Rights Reserved

It is obscene for any student not to have an opinion on caste-based reservations. Here are my two cents. While it is very convinient to condemn reservations in any form, its apt, perhaps, to consider the issue in equanimity. The current system is flawed but the concept of providing some rational support to the disadvantaged sections of the society is not.

There are several communities in the country who have been buried in ignorance and diffidence owing to years of isolation or oppression or geographically skewed development or a combination of these factors. These people need to be supported to compete with their more privileged counterparts so that more hands will come forward to strengthen the force of progress. Having said that, I must add that this support must be in a proper form and must be well-directed. This is obviously the most important part of the scheme that our politicians gloss over. Hence the resentment and the protests.

A large chunk of the seats in the reserved catagory in educational institutions and in jobs remain unutilised. Decades after the reservations were introduced we still need them. While these factors point to thefailure of the present system of reservations, they also buttress the fact that these people are indeed disadvantaged. A more rational support model for these people needs to be developed.

One such model was suggested by two social scientists recently. They proposed, to put it in a nut-shell, to compute a competency figure for each candidate. It will have 80% contribution of merit and the rest 20% will comprise of various disadvantage factors like caste, gender, economic status etc. This will ensure implicit support for the needy while ensuring optimum utilisation of available seats or jobs. The implementaion of such a model appears difficult but the details can certainly be worked out if the best brains in the country deliberate on it. But since here the support is implicit, it will certainly be short of brownie points that act as the opiate for the political parties.

The reservation bill is ready for introduction. If the politicians succeed in their machinations, which the self-styled Nehruvian Samaritans most certainly will, the obituaries to meritocracy will officially be written. I believe the only people who can possibly provide the last ray of hope are the corporate India. Even as the anti-reservation protests keep on intensifying, if the bigwigs of indian industry come together and prepare a concrete plan for robust basic education throughout the country, complete with the budget estimate (of which they must be prepared to contribute a major chunk) and implementaion details, we would at least have the satisfaction of putting in our best effort.