I got to get a bit serious. I read the news article regarding the Supreme court of India's judgement. People have been speaking their mind about this and it is time I did the same too.
27% reserved in IIT's, IIM's and other main universities. I will list out in points the arguments about this.
1. What does this mean?
Well, it means there are more seats for the so-called backward caste people. (I am sorry to use that term. I believe that castes should not be a part of the community. For want of term, i shall use 'reserved group' from now on.) This is good for them, for there will be more engineers and MBA's from their group. We know about the campus interview oppurtunities offered in these institutions. It will be great pay for them. There is a catch22 situation here, which i will come to later.
2. More literacy.
By literacy, i mean, graduation and post-graduation. There are many school drop-outs and college drop-outs, who cannot speak, read or write one clear statement in English. English is the global language. We need English to talk with other state Indians too. By studying in these institutions their English will improve a lot, if not anything else.
3. Drawbacks:
If you remember the catch22 situation i mentioned in the first point. The campus interviewers look for candidates who can communicate well. And communication is a very important thing. I personally know couple of brilliant students in IITM who could not get good 'packages' just because of their communication. And the reserved group people who have good communication skills are mostly from very good financial background, and it doesn't make any sense to reserve for them. And if you do not have good communication skills, it is going to be difficult. The person has to improve his skills and also his academics.
I personally believe that the reservations have to be in terms of economic background, in stead of caste. Caste is the one of the root cause of problems in India. And I want to see how long the politicians will play this caste game for the sake of elections. There are many deserving minds who join much low standard colleges for the sake of money. What does the government do for them? Giving easy student loans is not a great achievement for the government. India is not poor by any means. They can give scholarships and fee waivers for outstanding students every where. If reservations are made w.r.t. economic background, then these students will get what they deserve. This will also help the country in return.
I am not sure if this is known. When HRD minister Arjun Singh came to IITM a year and half back, there was this big black board with posters giving the following details.
1. The number of seats in all the IIT's in each branch,
2. The number of seats reserved for different quotas,
3. The number of the reserved quota seats filled,
4. The number of seats that were empty in the reserved quota and other quota.
The conclusion was that all the general quota seats were filled, and there were about 400 seats empty in all the IIT's together. I am not very sure about the number, it is some way near to that figure. What does this mean?
This means that either there are not that many reserved group people who are interested in doing those courses, or they do not have the economic facilities to do those courses. It makes me wonder how many general category students have missed out.
Does this latest measure of reservation do any good for the reserved group? Is this measure going to increase the number of students from the reserved category who are interested in these categories?or is this going to bring down the fees for these courses? I am not sure about either.
SO why DO this?
These institutions cannot increase the number of seats in all the courses so suddenly. This means that the reservation eats into the general category seats. And this means that more students from this category are going to miss out. Well this is real forward thinking by the government.
I see a very straight forward way to break out of this caste menace. And it is not in reservations.
Reservations are not a way out, instead it is digging a deeper grave.
1. Remove the mention of caste from every form.
2. Remove all the reservations.
3. No mention of caste anywhere in the country, make it a criminal offense.
These are drastic measures. But it is time for drastic measures. The people of the country are not patient any more, as is evident from the recent mass violence in various parts of the country. I am sure in a generation or two, the word 'caste' will be forgotten. This may seem a naive and simple solution. But often these simple solutions have been the one's that are successful. Keep it simple, is the mantra oft repeated in many spiritual and business texts.
Recently I heard a major political figure responding to the question of general category settling in foreign. He said, 'Let them go, the country doesn't need them'. It is funny in two ways.
1. It was a major political figure, and i am sure half of his secretaries are general category people, without whose help the fellow would not even be prepared to field the questions in the press meat.
2. I always felt that the people need the country, not the other way. Let us try to imagine a country without people or the country choosing its people. It must be noted that we became India less than a hundred years ago. Before that there were smaller nations and no concept of India.
Reservations should not be rigid. Let us make reservations, but the institutes must be given the right to fill the empty seats with interested students. These seats should not be left vacant.
We certainly do not want to miss a chance Einstein or a Newton in India.
Such is India's boon. If one party is in government, they look to wrecking havoc in the name of 'Hindutva' and when the other party comes to power, they make more divisions in the community. When will these people mature and move out of petty divide and rule policies?
