To Government: Please don't punish meritocracy

Pardon me for yet another post on reservations, but I felt this is one topic that deserves one more post. There have been a lot of discussions supporting reservations - some involving senior politicians - and the overwhelming point that seems to be brought up is that we need to given “them” a chance. It almost carries a sympathetic tone under it. But as I see it, the only thing reservations could possibly achieve is punishing meritocracy.

Of all things I read against reservations, this is the most shocking: the total number of forward caste students who get into medical colleges in TamilNadu is just around 20 every year (you read that damn right!) due to the presence of a 70% reserved quota and a 30% general quota which is open to all candidates. Most of the 30% ‘open category’ is again consumed by ‘reserved’ bunch of people leaving just around 20 seats. In effect, it means that you need to be among the top-20 students in the whole state to get a medical seat. Unless, of course, you come under the reserved category.

Let’s take other examples from TamilNadu (TN), the state that has traditionally had the maximum reservations in the country.

1. With all the loopholes and bribery in the system, the cost for getting a lower-caste certificate is around Rs. 2000 to Rs. 3000 bucks. As cheap and simple as that. I know because I’ve heard of people (remotely related to me) pay that much to get a “backward caste” certificate. This is possible in communities whose sub-sects are divided into forward and backward castes. So, how difficult is it going to be for a huge chunk of people to get ‘converted’? Can our inefficient system stop these conversions from continuing? I think the Government is getting into a huge mess (like these) by trying to bring in so-called equality in the form of reservations.

2. In typical engineering colleges, the cutoff marks for getting into good institutes differs between OCs (typically forward caste students), BCs, MBCs and SC/STs. And the cutoff difference between OC students and the rest is, approximately, in the range of 5 to 40 marks out of 300 (depending on whether you belong to BC or ST). What this means is that if you belong to BC category and get 250, it is equivalent to 255 marks. In other words, the quotas don’t provide a life that is otherwise absent, as being painted by the pro-reservation segment. It just enables the students to get a set in an institution that is ranked one step higher than what he would get without reservations. In simple terms, reservations don’t provide a chance-in-a-lifetime but just a small elevation. But the cost is big: You punish meritocracy.

3. Everybody knows institutes such as IITs and IIMs operate under the law of ‘input control’ – they take the best by tough processes and hence are regarded as the best. Nobody ever claims that these institutes “produce” best people. They just try to take in the best people. In such a case, is the Government then trying to make room for people who otherwise aren’t eligible to getting into institutes such as IITs and IIMs by hiding them along with other meritorious students? If no, would the Government be ok to disclose the ‘caste’ details of the candidates passing out of these institutions to the future employers? Are the reserved category people ok with it? What would be Government’s answer to a society that’s increasingly trying to identify itself based on caste? Isn’t it disastrous for the overall health of the country, at a time when every other country in the world is someway admiring India for grabbing the tech-wave with both the hands?

I don’t have answers to the questions I’ve raised, but I just can’t stop wondering how our so-called senior leaders are adept in plugging in short-term ill-planned solutions to long-term problems. It’s as classic as covering the potholes of all those innumerable broken Indian roads instead of making a one long-time investment and concretizing them.