The Hindu Business Line : Will reservation moves bear fruit?

What incentives will help backward caste students best? Many of them are much poorer than forward caste students. They have no access to good schools — particularly to schools with English as the medium of instruction, says P. V. INDIRESAN.

Reservation offers an easier way to get into the top professions in the country.

In recent times, there has been considerable debate on reservation for OBCs in Central Universities, including the IITs. It has been reported that the HRD Ministry had issued as “Minutes” that the Standing Committee of the IIT Council chaired by Prof C. N. R. Rao had approved reservation for faculty positions in the IITs. It conveniently ignored the strong opposition from both the Chairmen and the Directors of the IITs to such a move. Based on its version of t he Minutes, the Ministry had issued an order directing the IITs to institute immediately reservation for faculty positions.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has gone a step further. When the Director informed that seats were being filled on the basis of qualifying cut-off marks in the Entrance Examination, the Chairman (Minister for Health Affairs) stated that henceforth there should be no cut off marks in the MBBS Entrance. On his instructions, the Board decided that the merit list be prepared and admission based on it.

Briefing about the reservation policy adopted at the AIIMS in recruitment to the faculty posts, the Director informed that the present agenda item for consideration before the Governing Body contained two options: (i) to implement the reservation policy at each group of Professor, Additional Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors with backlog irrespective of their disciplines based on 20 point Post Based Roster, or (ii) to implement reservation policy to each level of faculty posts from Professor to Assistant Professor discipline-wise with backlog based on 13 point Post Based Roster.

The Governing Body decided that there should be no floating system of reservation in the Institute for recruitment to faculty posts “as it would amount to violation of the instructions of the Government of India” and 200 points Reservation Roster be applied for recruitment to faculty positions at all levels.

Considering the case of earlier appointments, which is lying with the Supreme Court, the Governing Body of the AIIMS has resolved to accept the Report of Dr Karan Singh Yadav Committee and decided that the Court should be pursued vigorously for early hearing as well as expediting the process and that it should be mentioned in the affidavit that there was a deficiency on the part of the Institute in selection and promotion.

Centre’s view

The Central Government is of the view (not supported either by the IIT Act or by the Statutes) that it can take decisions on “policy matters, including reservations, on its own.” Based on the above principle, it has now decided to enforce reservation for SC/STs without the option of de-reservation that government agencies used to enjoy. The government is not far wrong. The directors of all IITs have evidently decided to accept the government’s view.

To settle the issue, the Government of India has decided to remove altogether the idea of de-reservation — a loophole that many institutions have used so far. According to news reports, the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, has said that posts for which suitable candidates are not found will not be de-reserved but will be carried over. Further, the proposed Bill will contain provisions for imposing penalties on those who do not implement the rules effectively. The Minister has also stated that the Bill will stipulate that those who qualify on merit will not be included in the quota. According to him “the proposed law will create an unambiguous, coherent and authentic framework for implementing reservation”.

In effect, when the proposed law comes into effect, there will not be even one institution of the Central Government which will be free from reservation. Great institutions such as the IITs and the AIIMS will have to observe strictly 49.5 per cent according to caste. As Mr Chidambaram has pointed out, if the law includes the provision that those who qualify on merit will not be included in the quota, the reservation can be much higher than 49.5 per cent. With such a provision, in Tamil Nadu, the “Open category” students obtained barely 2.5 per cent of the seats in the medical colleges of the government, that is, 97.5 per cent of the admissions went to reserved castes.

Best move for BCs?

The question remains whether this move is best for backward caste students. The Supreme Court, by a majority of three-to-two, has decided that for backward caste students, there will be 5-10 per cent reduction in the passing grades. Evidently, as they are not yet up to the mark most of them will not qualify with 5-10 per cent reduction in passing grades. Incidentally, the Supreme Court has passed no orders for SC/ST candidates.

There are three possibilities:

students from backward castes are permanently inferior and will never be able to compete with forward caste students;

backward caste students are currently inferior but with suitable incentives will be able to perform as well as forward caste students in course of time; and

backward caste students are not inferior even now and they are unable to compete only because they are too poor to do so at present.

Taking the last case, the Central Government has decided that a family income of Rs 4.5 lakh be the cut-off for determining the “creamy layer” for backward caste students. In that case, all but the top 1 per cent will be eliminated. Is that fair?

Let us now consider the second case: What incentives will help backward caste students best? Many of them are much poorer than forward caste students. They have no access to good schools — particularly to those with English as the medium of instruction. Consider two options: In the first case, students are examined at a young age of 10 or less. The top 10 per cent are given vouchers worth Rs 1,000 per month or so which they will be free to pay into any school that will admit them. Obviously, they will all go to the best school that is available in their vicinity and, therefore, will get nearly 10 years of the best education their environment offers. In the first case, there will be no change in the school programme but they will get reservation as proposed at present.

The easier alternative

The question is which of these three options will help really poor backward caste students better? If the students are basically good, extra years of good education should empower them to compete with forward caste students. We see that already in Tamil Nadu. If the students are not good (we are now referring to the first case), extra education will do them no good at all.

Reservation offers an easier way to get into the top professions in the country. As experience in Southern India has shown, once a community enjoys that privilege, it will not let that go.

If the Central Government had introduced a Bill for, say, 10 years only, combined with vouchers for the top 10 per cent, there would have been next to nothing to object. Unfortunately, it is permanent. It is for the SC/STs and the backward castes to decide whether their children can never compete with forward castes or whether they need better schooling and some temporary accommodation only.

(The author is former Director, IIT, Madras. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

(This is 236th in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article was published on September 29.)

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