HUM LOG

Last night when I logged into yahoo messenger through GPRS I read the offliner of my junior who is currently finishing his MS at California. He forwarded the link to an ET article. Being really bored to go to the link late in the night I deleted it but was thinking what could be that article about India which caught his interest and he though may catch my interest. Well I think I should have guessed. While randomly walking through blogs I chanced to read Varun’s blog. Well let me quote first paragraph of this article.

“Quota Raj: Half of IIT, IIM seats may be reserved

These institutions already provide reservations for Scheduled Castes (15%) and Scheduled Tribes (7.5%), as mandated by the Constitution…”

Well so I thought I should also add some value to my blog by atleast something. Well a careful reading of the news might suggest that keeping a tag on central institutes such as Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, IITs and IIMs can be done only by a central body and not by a state body and final word is still awited.

The news might mean distributing laddoos for some people (those who are going to be benefited by it), for some it might mean moving hands on the forehead thinking of a tougher future (those who might have to face a tougher competition) while others (who are not directly affected by it) are going to enter into verbal brawl arguing for or against reservation. There will be a fourth category that will be affected by it comprising of such bodies which although don’t exist physically but are a consortium of such efforts which are vital to a nation’s progress- the colleges. More of them later….

The Reservation was introduced in the constitution of India by Bhimrao Ambedkar with an aim to scrap such a thing within some time span. Now even so many years after the framing does it look any better in the sense that the lesser privileged have caught up with more privileged; this despite giving reservation in premier institutions, govt jobs, parliament, legislative assemblies and latest probably to private sector and Indian army as well?

Not hard to guess the term HUM LOG collectively applies to both the more privileged category and less privileged category. One yardstick to assess the success of such scheme is to check if disparity has reduced or not. The government (or let’s call them VE LOG because VE LOG don’t seem to understand the equations within HUM LOG) probably doesn’t think so which in a way highlights their failure.

The point VE LOG seem to miss in this whole thing is to atleast realize that within the less privileged category there are some mini sections which have advanced to more privileged category and same for some mini section within the more privileged category who have slipped into the former category. All govt. does while framing any policy is refer to Mandal Commission which dates back to 1980. So we still have wards of IAS officers, doctors, ministers, top notch bureaucrats enjoying the same right which a poor brahmin’s son in Orissa is denied. So the least govt. should do to come up with a mechanism so that atleast that mini section of less privileged can be screened out in this lottery scheme. After all that’s the premise of equality.

The government while framing rules should see that even in less privileged category the meritorious gets priority. The present approach seems to be too flawed where in a whole group of people are benefited just based on caste and not the monthly income. So instead govt. should make a fund out of which a person should funded if he’s secured admission to a college and needs funds to continue his education. The whole purpose is foiled if the person secures admission in colleges or gets a job in private sector and is not able to do justice to the education/job and finally end up in the less privileged section again. That’s where VE LOG ensures that the colleges by going back a little in meritocracy are actually contributing to the society.

And again it should be a lottery system wherein you are given one coupon for your lifetime when you can cash the appropriate benefits only once. If you avail of it while education then you will be admitted in that quota. If you avail of it while sitting for a civil service then bars should be lowered for you. After all lifetime offer is given by only Hutch, Airtel and Tata Indicom!

But the interesting part will be to see if at all such a mandate is thrown at central institutions too then will the top IIMs (and this time IITs) too will revolt against the govt. as they had some time back. I don’t think that IITs are still so financially independent that they can carry out the whole functioning themselves!!