Affirmative action in India: Time for repudiation?

Affirmative action has been defined as the set of policies that take race, ethnicity or gender into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity, focusing on issue ranging from employment and education to public contracting and health programs. These policies have been implemented almost all over the world for racial and ethnic minorities, women, physically disabled, underprivileged classes and so on. While these policies have been initially introduced as a temporary measure to level the playing field for these classes, they have transformed into a ubiquitous, immutable affliction on the modern society. Reservation has become a bane for the "non-underprivileged" classes in the Indian context.

The reservation policy was instituted into the Indian constitution at the time it was framed and has been in perpetual existence ever since. Though reservations have been in vogue in every walk of life, I'd like to concentrate on education - one of the major issues that oppress the "non-oppressed" classes in the society. Let me illustrate a simple scenario of how reservation is affecting a student entering college. Being a bit more specific here, consider the Common Entrance Test (CET) for entering professional (meaning engineering or medical courses in India - no other course is considered - one of the many sources of my consternation, but let us not digress) courses in Karnataka. Ranks are awarded (or used to be awarded - it has been almost 9 years since I went through the system) based on the performance in the test, as well as the class 12 exams. There are a fixed number of seats in the top colleges, which is the aim for most of the students. Thanks to reservation, out of the 120 seats available for a particular course in the college, only around 30 are available to the "general merit" category and around 30 more for the "payment" category. A student belonging to one of the "underprivileged" classes can enter the college even with a ranking of 1200, while a student belonging to a "higher" caste cannot make it into the college in spit of getting a ranking of 150.

I would not have issues if the "underprivilege" was based on economic status, rather than the caste. I empathise with the student coming from the economically backward class, who might not have the resources or environment that might be available to a student who is economically well-to-do. But with similar economic status, if a student from a "non-underprivileged" class is denied entry based on his "higher" caste, then I would consider it as reverse discrimination. If this is not gross injustice to the student, I do not know what is! One might argue that if the student is that good, he would do equally well in a lower ranked college. Well, if we go down that path, then why did the student even have to study that hard? What happens to his morale? If he has to work twice as hard as an equally able student to reach the same status, would that not breed abhorrence towards that class? Isn't the whole purpose of affirmative action defeated?

Though I am totally unconvinced about this reservation system based on caste at the level of entering professional colleges, I'll let this go and move onto the the next level - reservations at higher educational institutions. I might let the former slide through for a few years (though most would agree that a time span of 60 years is a few too many). India has institutions for higher education of world repute - IIM's, IIT's, IISc, NLS, AIIMS, ISRO and so on. These world class institutions should not have to deal with the non-sensical politics of the government. My rationale is that once a person belonging to an "underprivileged" class has a college degree, he can find a job (he could "use" his caste card there as well, if it is a government organisation). He does not need any more "assistance" to move ahead in his career. The rest of his life should depend on his own intellect and capability. Entry into these higher-education institutions should be based only on merit, or any other parameters that the institution may deem important for their sphere of specialisation - but they should all be applied equally to everyone. It is an understatement that I was royally pissed off when I heard that the government was thinking of introducing reservations in the IIM's and increasing the quota (God knows what caste is not covered under the "underprivileged" classes now). Imagine the frustration that a "non-underprivileged" class guy would feel when he has to sit through the Common Admission Test (CAT) for 3 consecutive years to finally make it into an IIM when an "underprivileged" class guy can make it with much lesser effort/intellect within a single year!

In addition to this very convincing justification, there is a myriad of other reasons why reservation based on caste needs to be extirpated. This policy lowers standards of accountability needed to push students to perform better. Students admitted on this basis are, more often than not, ill-equipped to handle the schools to which they've been admitted. One other facet is that it is condescending to minorities to say they need affirmative action to succeed. It demeans true minority achievement - success is labeled as result of affirmative action rather than hard work and ability.

It is high time that the youth of India do something about this anathema of reservation based on caste. Such antiquated laws, being used atrociously by politicians like Mayawati for their own selfish motives, need to be recalibrated every fixed number of years, till they are completely disposed of. Intellectual, progressive, practical lawmakers need to be responsible for making this happen. Some believe that equality is a myth, that can never be achieved in the Indian subcontinent. But unless we try to expunge such practices in a phased, practical manner, unless our mindset changes and begins to accept equality with no extra privileges, the utopian equal society, where everyone co-exists peacefully, irrespective of their religion, caste, sex, language, region or sexuality (or any of the other man-created barriers), will remain an allegory. There has to be an inception somewhere, sometime - why not here? why not now?