Between the milling masses of young, anxious faces, interspersed with men in uniforms, lathis, water canons, the odd mustachioed man from the ‘other side’, and the live links from studios to young field reporters and the constant blabbering, bickering that primetime discussions dish out, it seems that all hope of a debate (in the original sense of that word), where the common man with no vested interests can get a sense of the multifarious issues in this extremely complicated piece of social argument, is steadily receding.

And because it is complicated, it is easy to reduce it to simplistic abstractions (pro reservations = anti merit; anti reservation = upper class angst) by anyone who has an interest to protect and a point to make. And therein lies the danger.

Let’s start with a few facts.

This is not, as many banners carried by the anti-reservation protesters claimed, by any stretch of imagination, a “Fight for Equality”. To say that is to display utter naïveté about India’s social history. It is important to admit at the very beginning that there has been a systematic isolation – social, cultural, intellectual, political - of certain castes in India that have been in most cases inhuman. Lack of education opportunities and crippling economic status is only an aspect of this isolation. Thus, comments such as “…but we support economic reservation” is to conveniently sideline the issue of social justice and grudge any significantly proportionate redress. Neither should the stray incidents of members of backward castes “infiltrating” general seats (often a prominent argument made by anti –reservation protesters) be taken too seriously. Percentage representation of SC/ST/OBCs among total number of literates with technical degrees or diplomas equivalent to degree or post graduate remains less than 5% in all cases (in some as low 0.3%). The percentage representation of Scheduled Castes, despite several constitutional guarantees as well as reservation policies, remains as low as 3% (1998) in Class I government service.

Obviously, there is an urgent need to introduce schemes and policies that will be able to undo the ravages of the past. The question is, are reservations the best way to address this issue?

Again, let’s get the facts first. Affirmative Action or positive discrimination is constitutionally mandated. Article 15 of the Constitution of India prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, caste, sex or place of birth with the proviso (Clause 4) that nothing in Article 15 (or Article 19, Clause 2, which talks about denial of admission based on grounds of religion, caste etc.) “shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.” To this, the current parliament has added an amendment (Constitution 93^rd Amendment, 2005; passed by both houses and signed by President Kalam on January 20^th of this year) stating (continuing from Clause 4 of Article 15) “…in so far as such special provisions relate to their admission to educational institutions including private educational institutions, whether aided or unaided by the State, other than the minority educational institutions referred to in clause (1) of article 30.".

Therefore, sentiments like “27.5% is already there but 50% is too much” need to be exposed for what they are. This disturbing assumption of a natural title – a right - to seats in higher education by non SC/ST/OBCs reveals an underlying feeling of “can give this much, and no more”. It needs to be made very clear that there is no “giving”, or favours involved here.

However, it is important, having arrived at this juncture, to not hastily jump to the conclusion that this is an argument to prove reservations are good and that they should be implemented forthwith (which they will be irrespective of what you or I think). Whether “such special provisions” (as mentioned in the 93^rd Amendment, 2005) need be quotas is a point that may reasonably be debated. As Dipankar Gupta, a reasonably respected sociologist of the JNU, pointed out to a rather dense television anchor, affirmative action does not start and end with quotas.

Reservations, and we must be specific here, in institutes of higher education (and there are institutes beyond the AIIMS’, IIMs and the IITs, though admittedly these are the strongest bones of contention) are needed, (a) because opportunities have been limited and so it is now time to reverse the malaise and (b) because entrance exams in the better institutes are skewed to test skills that put the social background of members at a particular disadvantage.

Let’s examine (b) first. To avoid generalizations, let’s take the example of the IIM entrance exam (incidentally used by 50 odd other institutes) – the Common Admission Test (or CAT). Reason for choosing CAT is that it is a test for which (b) is most valid.

The common admission test, conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management, tests the following:

1. Verbal Ability
2. Reading comprehension
3. Quantitative Reasoning
4. Logical Reasoning
5. Data Interpretation

To simply put this, it is really a test of English and Math. Even the math section is in English. And here maybe, is the real thing. Higher education in India, particularly management education, is dominated by the English speaking class. This is obviously linked to caste.

English education has forever been associated with public schools most of which are expensive and located in big cities. Apart from the question of formal training in English (or for that any subject), membership to a particular caste and environment determines your interactions with society. This is not merely a matter of economics. CAT tests English of a significantly difficult level (it involves assimilating diverse passages on topics ranging from Philosophy to arcane agricultural procedures as well as identifying idioms and sorting parajumbles; all this in around 40 minutes) that is exceedingly difficult to master for someone subjected to the kind of sustained isolation that these castes have had. Often, anti reservation protesters point out to a freak incident of success in an extremely downtrodden family. This is obviously unfair. When the handicap is so clear, it becomes even more important to institute policies to support the merit that obviously exists at the lower strata, than to use this as an evidence to withdraw help. Thus language (used here in a larger historical socio-cultural sense) becomes the first barrier.

In fact, the order of English tested in CAT is so high that even “upper castes” find the going tough. The remedy: coaching classes.

Thanks to the success of IIM alumni the CAT today attracts anywhere between 1.5-1.75 lakhs applicants. The competition is fierce. And to see you through it all is the neighbourhood coaching centre. One of the biggest ancillary industries to have sprung up around entrance exams, the Preparatory coaching ‘industry’ is almost half a thousand crores big. This is separate from the organized trade of selling pirated books, notes, test papers etc.

The admission to a leading coaching institute like Career Launcher or IMS can cost up to Rupees 20000-25000. Again the concentration of these institutes is skewed towards cities. There are other small shops that have opened up everywhere, including smaller towns that charge 30-50% of what the biggies charge but even this may prove to be a hindrance to joining as a lot of families can’t even afford that.

Thus there is both a social, as well as an economic disadvantage, and there can be no arguments about this. What can however be argued upon is the choice of the quota system as the panacea for all ills.

Two relevant tests for the quota system, according to me, are logical consistency and sustainability. Let’s look at logical consistency first.

If reservations are indeed the solution, and the honorable members of the parliament are convinced of its merits to undo all the ills that the caste system has wrought on Indian society, it might be worthwhile to argue for more quotas. Dalit women have suffered more than dalit men. Will the parliament implement a quota for them to ensure representation in proportion to their population? Will they introduce a quota to help uplift the status of the children of sex workers? The sad truth of Indian society is that it has at several points in history persecuted various sections of its inhabitants. To identify certain as backward castes and others as not is to deny the reality that in India, backwardness has been rooted in much more than just caste.

Furthermore, the government of India, in accordance with its own proclamations and the various constitutional provisions, show the same alacrity to implement political reservation to undo deep rooted social malaise. After all, isn’t political representation the ultimate form of social justice? However it seems futile to expect affirmative action in the form of quotas from a parliament, from successive parliaments, that have failed miserably to pass the 33% Women’s reservation bill. In fact, in Aug 2003, The Hindu quoted Mr. Shivraj Patil as saying that there were “ apprehensions that with 33 per cent of seats reserved for women and 22.5 per cent reserved for SC/STs, the number of general "open" seats should not fall below 50 per cent.”

This reference to the duplicity of our ruling elite is not frivolous because this issue is grounded in the games of electoral politics. Implementing quotas is the easiest thing that the legislature can do to address the pervasive ills that have been pointed out. While the crying need is for addressing this in a broad based manner (primary education; innovative schemes), such limited and patently ineffective schemes (quotas) have been used as shortcuts to gain favour with the votebanks. It must be remembered that oppressed and backward castes are more active as voters than the English speaking upper castes in cities.

It must be stated here that reservations have empirically proven to be ineffective. The abysmal representation of SC/STs after 50 years of reservations hints at what we all know already. That these quotas are misused, fake certificates are obtained by upper castes, the seats are not filled due to only a fraction of the candidates meeting eligibility criteria etc. Even within the backward castes, there is a richer section that tends to hog these opportunities (typically through political contacts). And this is the problem with reservations. It doesn’t solve anything. Beyond the handful (and the seats in education are severely limited and to maintain quality there should be no drastic increase in the number) who do benefit from the reservations, majority of those belonging to the backward and oppressed castes will continue to languish and suffer historical inequalities.

Apart from not benefiting the backward castes in any sustainable sense, it actually creates problems. It dooms Indian society to be divided forever. Imagine, post the current protests, what will be the nature of interaction between SC/ST/OBCs and the general category students. One fears a veritable witch hunt in colleges. Also, the OBC candidate will be now suspected forever of poorer merit and throughout his life (Definitely college life) will be plagued with the “quota” tag which is an insult to the merit.

SOLUTIONS

At the end of the day we need to look for solutions and not cover-ups. In solutions too, there are categories. There is the ideal solution and then there are the immediately practicable ones.

The ideal solution and one must ultimately move to this, is drastically improved infrastructure for backward and oppressed castes w.r.t to primary education where the standards are of the highest order. This may require policies on taxation, innovative resource allocation, and generally greater effort and focus on the part of the government.

As for the immediately practicable solutions, here are a few suggestions.

1. Instead of quotas, use a lower percentile for entry. For example, if the cut-off is, say, 99.96 percentile, SC/ST/OBC candidates maybe allowed entry at 90 percentile. However, they will be put through a remedial year funded by the government to help them cope with studies. The funds may be subsidized my withdrawing financial subsidies (which are significant currently) to students in the general category who don’t need it (financial institutions are only all too ready to dish out loans to them).
2. Government should also introduce wholly subsidized coaching institutes. Any student from the backward castes wishing to enroll will have full government funding. However, economic status of the candidate will play an important role here. Benefits should not accrue to the creamy layer.
3. Government should tie up with NGOs to provide free resources and materials for these students.
4. Government should mandate companies, as part of their CSR, to adopt a certain number of students for supporting their higher education. The candidates can apply to the government.
5. Institutes like the IIMs should have a larger multiple of calls at the interview stage for OBC candidates (for e.g, if it is 5 calls for 1 seat, then additional 2 calls maybe made exclusively for OBC candidates)
6. Newer testing mechanisms can be explored beyond the standard English-math combination to judge merit.

These suggestions are given more to make the point that getting stuck with pro/anti positions is to rob the issue of its gravity. It is high time affirmative action was taken more seriously and interpreted with the depth intended in the constitution of India.