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General Forum: Society | | idee lOkam ! | |
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Tearing down the Velvet Curtain
Anand Patwardhan
I’m convinced that our attitude towards the global control exercised by the Anglo-American combine is a key to understanding and improving relations between the regions of the South. It is the key even to improving relations between the various peoples that vie for survival and self-expression within the bounds of our own respective nations.
If we accept the American paradigm of lies and more lies, all without apology, we set ourselves the worst possible example. Did they ever apologise for being the only country to have dropped atomic weapons on human beings? For training, arming and importing Bin Laden from Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan? For telling the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? The list of American or America induced crimes against humanity is a long one. If we accept their version of these crimes, if we get spoon-fed by them, then we become a party to all these crimes without apology.
Today if you are a journalist in the print or electronic media anywhere in the world, it is difficult to escape embedding. Corporate and government interests exercise near total control. The media is too powerful a weapon to be left in the hands of those who seek the truth. If we understand this we can move forward and search for the cracks and crevices through which to push our stories through, but if we fall prey to the usual rhetoric of the “Free World” and start believing that censorship is something only exercised by countries like China or by explicitly military regimes, then we are in trouble.
Let us look at just a few of the missing stories that directly affect our region.
In 1970-71 West Pakistanis were kept completely in the dark both about the extent of popular support for Bengali nationalism in the East and about atrocities perpetrated there by the military. From the 80’s on, the Indian people have been kept in the dark about similar aspirations and similar atrocities in Kashmir and the North East.
Both in Pakistan and in India, fundamentalism, religious bigotry and violence grew exponentially in the 80s. Was this an accident? Who armed the madrassas in Pakistan and preached jihad against communism? One day the Taliban was a friend, the next day it became the enemy. In India, which had aligned itself with the Soviet Union and a semi-socialist economy, suddenly Sikhs demanded a separate state, Kashmiris demanded Independence and militant Hinduism became popular enough to demolish the Babri Mosque and ride to power amidst communal carnage.
The Babri Masjid was still standing when we completed a film called Ram Ke Naam at the end of 1991. The film was meant to be a warning to the nation of the dangerous rise of communal forces but the government run Doordarshan TV refused to telecast it. We finally won a court case to have it shown on DD in 1996. By this time the Masjid had been demolished with terrible consequences for the entire sub-continent.
Both India and Pakistan are likely beneficiaries of economic and cultural ties with Iran. So where are the stories about Iran other than the usual propaganda dished out by Condoleeza Rice and company? For that we have to turn off our TV sets and go out in search of the odd International Film festival that shows some of the many beautiful Iranian films that challenge the stereotype of a fundamentalist world where women peep out sadly from behind their burkhas.
Both India and Pakistan did nuclear tests in 1998 and celebrated in the streets. Yet how much do we know about the price we continue to pay for our nuclear nationalism, both in financial and health terms? How many investigative reports have appeared on our TV sets or newspapers about the hazards faced by villagers living near the uranium mines of Jadugoda in India or those living near the Chashma nuclear reactor in Pakistan, located on a seismically sensitive site despite warnings by many Pakistani scientists and activists.
None of these stories have been adequately investigated and analysed in the mainstream. All serious attempts to talk about these issues have been sought to be suppressed. Enron Corporation’s blatant rape of India ended not because somebody listened to what the whistle blowers here had to say but only after Enron collapsed in America. The price our nations are paying for mammoth dams on the Narmada and Kalabagh is equally well hidden despite the heroic efforts of activists and dam oustees.
The reasons are not hard to seek: 80 per cent of the mainstream media in India and Pakistan is either controlled by the state or by 6 to 7 large family empires. Almost the entire media of the US is under similar monopoly control. And in the South at least in the most influential English language media, most of the reporters are also recruited from amongst the tiny class of beneficiaries. Perhaps this explains the unqualified media support for upper class/caste agitations against reservations in India and the very concept of positive discrimination.
If not just the governments but also the elites of our region aspire to get closer and closer to America, this is largely the fault of the omissions and commissions of the media. Pakistan has for long been seen as a client state of the US with only Islamic fundamentalists, themselves largely a creation of US Cold War politics, offering occasional resistance in recent years. India, which played the non-alignment card from Independence on through the mid 80’s, has recently laid claims to be America’s newest bride. We are thrilled to be seen on the arms of George Bush Jr. It’s what we call an arms deal. Meanwhile we have not noticed that the FBI has opened office in several Indian cities. We have not noticed that Halliburton has begun serious business operations in the region -- the Halliburton that brought us the war on Iraq.
And yet resistance is not only possible, it is happening, it has always happened. In the last century we saw resistance to the violence of the State, to the very idea of violence itself and to consumer culture and consumer nationalism. The story of one giant resister, Mahatma Gandhi, did break through corporate and State controls to register on the conscience of the world. And there are the resistance stories of today. One has to search for them and join hands with all those who have embarked on the project of tearing down the velvet curtain.
(The writer is a documentary filmmaker)
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 13, Jul 2006 12:25:02 PM IST
Myth of the New India
Pankaj Mishra
India is a roaring capitalist success story.” So says the latest issue of Foreign Affairs; and last week many leading business executives and politicians in India celebrated as Lakshmi Mittal finally succeeded in his hostile takeover of the Luxembourgian steel company Arcelor. India’s leading business newspaper, The Economic Times, summed up the general euphoria over the event in its regular feature, ‘The Global Indian Takeover’: “For India, it is a harbinger of things to come — economic superstardom.”
This sounds persuasive as long as you don’t know that Mr Mittal, who lives in Britain, announced his first investment in India only last year. He is as much an Indian success story as Sergey Brin, the Russian-born co-founder of Google, is proof of Russia’s imminent economic superstardom.
In recent weeks, India seemed an unlikely capitalist success story as communist parties decisively won elections to state legislatures, and the stock market, which had enjoyed record growth in the last two years, fell nearly 20%in two weeks, wiping out $2.4 billion in investor wealth in four days. This week India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, made it clear that only a small minority of Indians will enjoy “Western standards of living and high consumption.”
There is, however, no denying many Indians their conviction that the 21st century will be the Indian Century just as the 20th was American. The exuberant self-confidence of a tiny Indian elite now increasingly infects the news media and foreign policy establishment in the US.
Encouraged by a powerful lobby of rich Indian-Americans who seek to expand their political influence within both their home and adopted countries, President Bush recently agreed to assist India’s nuclear programme, even at the risk of undermining his efforts to check the nuclear ambitions of Iran. As if on cue, special reports and covers hailing the rise of India in Time, Foreign Affairs and The Economist have appeared in the last month.
It was not so long ago that India appeared in the American press as a poor, backward nation, saddled with an inefficient
bureaucracy and, though officially nonaligned, friendly to the Soviet Union. Suddenly the country seems to be not only a “roaring capitalist success story” but also, according to Foreign Affairs, an “emerging strategic partner” of the US. To what extent is this wishful thinking rather than an accurate estimate of India’s strengths?
Looking for new friends and partners in a rapidly changing world, the Bush administration clearly hopes that India, a fellow democracy, will be a reliable counterweight against China as well as Iran. But trade and cooperation between India and China is growing; and, though grateful for American generosity on the nuclear issue, India is too dependent on Iran for oil to wholeheartedly support the United States in its efforts to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The world, more interdependent now than during the cold war, may no longer be divided up into strategic blocs and alliances.
Since the early 1990s, when the Indian economy was liberalised, India has emerged as the world leader in information technology and business outsourcing, with an average growth of about 6 per cent a year. Growing foreign investment and easy credit have fuelled a consumer revolution in urban areas. With their Starbucks-style coffee bars, Blackberry-wielding young professionals, and shopping malls selling luxury brand names, large parts of Indian cities strive to resemble Manhattan.
But the increasingly common, business-centric view of India suppresses more facts than it reveals. Recent accounts of the alleged rise of India barely mention the fact that the country’s $728 per capita gross domestic product is just slightly higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa and that, as the 2005 United Nations Human Development Report puts it, even if it sustains its current high growth rates, India will not catch up with high-income countries until 2106.
Nor is India rising very fast on the report’s Human Development index, where it ranks 127, just two rungs above Myanmar and more than 70 below Cuba and Mexico. Despite a recent reduction in poverty levels, nearly 380 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day.
Malnutrition affects half of all children in India, and there is little sign that they are being helped by the country’s market reforms, which have focused on creating private wealth rather than expanding access to health care and education. Despite the country’s growing economy, 2.5 million Indian children die annually, accounting for one out of every five child deaths worldwide; and facilities for primary education have collapsed in large parts of the country (the official literacy rate of 61 percent includes many who can barely write their names). In the countryside, where 70 percent of India’s population lives, the government has reported that about 100,000 farmers committed suicide between 1993 and 2003.
Feeding on the resentment of those left behind by the urban-oriented economic growth, communist insurgencies have erupted in some of the most populous and poorest parts of north and central India. The Indian government no longer effectively controls many of the districts where communists battle landlords and police, imposing a harsh form of justice on a largely hapless rural population.
The potential for conflict — among castes as well as classes — also grows in urban areas, where India’s cruel social and economic disparities are as evident as its new prosperity. The main reason for this is that India’s economic growth has been largely jobless. Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy.
No labour-intensive manufacturing boom of the kind that powered the economic growth of almost every developed and developing country in the world has yet occurred in India. Unlike China, India still imports more than it exports. This means that as 70 million more people enter the work force in the next five years, most of them without the skills required for the new economy, unemployment and inequality could provoke even more social instability than they have already.
For decades now, India’s underprivileged have used elections to register their protests against joblessness, inequality and corruption. In the 2004 general elections, they voted out a central government that claimed that India was “shining,” bewildering not only most foreign journalists but also those in India who had predicted an easy victory for the ruling coalition.
Many serious problems confront India. They are unlikely to be solved as long as the wealthy, both inside and outside the country, choose to believe their own complacent myths.
The Guardian
(The writer is the author of Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond)
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 13, Jul 2006 12:17:15 PM IST
The silliness of Sushma Swaraj
Karan Thapar
I can’t understand why the Vice-Chief of the Army has apologised but I do think Sushma Swaraj should have done so – loudly, publicly, unequivocally and in the most cringing of terms. The fact that events have played out the other way is proof that many of our politicians trample over the Army’s pride and dignity and get away with it. My father, an Army Officer, used to call them ‘damn dhoti-wallahs’. Fifty years later their clothes may have changed but few officers would regard politicians with greater sympathy. This story about Sushma Swaraj explains why.
Last Saturday this paper quoted Lt. Gen. Pattabhiraman, the Vice-Chief, to have said: “Ideally, we would like to have gentlemen and not lady officers at the unit level. Feedback from lower formations suggests that comfort levels with lady officers are low. We can do without them.” Even though the Army claimed the General had been quoted out of context, these sentiments brought forth a storm of protest from Mrs Swaraj. Before I prove that she neither understood the General nor knew what she was talking about, let’s pause and consider what the Vice-Chief is actually alleged to have said.
“Ideally,” he said — i.e. in perfect conditions — the Army would like male officers “at the unit level”. Note the language — he was speaking ideally and about the unit level. The unit, by the way, is the Army’s preferred fighting formation. So he wasn’t talking generally and he wasn’t talking about all the different groups or formations in which the Army operates. Secondly, “feedback from lower formations” suggests that men feel uncomfortable with women officers. Clearly the General meant jawans. And, let’s be honest, which jawan facing enemy fire would feel secure with a woman in command? Frankly, to even think otherwise is silly. So when General Pattabhiraman concluded “we can do without them” he meant the Army can do without women in fighting units. The jawans would not want them there.
Now, let’s turn to the outpouring of criticism from Mrs. Swaraj. “It is a reflection of the working of the Army and its mindset. If I was the Defence Minister, I would have called the Vice-Chief and told him, ‘we can do without you, you can go’.” Frankly, I’m amazed at the sheer audacity of her comments.
First, Sushma Swaraj clearly failed to understand what the Vice-Chief said. Had she paused to consider his carefully chosen phrases she would have realised he didn’t say the Army doesn’t want women officers nor was he speaking ill of them. But, beyond that, how dare Mrs. Swaraj presume to talk of “the working of the Army and its mindset”? Pray what does she know of either? If anything, the phrase ‘mindset’ applies more readily to her party. And let me assure her that if it’s a choice between the Army and the BJP, Indians would choose the Army first – always and every time.
Now consider what she went on to say: “The questions being raised about practical problems are only excuses. Women today are capable of doing any work.” Are they? And are practical problems only excuses? Could Sushma Swaraj handle a rifle, face the enemy and fire fearlessly to kill? If words are bullets may be but not with real ammunition and Pakistani soldiers staring down the barrel of her gun.
Mrs Swaraj may be foolish enough to make ridiculous claims but ask the millions of service wives and daughters what they think. Or the sisters and mothers whose brothers and sons have left home to fight the enemy – often never to return. Would any of them share these sentiments? This is why I cannot understand General Pattabhiraman’s apology. He should have left the BJP to sink in Sushma’s silliness. But then, unlike her, he’s probably a gentleman. Perhaps, in true Army tradition, he stepped in to take the blame and let the lady off the hook.
Well, I’m only an Army son and certainly not a gentleman. So Mrs. Swaraj can’t expect the same generosity from me. I have a word of advice for her – and all the other politicians equally prone to say foolish things. Several of them, to be honest, are Congressmen or Communists. Don’t pick on the Army because soldiers can’t hit back. Furthermore, don’t ceaselessly prattle or jump to foolish conclusions because political correctness has overwhelmed you. If you want others to take you seriously, think before you speak. In fact, sometimes it’s better not to speak at all.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 13, Jul 2006 12:08:35 PM IST
Do manners matter?
Karan Thapar
I think we’d been married for about six months, a point at which the novelty of the alliance gives way to a quiet confidence that the deed is securely done. It was a Saturday afternoon and Nisha and I had just returned from shopping. Although both my hands were weighed down with heavy carrier bags, I managed to turn the key in the latch and push the front door open. Then, without thinking, I walked through.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I heard Nisha remonstrate. “What?” I replied without stopping or looking back. I was now well into the building and climbing up to our first floor flat.
“Don’t you believe in holding the door open for your wife?” There’s no doubt she was teasing but I could sense an edge to her voice. I smiled sheepishly. I knew I had erred but I wasn’t going to admit it. Nisha wasn’t going to let me off lightly either.
“It may be a little thing but it counts.” I ignored the self-righteous pomposity. After all, I had been at fault. “And people will judge you by it.”
Etiquette and manners are important in Europe and America. That’s why they claim manners maketh a man. We in India are less particular. That’s why Reader’s Digest finds Bombay the least courteous city in the world. Incidentally, Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, Bangalore and Hyderabad would fare no better. But the real question is do manners matter?
I think they do but I have to concede it all turns on whether you believe politeness and consideration are important. They will be if you care about the impression you make on others. If you don’t, they hardly count. So my short answer is if you worry about how others see you -- and judge you -- manners matter.
Let me give you another example. I was 16, an age when a boy thinks he knows best and the advice of elders is mistaken, intrusive or outdated, if not all three. My sister Kiran and I were on a bus heading towards Hampstead. All the seats were taken when an elderly lady stepped on. She looked around for somewhere to sit and then, visibly disappointed, gingerly held on to a bar as the bus lurched forward. She looked uncomfortable and unsteady.
“Offer her your seat,” Kiran whispered. I ignored her. “Go on.” I could sense her insistence but I was impervious to it. “For God’s sake, Karan, she’s probably five times your age!”
Unable to keep silent I muttered a defiant “So what?” and stared fixedly out of window.
Suddenly a man from the row behind stood up and dragging a leg in plaster offered his seat. He clearly needed to sit but had decided the elderly lady’s claim was better. My face grew beetroot red as I realised what had happened. I was young and should have made the sacrifice myself. Selfishness had prevented me. Kiran turned to me. “You should be ashamed of yourself”, she said. I was too embarrassed to reply.
Today I can put both stories in perspective. Would opening the door for Nisha or offering my seat in a bus to an elderly stranger have made a big difference to their lives? Of course not. Would either judge me by it? Probably not. But would it have created a favourable impression? Without doubt. And that brings me back to the question, does it matter? It all depends on you.
Two other things. There’s no denying manners can be feigned, consideration can be hypocrisy, etiquette can be skin deep. But so what? The motive behind any action can be questioned. Ultimately, what matters is that you’ve done the right thing. Secondly, the argument that it’s the heart that counts, it’s human warmth that matters, is facetious because how are you to know what the heart feels, or how do you sense warmth, if not by politeness and consideration?
If I’m behind you as you walk through a door but don’t hold it open for me, if I spill a sheaf of papers and you don’t help pick them up, if I give you something and you don’t acknowledge it with a thanks I can only presume you don’t want to or it doesn’t matter. But from this I’m hardly likely to conclude “Never mind, he has a good heart” or “At least he’s not being hypocritical”. It’s far more likely that I’ll mutter under my breath “bloody bastard.”
Tell me, would I be wrong?
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 13, Jul 2006 12:07:09 PM IST
West's discovery of India
Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar
Jawaharlal Nehru wrote his seminal history, The Discovery of India, during the British Raj. But now we have a very different discovery of India by the western media.
Time magazine has a cover story on India in its US edition with the blurb "Why the world's biggest democracy is the next great economic superpower."
Earlier, The Economist, UK, came out with a 15-page survey of India concluding that the Indian elephant has learnt to fly. In the 1990s, India was seen as a chronic underperformer.
Then the rise of Indian computer software created a new image. India was first projected to enter the big league by the BRIC report of Goldman Sachs in 2003, which predicted that India would have the third largest GDP in the world by 2050.
Then came the CIA vision report for 2020, predicting the rise of China and India as economic superpowers. These reports were initially greeted with scepticism. China had a proven track record but not India.
Indeed, India's GDP growth dipped to 5.5% per year in the Ninth Plan (1997-2002), down from 6.7% in the Eighth Plan. However, soon afterwards India began exceeding BRIC projections.
GDP growth averaged over 8% in the three years 2004-06. Indian manufacturers, earlier terrified of Chinese competition, suddenly took off. Indian software companies showed that they were not just low-wage players but could rise up the value chain.
Indian pharma and auto companies started acquiring companies across the globe. They even invested in China. Growing competitiveness translated into surging profits and a stock market boom.
The Sensex rose from 2900 in 2003 to 12700 by May 2006. Investment guru Marc Faber said that if forced to invest all his money in either the US or India, he would choose India.
The Bush-Manmohan Singh agreement of July 2005 was diplomatic recognition of India's new status as a rising power. I am gratified by the West's Discovery of India. Yet, much of this is unwarranted hype.
India has a thin veneer of world-class people. But beneath this lies a cesspool of injustice, corruption, poverty, and callousness. The impressive outer layer is thickening, but much too slowly.
The most significant indicator of the rot is that 150 of India's 600 districts are now affected by Naxalite violence. The rot is worsening, not improving. Can such a country really become an economic superpower?
In every miracle economy, success has been made possible by a joint effort by the government and private sector, with each doing what it does best.
The government has provided a good business climate plus good human and social investment that enables ordinary people to take advantage of new opportunities.
Private business has flourished in such conditions, growth has accelerated, and poverty has declined. This has happened to some extent in India. Yet, it seems laughably short of what is required to become a superpower.
The police-judicial system has collapsed. The Jessica Lal and BMW cases confirm that anybody with money, muscle and influence is effectively above the law. Criminals move into legislatures and cabinets to ensure they cannot be prosecuted.
The confidential report on the Narmada Dam oustees portrays astounding official callousness compounded by brazen lies. Time magazine reports that 3,500 travellers per year die falling off overcrowded trains in Mumbai, more than the deaths caused by the Godhra riots or Union Carbide disaster at Bhopal.
Primary education, health and water supply are supposed to be provided by the government, but its performance is pathetic despite enormous expenditures. Teachers teach only half the time.
Only one in 14 children in classes three-four can write their names without private tuition (Pratichi report 2002). Health clinics are typically shut, or have no medicines.
Private providers of education, health and water are filling the gap, a saving grace, but the poor can least afford these. Huge subsidies for irrigation and fertilisers benefit mainly larger farmers, and huge urban subsidies benefit the richer half of the population.
Child malnutrition is worse in India than in Africa. The share of children getting full immunisation is down from 52% in 1998-99 to 44.6% in 2002-03. India now has the most AIDS cases in the world (5.7 million).
The poverty ratio has fallen to 22%, a good achievement, but 242 million people are still below the poverty line. Democracy provides some avenues for redressing grievances.
But the steady rise of Naxalites shows how limited this benefit really is. Democracy without rule of law is a weak institution. Yes, India does have a growing world-class business community.
But unless the state is transformed from a callous exploiter into one that actually serves citizens, unless we get a half-satisfactory police-judicial system, unless we create incentives that reward desirable behaviour of officials and politicians and penalise undesirable behaviour, I doubt if India can become an economic superpower.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 13, Jul 2006 11:59:55 AM IST
How does corrupt India grow fast?
Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar
The World Bank has suspended $800 million worth of loans to India's health sector after detecting corruption in procurement. Fair enough: corruption should be checked.
Yet, if corruption is really a no-no, the Bank should stop almost all lending to India, so widespread is corruption here. The Bank may have just discovered corruption, but it is no news at all to the public.
Transparency International ranks India low down in 88th position in its Corruption Perception Index. This is on par with disaster African economies like Mali, Benin, Gabon and Tanzania.
The Bank insists on international tendering, and this reduces the scope for corruption in big industrial and infrastructure projects. But not where decisions are more decentralised. Optimists think devolving power to panchayats will cut corruption.
Alas, surveys suggest otherwise. I recently got an update on corruption from an IAS officer from Maharashtra. This is among India's fastest-growing states, and so (I thought) less affected by corruption. Not so, said the officer.
When handling a Zila Parishad, he was told by an opposition politician (who had done such deals himself when in power) that all the tenders for an educational project were benami bids of a single mafia group, and the rates quoted were several times the market rate. He checked in the market, and found this was true.
Why did rivals not quote lower prices? Because the contractor mafia had divided up territories and ensured that nobody else could bid. Why did elected politicians not intervene? Because the contractor mafia were members of Zila Parishads and the state legislature.
Why did senior bureaucrats not intervene? Because almost all of them were getting a cut from the same rigged contracts.Indeed, fellow bureaucrats warned the officer that by checking the quotations, he was taking personal responsibility for procurement, whereas corrupt officers ensured that the blame for any scam exposed by the media could be pinned on others.
His anxiety to ensure honest procurement led to delays and ruined his reputation for efficiency: word went round that the officer was the type who raised queries and couldn't take decisions. He managed a transfer back to Mumbai, where he could deal only with policy and not actual execution.
In another case, said the officer, a notorious politician running a betting racket took a large bet that a Hindu-Muslim riot would occur. He then got somebody to throw a dead pig into a mosque, to spark a riot.
But a local bureaucrat moved swiftly and scotched the riot. The enraged politician told the bureaucrat to leave the state or be killed. The bureaucrat scampered abroad on study leave.
Is this not very exceptional, I asked the officer? No, he said, IAS officers regularly exchange horror stories in Maharashtra, and each is worse than the other. We are so deadened by corruption that we don't even get angry.
Why bother when nothing can be done about it? Honest bidders kept out by the mafia have nobody to go to: the politicians and bureaucrats are part of the racket, the police will refuse to register a case, and the courts are moribund. Only the media offers some recourse.
In large contracts where rivals cannot be kept out, winning tenders can be too low, not high. No honest bidder can make a profit at such rates.
Crooks put in low bids because, after getting a contract, the contractor can (through collusion) supply substandard materials, and submit bills for more materials than actually supplied.
In civil construction, all bidders quote competitive prices for the task tendered, along with very high charges for any design changes after the contract is signed.
With collusion, a low, unprofitable winning bid can be converted into a gold mine by announcing later design changes, ostensibly to improve a project and serve the poor better.
We have all heard horror stories of mafia control and corruption in Bihar, and are not surprised at low economic growth there. But what does one say of horror stories from Maharashtra, one of India's fastest growing states? Why does entrenched corruption not convert Maharashtra into another Bihar?
The answer seems to be that democracy induces politicians in Maharashtra to ensure that public services improve even while lining their pockets. This is not always the case where caste politics determines elections (Bihar, UP).
But it is the case in most states. Politicians favour bureaucrats who are corrupt but efficient: this yields both money and votes. Thus democracy sets a ceiling on corruption, and gives an incentive for bijli-sadak-pani.
African autocrats have no need to seek votes, and so seek just money. That explains their performance. So, perhaps democracy explains why India, despite being as corrupt as many African failures, can nevertheless register 7.5% GDP growth.
Democracy is probably good enough reason for the World Bank to keep lending to corrupt India.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Jun 2006 6:14:54 PM IST
Decision on quota is final: Arjun CNN-IBN
Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to the Devil's Advocate. As the debate over
the reservations for the OBCs divides the country, we ask - What are the
government's real intentions? That is the critical questions that I shall
put today in an exclusive interview to the Minister for Human Resource
Development Arjun Singh.
Most of the people would accept that steps are necessary to help the OBCs
gain greater access to higher education. The real question is - Why do you
believe that reservations is the best way of doing this?
Arjun Singh: I wouldn't like to say much more on this because these are
decisions that are taken not by individuals alone. And in this case, the
entire Parliament of this country - almost with rare anonymity - has decided
to take this decision.
Karan Thapar: Except that Parliament is not infallible. In the Emergency,
when it amended the Constitution, it was clearly wrong, it had to reverse
its own amendments. So, the question arises - Why does Parliament believe
that the reservation is the right way of helping the OBCs?
Arjun Singh: Nobody is infallible. But Parliament is Supreme and atleast I,
as a Member of Parliament, cannot but accept the supremacy of Parliament.
Karan Thapar: No doubt Parliament is supreme, but the constitutional
amendment that gives you your authorities actually unenabling amendment, it
is not a compulsory requirement. Secondly, the language of the amendment
does not talk about reservations, the language talks about any provision by
law for advancement of socially and educationally backward classes. So, you
could have chosen anything other than reservations, why reservations?
Arjun Singh: Because as I said, that was the 'will and desire of the
Parliament'.
Karan Thapar: Do you personally also, as Minister of Human Resource
Development , believe that reservations is the right and proper way to help
the OBCs?
Arjun Singh: Certainly, that is one of the most important ways to do it.
Karan Thapar: The right way?
Arjun Singh: Also the right way.
Karan Thapar: In which case, lets ask a few basic questions; we are talking
about the reservations for the OBCs in particular. Do you know what
percentage of the Indian population is OBC? Mandal puts it at 52 per cent,
the National Sample Survey Organisation at 32 per cent, the National Family
and Health Survey at 29.8 per cent, which is the correct figure?
Arjun Singh: I think that should be decided by people who are more
knowledgeable. But the point is that the OBCs form a fairly sizeable
percentage of our population.
Karan Thapar: No doubt, but the reason why it is important to know 'what
percentage' they form is that if you are going to have reservations for
them, then you must know what percentage of the population they are,
otherwise you don't know whether they are already adequately catered in
higher educational institutions or not.
Arjun Singh: That is obvious - they are not.
Karan Thapar: Why is it obvious?
Arjun Singh: Obvious because it is something which we all see.
Karan Thapar: Except for the fact that the NSSO, which is a government
appointed body, has actually in its research in 1999 - which is the most
latest research shown - that 23.5 per cent of all university seats are
already with the OBCs. And that is just 8.5 per cent less than what the NSSO
believes is the OBC share of the population. So, for a difference of 8 per
cent, would reservations be the right way of making up the difference?
Arjun Singh: I wouldn't like to go behind all this because, as I said,
Parliament has taken a view and it has taken a decision, I am a servant of
Parliament and I will only implement.
Karan Thapar: Absolutely, Parliament has taken a view, I grant it. But what
people question is the simple fact - Is there a need for reservations? If
you don't know what percentage of the country is OBC, and if furthermore,
the NSSO is correct in pointing out that already 23.5 per cent of the
college seats are with the OBC, then you don't have a case in terms of need.
Arjun Singh: College seats, I don't know.
Karan Thapar: According to the NSSO - which is a government appointed body
- 23.5 per cent of the college seats are already with the OBCs.
Arjun Singh: What do you mean by college seats?
Karan Thapar: University seats, seats of higher education.
Arjun Singh: Well, I don't know I have not come across that far.
Karan Thapar: So, when critics say to you that you don't have a case for
reservation in terms of need, what do you say to them?
Arjun Singh: I have said what I had to say and the point is that that is
not an issue for us to now debate.
Karan Thapar: You mean the chapter is now closed?
Arjun Singh: The decision has been taken.
Karan Thapar: Regardless of whether there is a need or not, the decision is
taken and it is a closed chapter.
Arjun Singh: So far as I can see, it is a closed chapter and that is why I
have to implement what all Parliament has said.
Karan Thapar: Minister, it is not just in terms of 'need' that your critics
question the decision to have reservation for OBCs in higher education. More
importantly, they question whether reservations themselves are efficacious
and can work.
For example, a study done by the IITs themselves shows that 50 per cent of
the IIT seats for the SCs and STs remain vacant and for the remaining 50 per
cent, 25 per cent are the candidates, who even after six years fail to get
their degrees. So, clearly, in their case, reservations are not working.
Arjun Singh: I would only say that on this issue, it would not be correct
to go by all these figures that have been paraded.
Karan Thapar: You mean the IIT figures themselves could be dubious?
Arjun Singh: Not dubious, but I think that is not the last word.
Karan Thapar: All right, maybe the IIT may not be the last word, let me
then quote to you the report of the Parliamentary Committee on the welfare
for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes - that is a Parliamentary
body.
It says that looking at the Delhi University, between 1995 and 2000, just
half the seats for under-graduates at the Scheduled Castes level and just
one-third of the seats for under-graduates at the Scheduled Tribes level
were filled. All the others went empty, unfilled. So, again, even in Delhi
University, reservations are not working.
Arjun Singh: If they are not working, it does not mean that for that reason
we don't need them. There must be some other reason why they are not working
and that can be certainly probed and examined. But to say that for this
reason, 'no reservations need to be done' is not correct.
Karan Thapar: Fifty years after the reservations were made, statistics
show, according to The Hindustan Times, that overall in India, only 16 per
cent of the places in higher education are occupied by SCs and STs. The
quota is 22.5 per cent, which means that only two-thirds of the quota is
occupied. One third is going waste, it is being denied to other people.
Arjun Singh: As I said, the kind of figures that have been brought out, in
my perception, do not reflect the realities. Realities are something much
more and of course, there is an element of prejudice also.
Karan Thapar: But these are figures that come from a Parliamentary
Committee. It can't be prejudiced; they are your own colleagues.
Arjun Singh: Parliamentary Committee has given the figures, but as to why
this has not happened, that is a different matter.
Karan Thapar: I put it to you that you don't have a case for reservations
in terms of need, you don't have a case for reservations in terms of their
efficacy, why then, are you insisting on extending them to the OBCs?
Arjun Singh: I don't want to use that word, but I think that your argument
is basically fallicious.
Karan Thapar: But it is based on all the facts available in the public
domain.
Arjun Singh: Those are facts that need to be gone into with more care. What
lies behind those facts, why this has not happened, that is also a fact.
Karan Thapar: Let's approach the issue of reservations differently in that
case. Reservations mean that a lesser-qualified candidate gets preference
over a more qualified candidate, solely because in this case, he or she
happens to be an OBC. In other words, the upper castes are being penalised
for being upper caste.
Arjun Singh: Nobody is being penalised and that is a factor that we are
trying to address. I think that the prime Minister will be talking to all
the political parties and will be putting forward a formula, which will see
that nobody is being penalised.
Karan Thapar: I want very much to talk about that formula, but before we
come to talk about how you are going to address concerns, let me point one
other corollary - Reservations also gives preference and favour to caste
over merit. Is that acceptable in a modern society?
Arjun Singh: I don't think the perceptions of modern society fit India
entirely.
Karan Thapar: You mean India is not a modern society and therefore can't
claim to be treated as one?
Arjun Singh: It is emerging as a modern society, but the parameters of a
modern society do not apply to large sections of the people in this country.
Karan Thapar: Let me quote to you Jawaharlal Nehru, a man whom you
personally admire enormously. On the 27th of June 1961 wrote to the Chief
Ministers of the day as follows: I dislike any kind of reservations. If we
go in for any kind of reservations on communal and caste basis, we will
swamp the bright and able people and remain second rate or third rate. The
moment we encourage the second rate, we are lost. And then he adds
pointedly: This way lies not only folly, but also disaster. What do you say
to Jawaharlal Nehru today?
Arjun Singh: Jawaharlal Nehru was a great man in his own right and not only
me, but everyone in India accept his view.
Karan Thapar: But you are just about to ignore his advice.
Arjun Singh: No. Are you aware that it was Jawaharlal Nehru who introduced
the first ammendment regarding OBCs?
Karan Thapar: Yes, and I am talking about Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961, when
clearly he had changed his position, he said - I dislike any kind of
reservations.
Arjun Singh: I don't think one could take Panditji's position at any point
of time and then overlook what he had himself initiated.
Karan Thapar: Am I then to understand that regardless of the case that is
made against reservations in terms of need, regardless of the case that has
been made against reservations in terms of efficacy, regardless of the case
that has been made against reservations in terms of Jawaharlal Nehru, you
remain committed to extending reservations to the OBCs.
Arjun Singh: I said because that is the will of Parliament. And I think
that common decisions that are taken by Parliament have to be honoured.
Karan Thapar: Let me ask you a few basic questions - If reservations are
going to happen for the OBCs in higher education, what percentage of
reservations are we talking about?
Arjun Singh: No, that I can't say because that has yet to be decided.
Karan Thapar: Could it be less than 27 per cent?
Arjun Singh: I can't say anything on that, I have told you in the very
beginning that at this point of time it is not possible for me to.
Karan Thapar: Quite right. If you can't say, then that also means that the
figure has not been decided.
Arjun Singh: The figure will be decided, it has not been decided yet.
Karan Thapar: The figure has not been decided. So, therefore the figure
could be 27, but it could be less than 27 too?
Arjun Singh: I don't want to speculate on that because as I said, that is
decision, which will be taken by Parliament.
Karan Thapar: Whatever the figure, one thing is certain that when the
reservations for OBCs happen, the total quantum of reservations will go up
in percentage terms. Will you compensate by increasing the total number of
seats in colleges, universities, IITs and IIMs, so that the other students
don't feel deprived.
Arjun Singh: That is one of the suggestions that has been made and is being
seriously considered.
Karan Thapar: Does it find favour with you as a Minister for Human Resource
Development?
Arjun Singh: Whatever suggestion comes, we are committed to examine it.
Karan Thapar: You may be committed to examine it, but do you as minister
believe that that is the right way forward?
Arjun Singh: That could be one of the ways, but not the only way.
Karan Thapar: What are the other ways?
Arjun Singh: I don't know. That is for the Prime Minister and the other
ministers to decide.
Karan Thapar: One way forward would be to increase the total number of
seats.
Arjun Singh: Yes, definitely.
Karan Thapar: But the problem is that as the Times of India points out, we
are talking of an increase of perhaps as much as 53 per cent. Given the
constraints you have in terms of faculty and infrastructure, won't that
order of increase dilute the quality of education?
Arjun Singh: I would only make one humble request, don't go by The Times of
India and The Hindustan Times about faculty and infrastructure, because they
are trying to focus on an argument which they have made.
Karan Thapar: All right, I will not go by The Times of India, let me
instead go by Sukhdev Thorat, the Chairman of the UGC. He points out that
today, at higher education levels - that is all universities, IITs and IIMs
- there is already a 1.2 lakh vacancy number. 40 per cent of these are in
teaching staff, which the IIT faculty themselves point out that they have
shortages of up to 30 per cent. Given those two constraint, can you increase
the number of seats?
Arjun Singh: That can be addressed and that shortage can be taken care of.
Karan Thapar: But it can't be taken care of in one swoop, it will take
several years to do it.
Arjun Singh: I don't know whether it can be taken care of straightway or in
stages, that is a subject to be decided.
Karan Thapar: Let me ask you bluntly, if you were to agree to compensate
for reservations for OBCs by increasing the number of seats, would that
increase happen at one go, or would it be staggered over a period of
two-three or four year old process.
Arjun Singh: As I told you, it is an issue that I cannot comment upon at
this moment because that is under examination.
Karan Thapar: So, it may happen in one go and it may happen in a series of
several years.
Arjun Singh: I can't speculate on that because that is not something on
which I am free to speak on today.
Karan Thapar: Will the reservation for OBCs, whatever figure your Committee
decides on, will it happen in one go, or will it slowly be introduced in
stages?
Arjun Singh: That also I cannot say because as I told you, all these issues
are under consideration.
Karan Thapar: Which means that everything that is of germane interest to
the people concerned is at the moment 'under consideration' and the
government is not able to give any satisfaction to the students who are
deeply concerned.
Arjun Singh: That is not the point. The government knows what to do and it
will do what is needed.
Karan Thapar: But if the government knows what to do, why won't you tell me
what the government wants to do?
Arjun Singh: Because unless the decision is taken, I cannot tell you.
Karan Thapar: But you can share with me as the Minister what you are
thinking.
Arjun Singh: No.
Karan Thapar: So, in other words, we are manitaining a veil of secrecy and
the very people who are concerned...
Arjun Singh: I am not maintaining a veil of secrecy. I am only telling you
what propriety allows me to tell you.
Karan Thapar: Propriety does not allow you to share with the people who are
protesting on the streets what you are thinking?
Arjun Singh: I don't think that that can happen all the time.
Karan Thapar: But there are people who feel that their lives and their
futures are at stake and they are undertaking fasts until death.
Arjun Singh: It is being hyped up, I don't want to go into that.
Karan Thapar: Do you have no sympathy for them?
Arjun Singh: I have every sympathy.
Karan Thapar: But you say it is being hyped up.
Arjun Singh: Yes, it is hyped up.
Karan Thapar: So, then, what sympathy are you showing?
Arjun Singh: I am showing sympathy to them and not to those who are hyping
it up.
Karan Thapar: The CPM says that if the reservations for the OBCs are to
happen, then what is called the creamy layer should be excluded. How do you
react to that?
Arjun Singh: The creamy layer issue has already been taken care of by the
Supreme Court.
Karan Thapar: That was vis -a-vis jobs in employment, what about at the
university level, should they be excluded there as well because you are
suggesting that the answer is yes?
Arjun Singh: That could be possible.
Karan Thapar: It could be possible that the creamy layer is excluded from
reservations for OBCs in higher education?
Arjun Singh: It could be, but I don't know whether it would happen
actually.
Karan Thapar: Many people say that if reservations for OBCs in higher
education happen, then the children of beneficiaries should not be entitled
to claim the same benefit.
Arjun Singh: Why?
Karan Thapar: So that there is always a shrinking base and the rate doesn't
proliferate.
Arjun Singh: I don't think that that is a very logical way of looking at
it.
Karan Thapar: Is that not acceptable to you?
Arjun Singh: No, it is not the logical way of looking at it.
Karan Thapar: So, with the possible exception of the creamy layer
exclusion, reservation for OBCs in higher education will be almost identical
to the existing reservations for SC/STs?
Arjun Singh: Except for the percentage.
Karan Thapar: Except for the percentage.
Arjun Singh: Yes.
Karan Thapar: So, in every other way, they will be identical.
Arjun Singh: Yes, in every other way.
Karan Thapar: Mr Arjun Singh, on the 5th of April when you first indicated
that the Government was considering reservation for OBCs in higher
education, was the Prime Minister in agreement that this was the right thing
to do?
Arjun Singh: I think, there is a very motivated propaganda is on this
issue. Providing reservation to OBCs was in the public domain right from
December 2005, when Parliament passed the enabling resolution.
Karan Thapar: Quite true. But had the Prime Minister specifically agreed on
or before 5th of April to the idea?
Arjun Singh: Well, I am telling you it was already there. A whole Act was
made, the Constitution was amended and the Prime Minister was fully aware of
what this is going to mean. Actually, he had a meeting in which OBC leaders
were called to convince them that this would give them the desired
advantage. And they should, therefore, support this resolution. And at that
meeting, he himself talked to them. Now, how do you say that he was unaware?
Karan Thapar: But were you at all aware that the Prime Minister might be in
agreement with what was about to happen but might not wish it disclosed
publicly at that point of time? Were you aware of that?
Arjun Singh: It was already there in public domain, that's what I am trying
to tell you.
Karan Thapar: Then answer this to me. Why are members of the PMO telling
journalists that Prime Minister was not consulted and that you jumped the
gun?
Arjun Singh: Well, I don't know which member of the PMO you are talking
about unless you name him.
Karan Thapar: Is there a conspiracy to make you the fall guy?
Arjun Singh: Well, I don't know whether there is one or there is not. But
fall guys are not made in this way. And I am only doing what was manifestly
clear to every one, was cleared by the party and the Prime Minister. There
is no question of any personal agenda.
Karan Thapar: They say that, in fact, you brought up this issue to
embarrass the Prime Minister.
Arjun Singh: Why should I embarrass the Prime Minister? I am with him. I am
part of his team.
Karan Thapar: They say that you have a lingering, forgive the word,
jealousy because Sonia Gandhi chose Manmohan Singh and not you as Prime
Minister.
Arjun Singh: Well, that is canard which is below contempt. Only that person
can say this who doesn't know what kind of respect and regard I hold for
Sonia Gandhi. She is the leader. Whatever she decides is acceptable to me.
Karan Thapar: They also say that you brought this issue up because you felt
that the Prime Minister had been eating into your portfolio. Part of it had
gone to Renuka Chaudhury and, in fact, your new deputy minister Purandar
Sridevi had taken over certain parts. This was your way of getting back.
Arjun Singh: No one was taking over any part. This is a decision which the
Prime Minister makes as to who has to have what portfolio. And he asked Mrs
Renuka Devi to take it and he cleared it with me first.
Karan Thapar: So there is no animus on your part?
Arjun Singh: Absolutely not.
Karan Thapar: They say that you did this because you resented the Prime
Minister's popular image in the country, that this was your way of
embroiling him in a dispute that will make him look not like a modern
reformer but like an old-fashioned, family-hold politician instead.
Arjun Singh: Well, the Tammany Hall political stage is over He is our
Prime Minister and every decision he has taken is in the full consent with
his Cabinet and I don't think there can be any blame on him.
Karan Thapar: One, then, last quick question. Do you think this is an
issue, which is a sensitive issue, where everyone knew there would have been
passions and emotions that would have aroused has been handled as
effectively as it should have been?
Arjun Singh: Well, I have not done anything on it. I have not sort of what
you call jumped the gun. If this is an issue, which is sensitive, everyone
has to treat it that way.
Karan Thapar: But your conscience as HRD Minister is clear?
Arjun Singh: Absolutely clear.
Karan Thapar: There is nothing that you could have done to make it easier
for the young students?
Arjun Singh: Well, I am prepared to do anything that can be done. And it is
being attempted.
Karan Thapar: For seven weeks, they have been protesting in the hot sun. No
minister has gone there to appease them, to alley their concerns, to express
sympathy for them. Have politicians let the young people of India down?
Arjun Singh: Well, I myself called them. They all came in this very room.
Karan Thapar: But you are the only one.
Arjun Singh: You are accusing me only. No one else is being accused.
Karan Thapar: What about the Government of India? Has the Government of
India failed to respond adequately?
Arjun Singh: From the Government of India also, the Defence Minister met
them.
Karan Thapar: Only recently.
Arjun Singh: That is something because everyone was busy with the
elections.
Karan Thapar: For seven weeks no one met them.
Arjun Singh: No, but we are very concerned. Certainly, all of us resent the
kind of force that was used. I condemned it the very first day it happened.
Karan Thapar: All right, Mr Arjun Singh. We have reached the end of this
interview. Thank you very much for speaking on the subject.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 8, Jun 2006 3:09:04 PM IST
THE CENTRAL Government's move to introduce reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in elite institutions of higher and professional education popularly known as Mandal II seems to be heading towards a stalemate.
This is clearly an ambitious and optimistic agenda, especially because Mandal II proves that some mistakes are destined to be repeated. Once again the Government appears set to do the right thing in the wrong way, without the prior preparation, careful study, and opinion priming that such an important move obviously demands. It is even more shocking that students from our very best institutions are willing to re-enact the horribly inappropriate forms of protest from the original anti-Mandal agitation of 1990-91. As symbolic acts, street-sweeping or shoe-shining send the callous and arrogant message that some people castes? are indeed fit only for menial jobs, while others are `naturally' suited to respectable professions such as engineering and medicine. However, the media do seem to have learnt something from their dishonourable role in Mandal I. By and large, both the print and electronic media have not been incendiary in their coverage, and some have even presented alternative views. Nevertheless, far too much remains unchanged across 16 years.
Perhaps the most crucial constant is the absence of a favourable climate of opinion. Outside the robust contestations of politics proper, our public life continues to be disproportionately dominated by the upper castes. It is therefore unsurprising, but still a matter of concern, that the dominant view denies the very validity of affirmative action. Indeed the antipathy towards reservations may have grown in recent years. The main problem is that the dominant view sees quotas and the like as benefits being handed out to particular caste groups. This leads logically to the conclusion that power-hungry politicians and vote bank politics are the root causes of this problem. But to think thus is to put the cart before the horse.
A rational and dispassionate analysis of this issue must begin with the one crucial fact that is undisputed by either side the overwhelming dominance of upper castes in higher and especially professional education. Although undisputed, this fact is not easy to establish, especially in the case of our elite institutions, which have always been adamant about refusing to reveal information on the caste composition of their students and faculty. But the more general information that is available through the National Sample Survey Organisation clearly shows the caste-patterning of educational inequality. Some of the relevant data are shown in Tables 1 and 2.
Table 1 shows the percentage of graduates in the population aged 20 years or above in different castes and communities in rural and urban India. Only a little more than 1 per cent of Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, and Muslims are graduates in rural India, while the figure for Hindu upper castes is four to five times higher at over 5 per cent. The real inequalities are in urban India, where the SCs in particular, but also Muslims, OBCs, and STs are way behind the forward communities and castes with a quarter or more of their population being graduates. Another way of looking at it is that STs, SCs, Muslims, and OBCs are always below the national average while the other communities and especially Hindu upper castes are well above this average in both rural and urban India.
Table 2 shows the share of different castes and communities in the national pool of graduates as compared to their share of the total population aged 20 years or more. In other words, the table tells us which groups have a higher than proportionate (or lower than proportionate) share of graduates. Once again, with the exception of rural Hindu OBCs and urban STs, the same groups are severely under-represented while the Hindu upper castes, Other Religions (Jains, Parsis, Buddhists, etc.), and Christians are significantly over-represented among graduates. Thus the Hindu upper castes' share of graduates is twice their share in the population aged 20 or above in rural India, and one-and-a-half times their share in the population aged 20 or above in urban India. Compare this, for example, to urban SCs and Muslims, whose share of graduates is only 30 per cent and 39 per cent respectively of their share in the 20 and above population.
It should be emphasised that these data refer to all graduates from all kinds of institutions countrywide if we were to look at the elite professional institutions, the relative dominance of the upper castes and forward communities is likely to be much stronger, although such institutions refuse to publish the data that could prove or disprove such claims.
Although it is implicitly conceded by both sides, upper caste dominance is explained in opposite ways. The upper castes claim that their preponderance is due solely to their superior merit, and that there is nothing to be done about this situation since merit should indeed be the sole criterion in determining access to higher education. In fact, they may go further to assert that any attempt to change the status quo can only result in "the murder of merit." Those who are for affirmative action argue that the traditional route to caste dominance namely, an upper caste monopoly over higher education still remains effective despite the apparent abolition of caste. From this perspective, the status quo is an unjust one requiring state intervention on behalf of disadvantaged sections who are unable to force entry under the current rules of the game. More extreme views of this kind may go on to assert that merit is merely an upper caste conjuring trick designed to keep out the lower castes.
What is wrong with this picture? Nothing, except that it is only part of a much larger frame. For if we understand merit as sheer innate ability, it is difficult to explain why it should seem to be an upper caste monopoly. Whatever people may believe privately, it is now beyond doubt that arguments for the genetic or natural inferiority of social groups are unacceptable. If so, how is it that, roughly speaking, one quarter of our population supplies three quarters of our elite professionals? The explanation has to lie in the social mechanisms through which innate ability is translated into certifiable skill and encashable competence. This points to intended or unintended systemic exclusions in the educational system, and to inequalities in the background resources that education presupposes.
It is their confidence in having monopolised the educational system and its prerequisites that sustains the upper caste demand to consider only merit and not caste. If educational opportunities were truly equalised, the upper castes' share in professional education would be roughly in proportion to their population share, that is, between one fourth and one third. This would not only be roughly one third of their present strength in higher education; it would also be much less than the 50 per cent share they are assured of even after implementation of OBC reservations!
If the upper caste view needs an unexamined notion of merit that ignores the social mechanisms that bring it into existence, the lower caste or pro-reservation view appears to require that merit be emptied of all its content. While this is indeed true of some militant positions, the peculiar circumstances of Indian higher education also allow alternative interpretations. In a situation marked by absurd levels of "hyper-selectivity" 300,000 aspirants competing for 4000 IIT seats, for example merit gets reduced to rank in an examination. As educationists know only too well, the examination is a blunt instrument. It is good only for making broad distinctions in levels of ability; it cannot tell us whether a person scoring 85 per cent would definitely make a better engineer or doctor than somebody scoring 80 per cent or 75 per cent or even 70 per cent.
In short, it is only a combination of social compulsion and pure myth that sustains the crazy world of cut-off points and second decimal place differences that dominate the admission season. Such fetishised notions of merit have nothing to do with any genuine differences in ability. The caste composition of higher education could well be changed without any sacrifice of merit simply by instituting a lottery among all candidates of broadly similar levels of ability say, the top 15 or 25 per cent of a large applicant pool.
But the inequities of our educational system are so deeply entrenched that caste inequalities might persist despite some change. We would then be back where we started with the apparent dichotomy between merit and social justice in higher education. How do we transcend this dilemma? Is there a way forward where both merit and social justice can be given their due? 23 may 2006 THE HINDU
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 8, Jun 2006 3:07:10 PM IST
http://www.nellaimedicos.com/blog/bruno/2006/05/truth-about-merit-in-aiims.html#comments
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 8, Jun 2006 2:43:42 PM IST
Do I have any merit?
Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar
Youngsters are up in arms. "I work so hard trying for good marks and admission to top colleges. Is it fair if I am kept out by somebody with lower marks but a backward caste certificate? I am sorry that his forefathers faced iscrimination. But I have not discriminated against anybody.
Why penalise me for the injustices of history?"
Thus do many youngsters (and striking doctors) bemoan the injustice of caste-based reservations. They are not consoled by the proposed increase in college seats. They think that those seats too should be filled on merit. We need a merit-based society, they say.
I'm afraid their notion of fairness and merit is dead wrong. Rewarding students with the highest marks benefits people born in the right families, not the most intelligent or meritorious. I do not want to cast stones at others. So allow me to prove that I myself am an unjust beneficiary of an unjust system.
I have a pretty good track record. I got stellar marks in school and topped my college class. As a journalist, I rose swiftly to become editor of first Financial Express and later The Economic Times, the country's two biggest financial dailies. I had no political or business godfathers: I rose on merit.
Some years ago, I did a quickie IQ quiz in a magazine. The quiz result said I had an IQ of 130-135, a very high score, and that only 3% of people had higher intelligence. That made me feel good, of course.
But consider this. India has a population of 1.1 billion, of which the workforce is 400 million. Three per cent of 400 million is 12 million people. So, in a truly meritorious society, 12 million people should have a higher position in the workforce than me.
That is not the case. India has at most two million top managers and professionals. Where, then, are the 12 million super-intelligent people? Many are labourers or street hawkers.
The canteen boy who brings me tea may be more intelligent than me, and so too may be the man shining shoes on the roadside. But they were born in the wrong family, and never had access to good education or economic opportunities. So they remain on the fringes of society.
Meanwhile, lesser beings like me dominate society, on the spurious claim that we are the most meritorious. What gall! We got good marks because we had the most educated parents, the best books, and went to the best schools and colleges.
But others far more meritorious are rotting without education or opportunity in the slums and villages of India. In a fair and just society, the top two million or so positions would be occupied by people with an IQ of over 135. Lesser folk like me (and most striking doctors) would be just clerks or labourers.
So, let no upper caste student claim that reservations are displacing merit. The most meritorious people of all are unable to even enter the race for good colleges or jobs.
How do we create a fairer society? Job reservations are politically popular but will barely touch the fringe of the problem. They may benefit a lakh or two from the creamy layer of backward castes. They will not benefit the 12 million talented people left behind in the streets and fields of India.
Education, ultimately, can be the great leveller. Our Constitution guarantees universal education. But our callous, corrupt government spends thousands of crores on a useless school system. Teacher absenteeism ranges from 14% to 45% in different states.
Most children with five years of schooling are unable to read simple paragraphs or do simple sums. No politician dares discipline teachers or make them accountable. In these circumstances, doubling spending on education will simply double the waste without improving outcomes much.
We need to experiment with new, fairer systems. Let me suggest one. The government spends Rs 110,000 crore a year on education. Let Rs 10,000 crore of this be channelled through business federations like the CII and Ficci to run quality schools with 80% reservation for lower castes and tribals.
Technical assistance can come from Delhi Public School, which has already created a chain of quality schools in India and abroad.
Within five years, let us create two quality schools in every district headquarters. In the next five years, let us cover every tehsil headquarters, and give scholarships to needy students for school for college.
This will create a meritorious society only slowly. Not even quality schools will give poor geniuses the advantages enjoyed by the elite: highly educated parents, access to books and media, contacts and connections.
But remember that high-quality grammar schools in Britain enabled working-class children to enter Oxford and Cambridge. We need a similar starting point.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 8, Jun 2006 1:40:14 PM IST
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