from a professor at iim bangalore.
i have been following the 'merit' argument, and i think there is no more 'merit' among the forward castes than there is among the backward castes. it's the inevitable bell curve in action.
i believe there should be caste-based reservation, but it should apply across the board to all educational institutions. christists and mohammedans should not get a free ride. you cannot have equality in some areas and massive subsidies in others. otherwise, there will need to be separate everything, for instance, there should be a price for toothpaste for christists and mohammedans: that will be 20% over the price for hindus.
reservation is the discriminatory 'pricing' for the fact that lower caste people still face glass ceilings and so forth.
reservation levels can be kept as they are -- people are used to it -- and slowly reduced over time so that we can avoid the 'competitive backwardness' we see today.
but the real answer is to increase opportunities, get the stifling dirigiste nehruvian state out of the picture, and allow people to flourish, as they did in places like singapore, taiwan, thailand etc. the good professor has a point.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vaidyanathan R
You may find this topical--
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/06/01/stories/2006060100081000.htm
R.Vaidyanathan
____________________________
R.Vaidyanathan
Professor of Finance & Control
Indian Institute of Management
1 comment:
My musings (no need for anyone to jump at me, or label it as "homilies") -
I think merit is used to mean different things by different people, and, it also does mean different things in different contexts.
For admissions in colleges, univs, merit means ONLY one thing - M A R K S.
And couple of weeks back, one very nice blogger took pains to explain how M A R K S of a bc cannot be directly compared to M A R K S of uc, due to variation of social environment in which they were obtained. I thought it made sense, and I mused that a scaling factor could be used to compare M A R K S. (though that may not be the answer, because there are so many different social environments, so it is not possible to come up with one scaling factor).
So clearly, bell-curve does not apply to M A R K S.
It is also not true that every uc candidate's marks were obtained in a more favourable environment. Many uc candidates do have other struggles. Life is not perfect for everyone. Someone may not have a parent, someone may have too many power-cuts, someone may be helping a handicapped sibling...Caste is not the only thing that determines a person's situations in life. I
think way too much is being made of it.
And as a believer in karmas, I believe we carry karmas from our previous births. So how good or bad a person one was before, also
determines one's current situation also, methinks (dont beat me up. there are good and bad people in every caste).
Merit has a different meaning in an interview, I would think. A better word there would be aptitude, and M A R K S is only one component. Interviews take into account even attitude, dont they ? And other things.
I would say "There is as much
talent in backward castes as there is in forward castes". I mean talent in the broad sense. There are so many diverse kinds of talents, intelligences, abilities - physical, mental and artistic as well, and innumerable combinations of these.
So actually, deep down, I feel too much is being made out of marks. And it is very sad that kids commit suicide if they dont get the right "percentage".
I wish I could tell them all to care 2 hoots about M A R K S. It's such a damn silly yardstick in the grand scheme of the universe. It sometimes seems sacrilegous to me.
At the end of my musings, I dont understand how reservation is the right answer to glass ceilings. I couldnt figure it out. Maybe I dont have enough Merit to figure it out... :-)
Maybe someone with more Merit can explain...
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