The Hindu Business Line : <I>Cast away your reservation </I>

It need not be such an emotive issue, this reservation affair, provoking anger, frustration, despondency or outright hysteria. If one is not to get involved in the rhetoric (to have or not to have) or the semantics (just or unjust) of the matter, one only has to stand back a few feet to get a different perspective.

But given that the current political class considers it hara kiri to take a bold and novel approach that might well lead to a truly casteless society, such a prospect is unlikely. What is more likely is a different approach to the same goal — caste-based reservation.

The economics

Let's forget the history, the statistics of reservation and its raison d'etre and focus on the economics, most vital to a nation.

Many among the moderates will agree that caste-based politics is regressive and has succeeded only in spawning a generation of seekers of the `backward' tag.

Isn't it time, then, to prepare the nation for some sort of stability, some sense of continuance, no matter which party or coalition is in power?

On the political front, democracy, as a form of government, warts and all, has curiously provided that stability.

True, we don't know which party will be in power in the next five years, but there can be no doubt that there will be elections!

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of education or the economy. There are frequent flip-flops in stance, rollbacks of schemes, and reviews of policies, even within the term of the same government.

In an increasingly globalised economy, such measures can be termed unavoidable, but not when they change the basic direction that a nation should take or slacken the pace of its development.

What needs to be done is to rescue both education and the economy from the tentacles of politics.

As the state of the economy depends greatly on the quality of the workers in industry and services, the concern is not only about reservation in higher education but also for jobs in the private sector.

If reservation in the corporate sector becomes a fait accompli, companies may think up ways to get around it, by making it a pure economics play.

Any endeavour, however lofty its intention, cannot hope to succeed if it is not economically viable.

With major States due for elections, the Government may commit itself to subsidising higher education. But once the fever subsides and new governments are in place, basics of governance will have to be attended to and no amount of money is going to be enough. It will then have to look at alternative methods of funding.

Forget upgrading primary education, on which there is consensus. It is the proposed quota in higher education in premier institutes that is causing acrimony.

Alternative model

Nobody is against building new institutes of excellence. One way out of the imbroglio could be to start new institutes with the motto of excellence that are funded by corporates and NRIs. Those who fund such institutions could be given liberal tax incentives (no ordinance or coercion will work here) and the institutes, complete autonomy.

The only difference being that these institutes will have a majority of OBCs and religious minorities with seats reserved for the general category — a reverse reservation.

The aim here is to grant more than what the quota votaries are demanding in return for status quo in the existing centres of excellence.

The donor corporates, for their part, will ensure quality so that they can absorb the graduates.

This will take care of job reservation in the private sector as well.

The pace at which India's economy is growing, it is more likely that people will opt to be employers first by turning entrepreneurs soon after school and basic training, than flockto IITs or IIMs

(The author is a C-based freelance writer.)

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