Well.. no need to worry on that front, The southern states have used reservations for decades and are among the top growing states..

So you have talked about the problems.. what’s your solution to all this.. Do you support “inter-caste marriages” , so that “caste” as a discriminator really becomes a thing of the past in future generations..??

Abhi,

I went back and re-read what you wrote…

The underlying argument in support of affirmative action in India, as well as in this country, is that …injustices of past…

So you were just quoting. Somehow I mistook that this is in fact your position. Sorry about that.

Going back to the topic…

I think with this issue, India is at a pivotal point in history. A piece of legislation is being shoved in without any debate, and the people backing the legislation have little more than the next election in their sights. Competitive populism has known to bring down civilisations in the past, and India won’t be an exception to the laws of nature.

If this goes through, in a few years (if Congress wins the next general elections), the entire reservation system will be made applicable to the private sector. Initially they will bring it “only for companies who have more than 1000 workers” – thus brining the large business houses under it. Wipro’s Premji will have to not only hire based on quotas, but he will have to hand out work based on quotas as well. So he will have to assign a certain %age of US projects to OBC’s, certain %age of European projects to SC’s, so on and so forth. If the company has twelve directors on its board, ten would have to be in the reservation category. If Narayanamurthy cannot find ten, then he will be forced to sell his shares in the open market, and the government will provide funds to Dalit organisations to buy the shares and come on board. I am not kidding about this – this will happen.

In another few years, they will gradually reduce the company size, so even a company with twenty employees will come under the law. If a producer makes a movie, he will get a visit from the government employee verifying that he is adhering to quotas. If he made the last movie with an upper-caste hero, he will be forced to make the next one with a lower-caste hero. If he cannot find one, the government will assign him one. Again, I am not kidding around with a slippery slope argument. This will happen.

If the agitators give up, barring any stroke of luck (like discovery of large oil reserves in India etc), you may as well write off India within the next thirty-forty years. It will become a conglomeration of Rwandas and Burundis, with people hacking each other off on the streets.

M. Nam

I had not taken any coaching whatsoever. Infact, I was not even preparing for entrace as I was underage for IIT (the cut-off was 17 years and I was just 15 years). I decided that I will study for two years and then go to IIT. I gave Roorkee CEE (which is at par with IIT-JEE in difficulty and format, Roorkee has become IIT since 2001) just for fun and scored 652 all india rank. I was surprised too. I am from UP Board and Hindi Medium and not from a rich background. My mom is a teacher in a government school.

You can debate on CEE vs JEE here. But ranks are almost similar across these two exams. Also, while JEE is known for its difficult Physics, CEE was known for its difficult Maths.

BTW, I know various IITians who never took coaching. I must also say that having educated parents did help (though none are from elite schools and not engineers or doctors – but they understand the importance of education).

I’m for reservations for temporary short term solution, but the basis has to be economic backwardness. I would have gotten one in that case too. But I probably didn’t need it. I finished my bachelors and joined my first job at the age of 18.

When people stop asking for a boy from a suitable subcaste on shaadi.com? Never maybe?

Yeah, whats all that about punjabi khatri only or maratha only contact. WTF. This is america. Maybe they should start americanshadi.com.

But a crucial point has been overlooked. Should the OBC quota be implemented, then it would be mandatory for professional institutes like the IITs and IIMs and centrally-aided universities to up the number of seats. The government is clear on this. In fact, IIT Kharagpur has already decided to add 200 seats from next year. The rest of the IITs haven’t spelt out their future course of action but are expected to follow suit.

the magazine does not address if the seats open for competition remain the same or not. 200 in iit kgp is not sufficient information to decide this though (200 for btech/mtech together? just entrance exam seats?).

however, i doubt there would have been 181 comments if we knew the answer to the question above.

you are right for the most part. some institutions (iits included) do have a “support” structure, but no one is required to have one, and most do not. even the iit support structure is skeletal, it just includes certain extra previlages. there is no counseling etc as far as i know.

but to be fair, it is also not used in the context of dalits or the adivasis or some others who bore the brunt of discrimination. they are listed as scheduled castes/tribes (sc/st)—scheduled because they are listed in some schedule of the constitution.

@everyone i am not making any points below, but i would like to remind people of some aspects of this discussion:

while i know some on this board argue for economics based reservations, there is NO real debate in india abt this. reservations are caste-based now, and will remain that way. more so, there is also NO real debate in india abt dismantling reservations.

the debate in india is mainly abt having 50% reservations or 70% (the iit case, it is 25 or 50). and i pointed this out several times, but seems to have been ignored—the increase will NOT benefit sc/sts. several of you point out the tragic and moving stories of dalits, but this increase is NOT intended for them at all. the reservation earmarked for them remains as it is, this is to include others in the reservation net.

this is not to say the intended recipients may not be worthy—simply that the examples many of you quote (thx for digging them up though) are not relevant for the points you intend to make. it is a growing concern among some dalit leaders in india today that dalit sc/sts are marginalized from this ambiguity. if others quote dalit troubles to obtain sops for themselves, guess who is still stuck at the bottom? dalit-sc/st reservation levels will hardly change significantly from ’47 (25% today), while the overall reservation has increased to 70% in tn, and intended to be that in the mandal recommendations.

and again, it is a misconception that:

-neither can you point out to a few exceptions of rich people from a disadvantaged group and poor people from a rich group and distort the perspective with which you view their communities.

once agin, the point i am making is that it is not “rich/poor” issue. forward castes have an educational advantage since they have never been discriminated against. dalits, sc/sts are usually very very poor, but it gets more murky when you compare obcs (who this reservation increase is intended for) and non-obcs. some obc communities are poor, and some are not. you are right in assuming is that community wise you will not find non-obc castes at the bottom of the poverty table, but neither will you find them at the top. i am not talking abt a few in each community here, rather a community average.

you are right in not believing me, but you are wrong in assuming it is a “rich vs poor” debate as you have insisted all along (you say caste reservation and rich-poor reservations differ on a technicality). for the sake of argument again, if you change it to economic criteria (which does not have much support in india) a significant number of the castes which would benefit from the reservation increase intended will drop out.

It’s like, you’re recognizing that these students had to struggle with daily survival/discrimination along with the intense studying needed to get in… but once they’re in, it’s like, “OK, good luck!”

In the USA most universities have Native American, African American, etc. offices to support those populations… some are pretty effective with having workshops and other things to actually help their groups develop life management skills, emotional resilience, or when the man sticks it to you, stick it to him and *you’re not alone” support groups and that other soft stuff — which address the more subtle things which can affect how well your intelligence is expressed.

Primary education for all is a big answer, but not the only one…