Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: May 21, 2006
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1540125.cms
One of India's leading news-magazines came
up with a rather revealing statistic the other day in its cover-story on the
reservation issue. In the 2005 medical entrance system in Tamil Nadu, out
of a total of 1,445 seats in 12 medical colleges, 430 seats were available
in open competition, with the remaining 1,015 seats being reserved. Only 38
students from the so-called 'forward' communities qualified in the open competition,
as compared to 321 BC, 57 MBC and 14 SC students.
"This shows the upholders of merit are
talking rubbish," G R Ravindranath of the Doctors Association for Social
Equality was quoted as saying. The obvious conclusion staring everyone in
the face was overlooked.
If the BCs, MBCs and SCs can together capture
almost 96% of the medical college seats in the open competition category,
is there any need to keep 1,015 seats in the reserved category! Surely, there
is something farcical in this!
Yet any talk of ending reservation for medical
college seats in Tamil Nadu will see sections clamouring that social justice
is being trampled! The politicians will spring into the act, ready to garner
whatever political mileage they can out of this situation.
Going by the statistics on entrance to medical
colleges in Tamil Nadu in 2005, reservation is not so much about empowering
the disadvantaged as about the playing of a political card to cater to vote-bank
politics!
It would not even be surprising if the existing
69% reservation in Tamil Nadu is sought to be further enhanced by irresponsible
politicians who cannot see beyond the next election!
Which brings us back to the basic premise.
What exactly is wrong in stating that merit should be the criterion for admission
to the much-sought after professional courses in the higher education stream?
As individuals, every Indian citizen would
like to be treated by the best doctor she or he can afford. As individuals,
every Indian who is building a house would like to go to the best construction
engineer she or he can afford.
In the knowledge economy of the 21st century,
it seems bizarre for the state to claim that merit is an elitist concept and
that one out of every two seats in the most-sought-after Indian Institutes
of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management should not go to the most
meritorious person.
It amounts to a devaluation of India's inherent
strength of human capital which is behind the present boom in the IT and BPO
sectors. There are those who say an examination system need not be the best
way of evaluating merit.
If that is so, the obvious solution would
be to improve the evaluation system. To claim that the only alternative to
an imperfect evaluation system is to disqualify large sections of students
who are not from a particular caste or community goes against the tenets of
common sense and human values.
Surely, all youths who aspire to dream and
achieve deserve better than this! India's political parties may or may not
win elections by reducing everything to a caste-matrix but they are destroying
a generation in the process!
