Vivek Kumar
The debate on reservation paints Dalits and backward communities as devoid of merit
and upper castes as meritorious.
A high-profile business tycoon recently argued, "We compete with global companies and are primarily people-dependent. We've no alternative to hire the best talent available".
What about merit of the upper castes? Upper castes can be evaluated by assessing their performance on the basis of duties prescribed by the traditional social structure. Brahmins had the privilege of teaching, Kshatriyas of protecting all creatures and Vaishyas of living by commerce. Dalits can ask Brahmins that if they were so meritorious, why is half the country's population illiterate. If Kshatriyas were so meritorious, why did they fail to defend our borders from time to time?Shaka, Huns, Tartars, Mughals, Dutch and British defeated them and subjugated us. If Vaishyas were so meritorious why is India's trade and commerce in a shambles?
In the same vein, if Arjuna of Maha-bharata was so meritorious then why did Dronacharya demand Eklavya's thumb?
Returning to contemporary times, our low Human Development Index (HDI), 127 in a group of 174 countries, tells a story. In the Corruption Perception Index for the year 2004, India was ranked 90 in the group of 146 countries, according to the report of Transparency International in 2004 If meritorious economists and administrators manage the affairs of the country without any reservation, how are we so economically backward? Why do farmers commit suicide as if it were rural India's ritual? Why do we have hundreds and thousands of legal cases pending at higher levels of our meritorious judiciary?
Science and technology are consi-dered the realm of super speciality and kept out of the bounds of reservation in India. Professor Nian Chai Liu and his colleagues at the Shanghai Jio Tong University in China spent two years collating and analysing the output of 2,000 universities worldwide and published their results by ranking 500 universities. Only three universities and institutions from India figured in the top 500 — Indian Institute of Science at 260 and Indian Institutes of Technology at Kharagpur and Delhi, respectively, at 459 and 460. IIT Madras, Kanpur, Mumbai and Roorkee did not figure at all. There is, of course, no reservation for OBCs at these centres for learning. There is something intriguing about the relationship between merit, commitment and contributing to the nation. Why does career become more important than service to nation to many IITians and IIMians, who cannot wait to go abroad?
Let us look at the merit of doctors working in prestigious hospitals in the country. If Indian doctors and medical specialists are meritorious why do most VVIPs run away to foreign countries at the faintest hint of illness? Former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, an ardent supporter of swadeshi, had to call an NRI orthopaedic surgeon for his knee operation.
Is it not logical to evaluate the merit of professionals passing out from private universities, engineering, medical and mana-gement colleges, where a seat can be bought for a few lakhs? Despite no reservation in sports, a nation of over a billion has failed to produce a single individual gold medalist in Olympics. Is it really a case of merito-cracy that all progenies of film
stars are given a chance to act and sing in films even as they lack experience? Are these cases of merit or pedigree reservation?
The private sector makes up just 0.7 per cent of world exports. If Indian industries are so meritocratic, why have they not produced a single global brand? Industrialists who call themselves meritorious have inherited their business from their parents. Almost no top industrialist is a first generation entrepreneur. Not surprisingly, a number of social scientists argue that rewards in the educational and economic system are not based on merit. Educational and occupational attainments are related to family background and a number of circumstantial parameters rather than talent and ability.
Hence, people with the same educational qualification do not get same kind of jobs and those in the same jobs do not get equal remuneration.
The writer teaches sociology at JNU.
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