The recent policy decision, raked in by Mr.Arjun Singh is becoming a hot controvertial topic. On one side Hon. Pres. APJ is evangelising his Vision 2020 Plan, wherein he is harping on meritrocracy and creating an environment of knowledge powerhouse and on the otherside, the politicians are going their own merry way of attracting votes! Both reservation and meritocracy could go hand-in-hand and result in building a strong India if done effectively.
Reservation policy or for that matter any policy is not controversial if we could look at it more objectively with no emotion. This policy is a wonderful tool by which that part of the society which was being kept out of the system (education, jobs, decision making etc.) is given the extra hand to create a level playing field. But look what is happening now? Since this policy started, people who benefited from the policy are using it over and over. When I was studying, a friend of mine walked in asking us to help him with only 10 questions out of 40 as he belonged to MBC and it is enough for him to answer that many to get in. This is not helping the downtrodden anyway. This is called the "Crowding out " effect. The number of people (crowd) who already benefitted out of this policy is increasing and there are only so many seats that new folks can't get in!
What do I mean by "Already benefitted"? The policy is to bring those who are not part of the system into the system. Thus, if a person is educated, having a government (or any decent paying) job, his child used this policy to get educated, he / she is into the system already and they are no longer outside the system. Since the parents are well educated, financially better-off, socially better-off, how can they be considered "downtrodden"? Isn't this the reservation policy is meant to achieve? Thus it has served its purpose for the people - it has brought them mainstream. It is the duty of these folks to realize their duty to the society to let others benefit from the policy and bring them to the mainstream life.
What are the repurcussions of this "Crowding out" effect?
1. There would be a new class of "downtrodden" created and they could never become part of the system.
2. In the longer-run, these downtrodden would raise against the better-off! (like what hapened before)
3. This would undermine the potential of the benefitted folks (a person capapble of performing better wouldn't look only to answer 10 questions).
4. This will create a society of "mediocrity" and not "meritocrity".
Like our forefathers (who wrote the constitution) We have a responsibility to pass on a better-world to our next generations. Thank GOD that they were not selfish leaders like now and they did think and stipulated any reservations to 50%.
Higher reservation in a system is not good for that system. It is criminal for the us or for our leaders to think that we are incapable! This is exactly what the Britishers did when they were ruling India (they thought that the Indians are incapable of governing themselves).
So what should we do?
1. Keep the reservations low, much lower than what it is proposed now (49.5%). Let us have a healthy debate and arrive at a proper figure. We learnt in our project planning that adding more people would not neccessarily speed up the project! We need to find the optimal number(%).
2. Restrict and define for whom it applies. Restrict it to say two (or three generations). A Father / mother and their Son/daughter (grand kids). The generations after that are capable of competing in the open world. A country cannot become a developed country with a vast majority of the society having an "Inferiority Complex" that they are incapable.
3. Specify a timeframe for the retirement of the policy. After which everybody would be part of the mainstream society and we don't need it anymore.
Let us learn. Let us spread knowledge. Let us build a stronger India.
