation for rejecting her was: "The CBSE marks don't mean anything to us. We have certain criteria about the kind of children we want. She wasn't able to speak English properly and that was also a problem."

There were 9 other girls who got selected, though they had less marks in CBSE than Garima, but fitted the "kind of children" the school wanted.

Garima was lucky, since she got noticed by the media and appeared on NDTV debate. Barkha Dutt wrote about her: "...there was nothing about her spoken English that suggested that she would have been unable to keep pace with the syllabus. Yes, she spoke with a regional accent that some would consider insufficiently sophisticated. But there was no doubt that she could not only follow a complex argument, she could also make herself understood to any English speaker."

I think, and hope, that Garima's case is not generalisable across all schools and all people. There are some heart-warming exceptions too. For instance, there was this touching article on Sudama's Children in the recent issue of The Outlook, which featured the Delhi schools and childen from less-privileged backgounds who studied there... about their challenges and the support they got from their peers and school.

Neverthless, Garima's case does open up three issues to think about...

1. The Purpose of Our Elite Educational Institutions
Whether DPS - or IITs, NITs, IIMs, XLRI, etc. - the entry to all such institutions is based on criteria that select the "educatable" students. These are the one who meet the criteria - good "background", the "profile", "communication skills" (in "proper" English) - that will help them to do well at the exit stage (e.g., cracking the IIT, B-school entrance test, getting a "good" job, etc.). This 'exit performance', in turn, increases the equity and ranking of the institution, and will attract more of such people to the educational institution.

Needless to say, such institutions do add value by polishing the latent aptitudes of the students.

But do they really create value which contributes to society?...

...or to paraphrase Justice Chinnappa Reddy 1985 SC judgement:

is it greater value to sharpen the aptitude of "the children of the upper-classes who go to St. Paul's High School and St. Stephen's College, and who have perhaps been specially coached for the examination may secure 70, 80 or even 90 per cent of the marks"

or does one create new value by bringing those chidren into the mainstream of the society, who have "no books and magazines to read at home, no radio to listen, no TV to watch, no one to help him with his homework, whose parents are either illiterate or so ignorant and ill informed that he cannot even hope to seek their advice on any matter of importance."

[Barkha Dutt's article - The English Divide - articulates the other two issues much better, and so, I will take the liberty of quoting from her]

2. The "Meaning" of Merit in Our Society?
"Garima’s story is a metaphor for India’s twisted tryst with the future... For some months now, as the debate over reservation has raged, opponents of the quotas have made the same point again and again: we should be a society where merit matters. It’s a compelling argument... But what do the anti-quota street fighters have to say now? Here’s a girl who competed in the mainstream, her own DAV pitched against the trendier, richer, big names. But her merit was swallowed up by prejudice.

...and all because her English accent was not sufficiently sophisticated!!!

3. "English" as an Instrument of Social Divide?
This is an important aspect of our social divide, since in India - inspite of its much touted "large English speaking population", there are barely 20-40mn (out of 1bn), who can actually read, write and speak English (of course, we have our own form of "Hinglish" with the road-side dhabas advertising that they serve "snakes" (snacks) with "child bear" ;0)...

...and there is an "elitism" about speaking "proper" English - even though, our English acquires its own regional peculiarities across the country.

As Burkha Dutt, points out:

"...Garima’s story exposes India’s paradoxical relationship with the English language. Nobody in the world speaks English like us. We have our own idioms, our own words and our own accents.

We pretend to love our own English and brag about how it is India’s great selling point; the reason we dominate the global outsourcing business. But, of course, deep down we know that our English is not the English that the West really wants. And so, each time we talk to Britons or Americans, we subtly alter our diction and inflection. When we set up our call centres, we drop the subtlety entirely and start accent classes to teach our young people to abandon the speech patterns of our own society and to migrate to a virtual, linguistic, middle America, where they become impersonators of people they will never meet and never know.

But within India, we still treat our own English as the great social decider. We laugh at regional accents, smirk at those who make grammatical errors and feel most at home with those who talk like us. Everyone else belongs on the other side of the English divide. And as it turns out, the other side of the class and caste divide as well."

Sources:

Did you say merit?

DPS turns down CBSE topper

The English Divide

Sudama's Children

Schools shouldn't hold interviews after boards: CBSE chief

Ambanis, Azim Premji, My Domestic Help... and Me!

This was the find of the day!... that the most affluents of the country, myself and even the old lady who helps out in the house actually belong to the same category - the rich of this country!!

The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) classifies the income levels across 11 levels. While reading Satish Deshpande's Contemorary India, I came across this table in which he had reduced the 11 levels to 4 - below poverty line, not poor, "middle class", and "the rich".



As one can see, among those 7-8%, we all are the affluents of the country...

...and now, if you don't mind, please, I will go to my weekend party invitation... and celebrate my newly discovered affluent status by consuming equivalent to one month income of some others on this planet...

Modern Indian Economic Mythologies

Perhaps, every generation/era has its own set of mythologies and urban legends, which are mutually reinforced by the metropolitan conversations among the elites who have a voice... They define the "good" and "evil" in binary (fairy tale?) terms, which are comforting for those/themselves who find the grey areas of real-life uncomfortable to deal with/live in.

In our times, apparently, one of the myths is the huge economic utopia that the post-1991 liberalisation has created. With India's GDP sky-rocketing surpassing the erstwhile "Hindu Growth Rate" (notwithstanding the fact that GDP itself is a function of how it is calculated - another modern myth!), there are two myths that appeal to those who have "seceded from the society"

Myth 1: Liberalisation of Indian economy has unleashed a boom in employment opportunities

Unfortunately, the reality bites, and the figures do not match with the assumptions. The following figures are from the Planning Commission's database.



According to Planning Commision, the employment rate fell down from 2.7% in the pre-liberalisation era to less than 1% post-1991

Myth 2: Pre-91/"liberalisation", Indian industrial/social infrastructure did not develop due to the anti-industrial policies of the "socialist economy".

Once again, the reality does not match the beliefs.





Facts notwithstanding, the modern Indian myths perpetuate among the urban elites... reinforced by media, urban elites and government...

Meritocracy & the "Secession of the Successful"

This is a continuation of my previous post about Manufacturing "Merit"...

According to Wikipedia:
"Meritocracy is a system of government based on rule by ability (merit) rather than by wealth, race or other determinants of social position.... Meritocratic governments and organizations stress talent, formal education, and competence, rather than existing differences such as social class, ethnicity, or sex. In practice, research on social mobility indicates that all these supposedly neutral criteria favour the children of those who are already privileged in some way."...

The term "Meritocracy" was coined by a British sociologist Michael Young in his 1958 novel The Rise of Meritocracy. Ironically, Young had coined the term in a disparaging sense to describe an unstable society in which one's social place is determined one's IQ. In the novel, this social system led to wide disparities between the masses and the elites, who had become arrogant and disconnected from the public sphere... And ultimately, to social revolution in which the masses overthrew the elite

Much later, the Harvard Professor, Richard Reich, coined the term "Secession of the Successful" in a 1991 New York Time article to describe how the elite "become arrogant and disconnected from the public sphere"

In a recent HT article, Sagarika Ghose captured the meaning of "Secession of the Successful" quite graphically:

"the ‘successful’ tend to ‘secede’ from society as they get richer and more successful. That is, those who are successful tend to retreat into a totally private world. They use private electricity. They attend private schools and colleges. They live in private colonies, manned by private security guards. They socialise at private clubs, use only private transport and thus they cease to have any stake at all in the ‘public realm’ or in the public world."

Perhaps most insightful are these excerpts from Michael Young's 2001 The Guardian article about merit and meritocracy:

"It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others.

Ability of a conventional kind, which used to be distributed between the classes more or less at random, has become much more highly concentrated by the engine of education.

A social revolution has been accomplished by harnessing schools and universities to the task of sieving people according to education's narrow band of values.

With an amazing battery of certificates and degrees at its disposal, education has put its seal of approval on a minority, and its seal of disapproval on the many who fail to shine from the time they are relegated to the bottom streams.... The new class has the means at hand, and largely under its control, by which it reproduces itself."

Manufacturing "Merit"

These days in India, when "merit" and "social justice" have become an either/or issue, there is some merit in having a relook at how "merit" is defined - and created/manufactured - in our society.

Notwithstanding the criticism that the educational infrastructure did not grow in India since independence, the data gives an altogether different picture:

According to another report, the total number of medical colleges in India also grew from 30 to around 250 with an intake of just about 20,000 (India has about 0.6mn registered doctors for a population of more than a billion people!)

Inspite of such growth, however, two factors have impeded the positive impact of this growth in the educational infrastructure:

1. The population has grown faster, and the demographic profile of the country has changed in favour of a very large young and vibrant generation (India is one of the youngest country, with a median age of less than 25: *please see the postscript)... Every year, close to 40lac (4mn) students pass out +2 from the Indian pre-degree educational schools/colleges.

2. The quality of many professional institutes is much lacking. For instance, the more than 100 engineering colleges in Karnataka and 200+ in Tamil Nadu lack sufficient faculty and infrastructure, but demand exhorbitant fee. Similarly, of the close to 1,000 B-schools in the country, only around 50 are recognised by the AICTE, etc..

...And therefore, the demand for good-quality educational (and occupational) opportunities has fast out-stripped the available opportunities.

For instance:

This year (2006), around 3lac (0.3mn) students appeared in IIT-JEE for about 6,000 seats in IITs, IIT-BHU and ISM-Dhanbad. The 18 NITs put together have just around 7,000 seats. (The irony is that, as the table above shows, while there are almost 3.5lac seats available in Indian engineering institutions, the aspirants' target is only for the quality institutes, which cannot accommodate all of them. Thus, while the success rate for entrance in IITs/NITs is less than 2%, in many engineering colleges, the seats remain vacant).

The situation is similar in the "second-rung" engineering colleges. In 2004, about 3.75lac (0.375mn) students appeared for AIEEE, competing for about 9,000 seats across 117 engineering colleges across the country.

Similarly, in 2005, around 1.5lac (0.15mn) candidates appeared for CAT for the 6 IIMs (about 3,000 seats), and around 70-odd other B-schools. Just a few years back, in 1998, this figure was 87,000.

Aspiring for the medical and dental colleges, in 2004, about 1.7lac (0.17mn) students appeared for CBSE's All India Pre-Medical Test, competing for just about 1,600 seats in the top medical colleges

About 7,000 students compete for the 80 seats across all its 9 centres of the National Law School, one of the premium 5-years courses in Law.

This year, for XAT (XLRI's admission test, which is accepted by 30 other b-schools), around 30,000 students (of the total 60k who appeared for the test) applied for the 180 seats in XLRI, etc., etc....

In many ways, the working definition of "merit" in contemporay India is a function of this big supply-demand gap, where less than 2% aspirants to professional courses qualify to have "merit", i.e., get selected to their desired courses... and a mere difference of less than 0.01%ile in the admission test can change one's status from "merit" to "de-merit"

And so, to win in this Darwinian landscape, an entirely new industry has taken shape during last decade or so, which specialises in "Manufacturing Merit"...

...the "Coaching Institutes":

Some Snapshots
(1bn =1 crore):

The Coaching Institute industry is dominated by around 50 firms. This is fast growing industry with an annual turnover estimates that vary from Rs.3,000bn-Rs.12,000bn. (as an offside, the fast-food industry in India has a turnover of only Rs.500bn :0)

Among the pioneers of this industry was the Bansal's Coaching Classes in Kota, Rajasthan, which started in 1983. Kota, currently, has around around 130 coaching institutes with an estimated combined turnover of Rs.250-400bn. The cost of 10 months coaching at Kota can vary between Rs.60,000 to Rs.175,000.The students come from all over India, and according to one report in 2003, Kota produced 2/3rd of the IIT entrants.

Kakadeo, Kanpur hosts 75 engineering, 20 medical and 15 business management coaching institutes within a two kilometre radius.

Chennai-based Brilliant Tutorials which provides coaching for 17 different exams to 60,000 students. According to this list, 730 of its students qualified in the IIT-JEE entrance test in 2005.

According to Delhi-based FIIT-JEE, 2047 of its students got selected in the IIT-JEE 2006 (that's for a total 7,000 seats!!!)

Mumbai-based IMS Learning Resources, which has 66 centers across the country, and coaches 40,000 students in several common entrance exams including CAT, eight state level MBA entrance exams, GRE, GMAT, etc.

Delhi-based Career Launcher has a presence in 51 cities across India and the Middle East and offers career oriented training and entrance exam preparatory education to over 35,000 students.

Chennai-based Triumphant Institute of Management Education Pvt. Ltd (TIME) has 90 centres in 59 cities, and claims that more than 1200 of its students got selected in the 6 IIMs through CAT-2004.

Chennai-based Aspire Learning Company prepares 40,000 students for the IIT-JEE, ICSE, CBSE, Tamil Nadu state board and matriculation exams in 42 centres across south India and boasts a gross annual revenue of Rs.16 crore.

...the list goes on: Professional Tutorials, Sachdeva New PT College, Rau's Study Cirle for IAS, Delhi-based Akash Institute, Trichur-based PC Thomas Classes, Sahil Study Circle, Chanakya IAS Academy, Ascent Education, etc. etc....

[Note: Obviously, one needs to apply a "correction factor" to the claims of numbers by the coaching institutes;0)... Nevertheless, there is no denying that they play a critical role in creating "merit" in the current system.]

...and How do the Coaching Institutes manufacture "Merit"?

There is no doubt that they - at least the "good" ones - help polishing the potential/knowledge that the aspirant must already be possessing (in fact, a few coaching institutes have their own "entrance test" or criteria for admitting the candidates for coaching!)

Compared to the broad generalised coverage of +2 and other courses, however, the coaching institutes are more focused to make the aspirant succeed in the entrance exam. This has to be so, since in our given system, one's "merit" (or lack of it) is determined by a one-shot, one-day-cricket-match kind of entrance exams. One single wrong answer or one single missed question can bar one's entry into the domain of merit.

Therefore, besides other things, the Coaching institutes, also

maintain a database of the previous years' question papers,

analyse the trends of questions asked over years in the entrance exam, and prepare the candidates for the kind of questions that are likely to come that particular year,

since most entrance-exam papers have "negative marking" component, it is often more likely to score higher marks by not answering some questions than by answering them. The coaching institutes also guide the aspirants how to minimise risk of losing marks,

if the final admission involves interview and group discussion, the coaching institutes also prepare the candidate for these "skills" (e.g., improving one's "GK", how to introduce yourself, how to interact in a group, speak proper English, self-presentation, etc.).

in some isolated cases (like this one), the coaching institutes also help the candidate by procuring the "leaked" paper for the test... Etc.

In fact, these latter contributions of coaching institutes are often their USP/differentiating feature.

From a purely socio-historical point of view, the coaching institutes, in a very short period of time, have revolutionised two major changes in the societal texture of India:

1. they have redefined and evangelised a new meaning of "merit", which is essentially based on the supply-demand gap of opportunities in the society, and

2. they have successfully created a small but vocal new "social class" which owns the "merit" (and its definition) in the society.

*Post-Script June 4th,'06: I stand corrected on this claim about India becoming a "young country" in the recent years. Please see Dilip D'Souza's informative posting contradicting this myth.

The Merit of Reservations

Is there a merit in reservation?

In fact, as many comments on the previous posts allege, the benefits of reservations are supposed to have been cornered by the "creamy layer" or by those who don’t actually fit into the criteria of being "backward".

On the other hand, a nation cannot develop on a sustainable basis, unless certain radical reforms are implemented to tackle the issues of social disparity and unequal opportunities...

The arguments on both side (pro- and anti-reservations), however, are largely based on ideological and/or anecdotal evidence.

My own mental analogy has been like this: if you spray fertilizer in a field - real life not being 100% perfect - it will not only help some plants to grow and bloom, but will also kill some plants due to overdose, and it will also often facilitate the growth of the weeds for whom it was not meant...

But the effectiveness of the fertilizer is if the aggregate productivity of the field increases.

And so, in this current debate about the reservations, one of question begs the answer:

Is there any empirical evidence to show that quota has really helped?... And if they have not done so far in last 60 years, how can one be sure that they will do so now?

The Southern Four states (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra) have had 50% or more reservations in higher and profession education for many decades - even before the Mandal Commission in late 70s.

If the distributive justice that the reservations aimed at really worked, then there should be some aggregate positive differences between the Southern and the Northern states.

In one of the earlier postings (pt.10), I had quoted how in Tamil Nadu (which has had 69% reservations since 1960s), in 2004, students belonging to the Backward Class (BC) or Most Backward Classes (MBC) quailified for 952 of the total 1,224 seats in 12 government medical colleges in the State (77.9 per cent), and the first first 14 ranks in the medical admissions went to BC/MBC students.


But, as one would point out, getting into a medical college through reservation, is very different than becoming a good doctor (or as someone cruelly commented: "would you leave your life in the hands of a SC/ST/OBC doctor who got into the profession through reservations?")

Following this line of enquiry, I stumbled upon this report on The Merits of Reservations. It is based on the data from the Planning Commission's National Human Development Report 2001:

As the table below shows, apparently, at an aggregate societal level, reservations in healthcare education have had a positive impact on the society:

Sources:

Merits of Reservation

Planning Commission's National Human Development Report, 2001

Southern Solitude

Reservations/Quota and the Meaning of "Merit"

Who are the OBCs?...

It is surprising - or perhaps not so, given the "uneducated literacy" in the country - that a large number of people on either side of the reservation debate have little idea about the definition of OBCs.

This results in, e.g., a false debate on whether the reservations should be based on "economic criteria" or "caste".

Most people don't know - or care to find out - that the very definition of OBCs, however, was/is not based on genetic heredity. Rather, it is based on multiple criteria which consider not just the social (or caste-based) deprivation, but also on educational and economic deprivation...


According to Mandal Commission:

The backward Castes/Classes were defined on the following 11 criteria:

A. SOCIAL

Castes/classes considered as socially backward by others.

Castes/classes which mainly depend on manual labour for their livelihood.

Castes/classes where the percentage of married women below 17 is 25% above the state average in rural areas and 10% in urban areas; and that of married men is 10% and 5% above the state average in rural and urban areas respectively.

Castes/classes where participation of females in work is at least 25% above the state average.

B. EDUCATIONAL

Castes/classes where the number of children in the age group of 5 to 15 years who never attended school is at least 25% above the state average.

Castes/classes where the rate of student drop-out in the age group of 5-15 years is at least 25% above the state average.

Castes/classes amongst whom the proportion of matriculates is at least 25% below the state average

C. ECONOMIC

Castes/classes where the average value of family assets is at least 25% below the state average.

Castes/classes where the number of families living in kachcha houses is at least 25 % above the state average.

Castes/classes where the source of drinking water is beyond half a kilometer for more than 50% of the households.

Castes/classes where the number of the house-holds having taken a consumption loan is at least 25% above the state average.


According to National Commission for Backward Classes:

The commission, after studying the criteria/indicators framed by the Mandal commission and the commissions set up in the past by different state Governments and other relevant materials, formulated the following guidelines for considering requests for inclusion in the list of Other Backward Classes:

A. SOCIAL
1. Castes and communities, generally considered as socially backward.

2.

Castes and communities, which mainly depend on agricultural and/or other manual labour for their livelihood and are lacking any significant resource base.

Castes and communities, which, for their livelihood, mainly depend on agricultural and/or other manual labour for wage and are lacking any significant base.

Castes and communities, the women of which, as a general practice, are for their family’s livelihood, engaged in agricultural and/or other manual labour, for wage.

Castes and communities, the children of which, as a general practice, are, for family’s livelihood or for supplementing family’s low income, mainly engaged in agricultural and/or manual labour.

Castes and communities, which in terms of caste system, are identified with traditional crafts or traditional or hereditary occupations considered to be lowly or undignified.

Castes and communities, which in terms of the caste system, are identified with tradtional or hereditary occupations considered to be ‘unclean’ or stigmatised.

Nomadic and semi-nomadic castes and communities.

Denotified or Vimukta Jati castes and communities

3. Castes and communities, having no representation or poor representation in the State Legislative Assembly and/or district-level Panchayati Raj institutions during the ten years preceding the date of the application
(The term “poor representation” may be taken to refer to a caste or community whose presence in the body is less than 25% of its proportion in the population.)

B. EDUCATIONAL
1. Castes and communities, whose literacy rate is at least 8% less than the State or district average.

2. Castes and communities of which the proportion of matriculates is at least 20% less than the State or district average.

3. Castes and communities, of which the proportion of graduates is at least 20% less than the State or district average.


C. ECONOMIC
1. Castes and communities, a significant proportion of whose members reside only in Kachha houses.

2. Castes and communities, the share of whose members in number of cases and in extent of agricultural lands surrendered under the Agricultural Land Ceiling Act of the State, is nil or significantly low.

3. Castes and communities, the share of whose members in State Government posts and services of Groups A & B/Classes I & II, is not equal to the population-equivalent proportion of the caste/community.

Moral of the Story:
Intellectual brilliance/moral superiority is not a substitute for ignorance of facts ;0)

Quota/Reservations: More ""Reserved" than Others

Suddenly, the "OBC reservations" has opened the Pandora's Box.

The popular view (among the urban middle-class educated people) is that "quota" is bad - and dilutes the "merit"...

Frankly, I also became aware of the various kinds of "quotas" that exist to access the "temples of higher education" in India across the states. Most have been accepted (er...why???) as a given - and, to my knowledge no candle march or hunger strike ever took place against these!!

...that is, till the "OBC quota" came up, and opened a Pandora's Box.... here is a list:

All India Quota

State Quota: varies upto 25%... that allows one to skip the all India "merit" criteria and get an admission due to domicile status. It is not very difficult to get the domicile certificate, really;0)

Management Quota: around 15%.... Govt/ SC has been trying to squash it, but it still does give one an opportunity to get into an un-aided private college - if one can pay the money!

NRI Quota: small in number but allows one to slip past the criteria of "merit" if some rich relative abroad can sponsor one's education

Sportsman Quota, Army Quota, etc.

The Quota Trophy, paradoxically, goes to AIIMS:

While the AIIMS medicos go on hunger photogenic strike against the "reservations" (what with celebrity endorsement from Nafisa Ali and Shiv Khera)... there is no mention that 25% seats in the AIIMS PG course are "reserved" for AIIMS graduates).

Just quoting from a news item in TOI:

"25% reservation that AIIMS graduates get in PG admission and the Supreme Court judgment of 2001 that declares the earlier system of 33% reservation for them bad in law...

The HC had found that "AIIMS students, who had secured as low as 14% or 19% or 22% in the (all-India) entrance examination got admission to PG courses while SC or ST candidates could not secure admission in their 15% or 7% quota in PG courses, in spite of having obtained marks far higher than the in-house candidates of the institute." HC had analysed admission data over five years.

The apex court also agreed with the HC that the "figure of 33% reservation for in-house candidates was statistically so arrived at as to secure 100% reservation for AIIMS students. There were about 40 AIIMS candidates. The PG seats being 120, 33% thereof worked out to be 40." That meant all 40 AIIMS graduates were assured of PG seats.

Merit here was clearly being sacrificed, the study showed...

....Twelve AIIMS candidates were selected even though they got less marks than the SC candidate who secured 60.33% marks. Similarly, 16 AIIMS students got admission to PG courses even though they got less marks than another ST student who got 62.16%.

Etc.

Reservations/Quotas and the "Meaning of Merit"

If you are reading this posting on the blog or on a mail, then perhaps 90% chances are that you are against the "reservations" on the ground that it dilutes the "merit".

This, perhaps, is less indicative of the popularity of the "merit-cause", and more of the the fact that the Indian blogger community/netizens represents a self-reinforcing socio-politically isolated section on the other side of the digital divide.

In a democratic set-up, one is naturally entitled to have his/her own viewpoint... So this posting has nothing to do with being "for" or "against" the reservations... To each his own!

This posting is about some simple facts which somehow are never quoted/known in MSM - and about which few Indian bloggers ever bother to check/find-out...

...and to explore that if "merit" is the issue, then what does "merit" mean in the urban-centric visible India.

So if you happen to be one who is agitated and angered about the additional 27.5%reservations/quota in the "temples of higher education" (e.g., IITs, IIMs) - and how it dilutes the "merit"... Then please be honest - and answer in Yes/No

Did you know that...

1. The announcement by Minister for HRD, Arjun Singh, that "government is considering reservations in all educational institution" was based on the 104th Constitutional Amendment Bill, passed by the Lower House of Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) on Dec 21st, 2005, by 379-to-1 votes (381 present, one abstained).
Yes / No?

2. It was also passed by the Rajya Sabha by 172-to-2 votes.
Yes / No?

3. The Bill was signed by the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, on Jan 20th, 2006 - thereby making it the 93rd Constitution Amendment Act, 2005, to be enacted upon by the incumbent government.
Yes / No?

4. There is no Mandal-I or II!!! (as projected by the media)... The proposal for this Amendment was based on Indian Consitution, and came from the recommendations of Mandal Commission - which was formed in 1978, during Janta Party regime, and submitted its report in 1978-79.
Yes / No?

5.According to findings of the Mandal Commission, in India there are (or were at that time) more than 3,000 OBC castes that constitute about 52% population of India (see the figures below)- these are in addition of 16% SCs and 8% STs. Together - SCs, STs & OBCs - constitute 76% of India's population.
.
Yes / No?

6. Besides the reservations, the Mandal Commission also recommended a number of other things - about which neither the media nor the "pro-merit" citizens are either aware, or willing to "protest" about, e.g.:
- radical alteration in production relations through progressive land reforms
- special educational facilities to upgrade the cultural environment of the students, with special emphasis on vocational training
- separate coaching facilities for students aspiring to enter technical and professional institutions
- creation of adequate facilities for improving the skills of village artisans
- subsidised loans for setting up small-scale industries
- the setting up of a separate chain of financial and technical bodies to assist OBC enterpreneurs.
- increasing the seats in institutes of higher education to accommodate the "reserved" candidates", etc...
Yes / No?

7. According to the Mandal Commision recommendations, the increase in reservations should be only along with the increase in the seats in the institute, i.e., the "reservations" should not have an adverse impact on regular non-reserved category. For instance, IIM-C and IIT-Kharagpur have already decided to increase the seatsYes / No?

8. Notwithstanding the claims that the increase in seats to accommodate the "reserved" candidates, requires enhancement of educational infrastructure (hostels, faculty) - which it is claimed will strech the capabilities of the institutes and impact their "quality" - the professional institutes (IIMs, XLRI, IITs, etc.) have continued to increase their seats over last 4-5 years.
Yes / No?

9. Large number of Indian Institutes of higher education charge (or used to charge, till the Supreme clamped down) "capitation fee" - i.e., allowing a "quota" for those who can pay. Similarily, there are "reserved" seats for foreign nationals, who pay higher fee in $s, even if they don't meet the criteria of "merit".... But no protest/"candle-march" ever happened against this "dilution of merit".
Yes / No?

10. The four Southern States - Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra - have had around 50% (or more) reservations for last 2 to 4 decades in their institutes of higher educations (Tamil Nadu adapted 69% reservations even before Mandal Commission; Kerala had 50% reservations since 1970s, etc.). These reservations/quota cover some of the prestigious universities like Anna, Tiruchi, Bharthidasan, Osmania, etc. (This, apparently, has not diluted the "merit" coming out from these "temple of higher learning").
Yes / No?

11. In 2005, in Tamil Nadu (which has 69% reservations for BC and MBCs since 1960s), the first 14 ranks in the admissions to the 12 state government medical colleges, went to the OBCs... In fact, among the top 400, only 31 were from the "forward class", and the Backward and Most-Backward class students qualifed for 952 out of 1,224 seats (78%).
Yes / No?

13. In old times, the lower classes (shudras) were not allowed to enter the temples, and were even punished to hear the vedas?
Yes / No?

Now, just in case, one did not know these (or most of these) facts - even though one felt angered by the dilution/pollution of "merit" by the "reservations" - then there is a point to consider:

Does "merit" in modern educated urban India mean being totally oblivious and alienated from the current socio-political reality?... and remains confined to proactive action only under threats to "my job, my merit.... my lollipop!"?

Or, in other words:

Is the anti-reservations sentiment among the educated urban Indians merely a morally justifiable "rang-de-basanti" peg on which one can hang one's sulking tantrums about the loss of monopoly on the traditional turf?

POST-SCRIPT: May 27th, 2006:
I had never thought that this isolated posting on the "meaning of merit" will bring so many bouquets and brickbats;0) - thanks to all who visited and contributed ... And instead of responding in the comment section (see below), I thought it may be worth adding this postscript as a response.

So here goes...

In the present zeitgeist, it is so easy to fall into "for us"/"against us" kind of binary thinking. The issue, at least to me, is far more complex than yes/no kind of classroom quiz. That is why the statement: "this posting has nothing to do with being "for" or "against" the reservations...", and focus was on the unmentioned facts in the MSM (and, unfortunately, also in the popular blogosphere).

Unfortunately, there are still many pieces of mis-information floating around (as can be seen in the comments). And this post-script is just to further clarify (and to highlight the ignorance about facts in the public domain):

Contrary to popular belief/knowledge, the Mandal Commission's definition of OBC was based on 11 criteria, which covered Social, Educational and Economic discrimination. Thus, the debate about "caste-based" vs "economic criteria" is actually a non-issue!!

The National Commission for Backward Classes, which was established in 1993 after the Supreme Court judgement about the "Creamy Layer", also uses Social, Educational and Economic criteria to identify backward classes

While it is true that that the last caste-based census was held in 1931, the Mandal Commission (and before that, Kaka Kalelkar Commission, 1961), had based their recommendations on their own sample surveys - one may have disagrements about the sample survey methodology, but it is not true that these reocommendations were based on 1931 data!

The differences in the estimates of OBCs among different surveys (52% by Mandal Commission, 32% by NSSO, 29% by National Family & Health Survey, etc.) is not because one is more accurate than the other - but because each uses difference criteria to define OBCs.

I would agree that any policy (reservations, 'tatkal sewa' in railways, tax-concessions/breaks to certain sections in the society, etc.) would seem unfair if considered only in the context of isolated individual cases ("my job, my merit..."). The real critreia of "merit" lies in the ability to see it in larger context of a society and history.

Personally, I can't understand the issue about the "vote-bank politics";0) - In a democratic society, all decisions will be invariably "political" and influenced by the votes of the constituents. This would apply as much to the "reservation" issue, as well government's decision to invest in urban infrastructure, opening of FDI in different sectors, etc.... But I guess, interpretations differ depending one's own stakes.

The Benefits (or Unintended Consequences) of "Evil"

As humans, we have a tendency to judge history in black-and-white terms - and often reduce its actors to cardboard two-dimensional Bollywood characters

History, however, is remarkably oblivious to such judgements and, in fact, often contradicts them... Almost like a gushing river that makes no distinctions to what comes in the way... and inadvertantly architecting the new topography - in which "good" begets "evil", and vice versa - and in which, we humans live...

My favourite story of such "Law of Unitended Consequences" is this story of the Great Plague (I developed it from various sources... to make a question for an end-term exam!!! ;0):

----------
During 1347-1350, Europe was devastated by the Great Plague. The plague had started in 1346, in the central Asian port of Caffa, in what is now known as Ukraine. Many Italians, who were escaping the tartars, carried the germs of the disease with them when they landed back in Messina in Southern Italy. The spread of the disease was so quick that by 1347 it had reached Dublin in Ireland. Between 1347-1350, the plague killed 1 out of every 3 Europeans.

For all its devastation, the plague was also a catalyst for a huge social change and economic growth in Europe. The death of one third of the workforce led to an accute shortage of workforce - and so, resulted in a dramatic increase in the wages. Till then, the common worker was paid back in basic barter, e.g., food, clothes, etc.

But with increased wages, this was no longer possible. People had now to be paid in money, leading to more currency in circulation, which was available to more number of ordinary people. Money, on the other hand, also allowed people to become mobile, since currency could be exchanged for food, clothes, shelter, etc., anywhere.

This freed people/artisans from being confined to one place, and encouraged migration of skills to places where they could earn more. Thus, urbanization increased, and with it, also specialization, since guilds of artisans – tool-makers, weavers, metal-workers, etc. – started getting organised in cities.

The scarcity, accompanied with high demand, for skills had another unrelated consequence. It increased the demand for eyeglasses (or spectacles)!!!. This was an invention that was made in 1262 by Alessandro di Spina in Pisa (Italy), but had not found much utility till then. Eyeglasses increased the average working life – and productivity - of ordinary tradesmen two-fold.

By 1450, thousands of eyeglasses were being exported from Italy throughout the Europe. It received further boost when Guttenberg invented the printing press, and thus launched the 1st Information Revolution, ushering a plethora of non-religious functionally useful text (e.g., "how to make pasta") - thus increasing demand to read.

...over period of time, eyeglasses facilitated the emergence of precision engineering, which itself led to the spring-driven clock. With clocks, it became possible to measure productivity, which was a major driver for industrialisation... etc., etc.
----------

Moral of the Story (At an intelectual level):
Life/history is not linear... There are no "happily lived ever after" or predictable "domino's effect". It is all Yin-&-Yang...

Moral of the Story (at a personal level):

There is so much good
in the worst of us
And so much bad
in the best of us
That it hardly becomes
any of us
To talk about
the rest of us.