QUOTAS...to be or not to be???

Finally decided to write something... a bit politico-socio-economic commentary ..... Oops!!! forgot to add educational there!!!

Quotas... one view - M/s Arjun Singh n his cohorts hell bent on dividing the nation...these guys can do anything for vote banks... so why not bankroll their vote banks by any dubious means.... make easy for them to achieve things...as a sms put it "A cricket boundary for OBC if it crosses the inner circle"!!!.... Hmmmm..... now for the counter view....These communities have been discriminated down the ages... so there is a urgent need for affirmative action... so quotas are a step in the right direction.... Without doubt, Caste system was the greatest hindrance to merit...

Then where thus all this leave us??? Is it impossible to have any view apart from this???

First of all, i think the blame lies with all of us... indirectly or directly, we have precipitated the situation... First by voting for, or by not going to vote against such politicians.....we can whine that the country is going to the dogs, but we wont waste half a day ensuring our names are correctly mentioned in the voters list.... secondly, Indians are generally apprehensive of outsiders and generally shun diversity, particularly intermingling or intermarriage among different castes... Thirdly our self contentedness ensures that we fail to think for some higher cause...

The argument in favour of Quota is strong... Over the ages, the lower strata has been discriminated for no other reason than birth... until recently, they were not allowed to enter Temples or even drink water from the same well...things may have improved in the last four decades...but the scars of 4 millenniums takes more than 4 decades to heal... Maybe the image of a Brahmin to a lower caste person is not that of a learned philosopher but rather that of a social tyrant... Centers of Learning are generally seen to have more percentage of students from the higher castes.... this is not by design but the image that is conveyed to the lower caste people is that of social discrimination... their fears may not have the support of social scientists, but are cannon fodder for politicians.... if quotas are successfully implemented, it may lead to the formation of a strong, sound and financially well off middle class among the lower caste... A strong middle class is generally the strongest bulwark against divisive politics... to correct a 4 millenniums long wrong, we do need to take drastic measures, however painful they may be...

Now, Let me state the anti quota view....CAT or JEE are no doubt the toughest exams... to be in the top 1% among 2-3 L people is no child's play...only the people of the highest merit will be there!!!! The ACTUAL cream of the population, thrown out by this massive churning process called exams... now assume a situation where in people are shown that there can be a short cut which will avoid this painful churning process... the response is as expected..people will make a dash for it!!! This will have the negative impact of discouraging the truly meritorious .. Also it may lead to some section of society enjoying some advantage over others... in the long term this can have disastrous effects , as in Chauvinistic and extremist faction coming into power as every community will be fighting every other communities in the war to gain freebies...today OBC may rule the roost...but who knows in the future, maybe the Brahmins or maybe Kshatiyas or the Baishyas start lobbying and forming caste based voting blocs??? ...and mind you, it need not be caste but region, religion, language, location, sect, sub sect and ad infinitum!!!!!!

I believe that the biggest problem with the whole issue is the super imposition of the macro view and the micro view... macro view is upliftment of lower caste, micro view being "i have to ensure my vote bank stay with me" ... macro view being encouraging people from lower caste coming forward, micro view being "My seat has gone to a person who has lower marks"...... unfortunately the exams only act as bottlenecks, as filters...as one approaches these bottle necks, one gets sucked in with such intensity that the whole priority is to get to the other side.... we spend hours arguing on 27% quotas, but we never protest against government why a country of 1 billion has only thousand seats at the IIMs and IITs... why not more of them??? Some people will point out that it is the filtering process that has worked wonders for these institutes... if that be the case, then why IIMs are no where close to Harvard or IITs no where close to MIT... in Harvard, the ratio is 1:10 whereas in IIMA, it is close to 1:1000!!!!!! People may again argue that there may be not much different in the average salary drawn in both places, but that itself is secondary.... Question is- If Harvard does need such stiff filtering to maintain its class,why cannot the Government of India open and maintain more such centers of excellence???

IITs, IIMs.... islands of excellence, centers of learning....and what have we done with them??? The media only portrays them as goldmine, aka El Dorados.... get there somehow, and get out loaded with cash!!! this is what WE like to read ... Do we read what people do to get there????people are ready to make their lives hell for a couple of years to get to these institutes!!! But we don't read at all about 18 years guys who have left their homes ... but we do read about 22 year old millionaires!!! the media has made them look like the lamps of Aladdin... when u show such images, obviously there will be some people who will like some short cuts... All humans are genetically programmed to look for ways to achieve maximum output with minimum input!!! so the support for reservation reservations can fetch them maximum media mileage, rather than improving quality of primary education....

But is reservation always bad ??? i have personally availed it and I don't think it is that bad... i studied in a college where there was reservation for my states... This artificial way of ensuring people of different parts of the country come together has helped me immensely in understanding diversity and pluralism...Quota cannot be that bad... interestingly, we don't make any hue or cry if we get benefits from quotas... suppose US today sets a quota for Indians for issuing H1B Visa, will we complain??? do students of some particular state complain when majority of Engineering seats in the state are not open to students from other states....Do states complain when 50% of seats in NITs are booked for them??? what I want to state is that if we have to oppose quotas, it has to be universal and not on case to case basis...

I remember the time when fees for IIMs were slashed to Rs 50,000/-... it could have actually led to down grading of the facilities in IIMs, as can the admission of student of students who have less than 85 percentile... but there was very little hue and cry, not much PIL nor any politicians grabbing lime light!!! WHY???? Because equality n merit comes after self interest... as for myself, i am sure that if US gives me visa because i am an Indian, i will gleefully take it...who cares if that guy from Ethiopia needed the visa more than me!!! My macro view may convince me to look into the bigger picture.... My micro view of this world will tell me "Get your seat man...there will be someone who will sacrifice'!!!