On reservations and national progress

Gurcharan Das, in his book "India Unbound", laments the fact that India has failed to become a tiger, moving forward in leaps and bounds, but is instead more like an elephant, lumbering ahead slowly, occasionally even taking a step backwards. Well, we just took one step backwards and there is talk that there will be an even bigger one soon.

One of our esteemed national leaders with all his intelligence and social goodwill has announced that he plans to allow reservations for the OBCs in the so-called higher centers of learning. This will take the percentage of reserved seats to just below 50%. This certainly should be good news. The backward classes will now have access to higher learning. They will use this higher learning to get better jobs and use their new wealth, position and influence for the emancipation of others of their own lot. This is good; very good. Only there is a problem - the problem of equity. As grown-ups, we are expected to understand that some sacrifices have to be made for the overall development of this country. This itself is a difficult task but wait, the problem is worse. Consider the plight of an 18 year old, who does not get admission to IIT because of this high reservation. Try explaining to him why a student with much lesser ability is eligible to go to the dream institute while he is not. Its easy to explain meritocracy; its not easy to explain caste-based discrimination. To him, it is an opportunity lost because of an individual from another caste. It is difficult to see how it leads to healthier feelings among children of different castes. I see this system fostering bitterness - that's all.

To overcome this problem, it has been suggested that the number of seats in these institutes be increased so that the actual number of students from general categories need not be reduced. This sounds fair but lets not rush to conclusions. What this proposal means is that the intake into these institutes should be increased by over 50%; i.e. for example, an IIT should increase its intake from around 500 students each year to over 750 students a year. This increases its total student population from 4400 to 6600 students. A noble thought; unfortunately extremely short-sighted. These institutes are barely managing to provide the quality of infrastructure that their peers in other places are providing. "India is a poor country. We cannot afford to provide those facilities. We have to first focus on bringing everybody at par". This is how the argument goes. In my opinion, if we spend all our time "bringing everybody at par", we will never move to the next phase.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that students among the SC/ST/OBCs are not capable. I'm saying that they should be provided support at primary and secondary levels. Tremendous support. I'm all for it. However, should we do it at the expense of other students? Probably not.

As if it is not bad enough that they are pushing reservations our institutes of national pride, they now want to push it onto private companies. To my mind, this is an outrage. Companies become profitable because of meritorious/talented people. Also, companies (typically) do not indulge in caste based discrimination while hiring. They look for talent. When they find it, they hire it. Having been given all the opportunities (read reservations at every level of education) if a student does not manage to raise his capabilities to work usefully for a company, is it society's responsibility anymore? People like Narayanmurthy apparently support such reservation. Naturally. They don't care. They have tonnes of places where they can absorb less-skilled people - they have call centers. On the other hand, consider the case of Google or GoldmanSachs and the like. As soon as such a rule is passed, these companies will wind up their business and run off in a jiffy. Their businesses are incredibly mobile. They offshored to India. They can offshore to China (or Taiwan, Singapore, Japan...). At a time when such companies are generating so much economic activity (and even perhaps revenues) in the country, can we afford to lose them?

I love this country and hope to do my bit. However, if this hare-brained scheme for "bringing equity within the country" ever makes it to the law-books, I will lose hope. I'm sure many like me, and more capable than me, will lose hope too. Perhaps then it will be time to leave in search of other lands....