Monday, April 13, 2009

Reservations - A Dogma that needs rethinking


Foremost, I am not here discussing any religion and fighting for any communal rights, nor am I using this to degrade/out shadow a religion/caste and their ways.
That said, coming straight to the point, I see absolutely no sense in Reservations by compromising standards and quality.
Going by the very Indian Reservation acts, the constitution has made certain provisions for the Protection of Rights & Privileges of deprived communities (although I don’t see what these communities are indeed deprived of today!!), where by, intolerably high percentage of seats in education institutions and all government jobs are reserved in favor of the so called backward/minority groups.
Leave alone getting into discussing if the very act of reserving seats is right or wrong, lets save the discussions for later.
But what is beyond my comprehension is that if the government is keeping aside a percentage of seats in colleges/jobs to be distributed merely based on caste and community, then, doesn’t it mean to say that the government is compromising on the quality of the outgoing graduates/work delivered to that degree?

If the intention is to encourage minority community and help them be seen in various fields, then, it makes sense for the government to allot seats to the backward community on merit basis and for a lesser fee. Encouragement can be given in many more ways, by providing the backward/poor classes education at subsidized rates and providing them with free study materials.

Every year, about 27,000 doctors graduate from Indian medical colleges out of which a meager 15% to 25% come from general merit seats!
If this is the scene each year for medical courses alone, we can calculate the shocking figures of percentage of general merit seats when all other educational fields and government jobs are put together.
With this kind of promise to credibility, India will only emerge to be less competent globally. Also, this is one of the main reasons why students with good grades almost instantaneously consider migrating abroad for studies and better and fair opportunities, as a result of which, the best doctors, management icons and other intellectuals from India are serving elsewhere rather than in India.

For one, lets say you yourself belong to a minority community, if you knew the surgeon operating on your heart has not been a merit student and has come up
only with the aid of the bias in the system, would you still consider having him operate on you? wouldn’t you opt for a better skilled and a genuinely good doctor?

All said and done, I would like to ask those availing such reservation facilities if they feel good about being offered such a concession on grades and scores simply because they are a minority.
Isn’t it an embarrassment to them and their community by itself?
The message given out laterally by such reservations and quota system is this: The fact that you belong to such a community implies that you lack intellectual ability to compete fairly and you are not in par with those from general merit and so, you need a reservation and quota system in place to climb up the ladder and make a place for yourself.

Quota system must be banned if India must emerge as an arguably strong, promising and intellectual nation and give good competition globally.
Any such compromise on the military standards, medical abilities, political leadership, army, navy and air force and even sports for that matter directly goes to say that we cant have our best men on the job, which means that we are placing the expectation bar so low for ourselves when it comes to quality and productivity.
Sigh…
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present” (Abraham Lincoln).