In one massive stroke, last week’s Supreme Court judgement upholding 27% reservation for OBCs in institutions of higher learning, bringing the number of people who will be educated on merit to about 50% and condemning lakhs of students of the so called forward communities to a dark future. I wonder if the judge broke the nib of the pen after the judgement, for he had in as much terms pronounced a death sentence on lakhs of deserving students and changed the landscape of the knowledge based meritocracy that had just begun to take shape in the country.

Today, there is no doubt that there are millions of people in India, who are marginalized in society and as a democratic republic it is our duty to uplift the downtrodden, but to say that these reservations on the basis of caste achieve this aim is ludicrous to say the least. Walk in to any chawl in Bombay and you will see a large number of the so called forward castes amongst the OBCs. Poverty knows no religion and definitely does not know castes. I know innumerable instances of people who were from the poorer sections of the society who have come up by sheer determination and hard work and not reservation. Today, in one fell swoop the powers that be have decided to make that climb all the more harder for the forward and all the more demeaning for the backward. Former President KR Narayanan was not from the forward classes of South India, neither was the People’s President Abdul Kalam, but both achieved the pinnacle of their glory through sheer hardwork and a will to succeed. What yesterday’s judgement has sought to achieve, is to ensure that no backward can claim to have succeeded on his own. It will bring about more backwardness than genuine advancement.

The Indian Private Enterprise is but one shining example, of people succeeding inspite of the system, rather than from it. Did Dhirubhai achieve what he did, because of his birth? Any considering that by the time he died, he was amongst the richest men in the country, are his brethren forward communities? The answer is a quite obvious no. Hence, why this hurry to classify opportunity on the basis of birth and that too on the basis of a census done in 1931?

Last year saw unprecedented riots in Andhra Pradesh and large parts of the North between communities who fought amongst themselves to declare not who was better, but who was the most backward amongst them. These protests, which almost reached Delhi and led to normal life being brought to a standstill in large parts of the country, I thought would have happened the eyes of the Government to the idea of shooting themselves in the foot, but then today no domestic policy is beyond the next election or by-election, so why would they bother and of course no one can exploit conflict and thrive off playing one against the other as our honourable leaders.

There has been a theory proposed that the forward communities have to sacrifice their bit, for decades of oppression their ancestors have wrought on other communities. Let me try and explain why that reasoning is plain stupid. As explained in the caste divisions of the past, while the Brahmins were the ones who were in the business of education the most, the other castes – the Vaishyas, obtained equal opportunities in trade and agriculture. Therefore in today’s modern society while the Brahmins have above –significant numbers in education, so too the OBCs in trade and agriculture. On the contrary, the Brahmins had no ambition to land and trade, and lived off the benevolence of the rulers. As was said, the only inheritance a Brahmin got from his ancestors was this education.  Post Independence, the OBCs retained their land and trade, and have thrived of it, but now want to deprive the others of their inheritance. In the same coin then, shouldn’t the forward communities demand compensation for the hard times that befell them during the Mughal rule? A little known fact, is that the original Mandal Commission Report was about land reform and how to redistribute land to the poor, but with most politically influential people being landowners, it was soon given a go-by.

Make no mistake, there are still marginalised sections of the society, the tribals of Orissa - who were so famously filmed eating mango kernels or the tribes of the Andamans or the bonded labourers of Andhra Pradesh or the Chamars of UP who actually need help. But to them, 100 more seats in the IITs is like the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Their dream is not the IIT but basic education. The investment in education for these classes should rather be at the basic education level rather than at the IIT or post graduate level. If there is somewhere where Government spending is urgently required it is in this education system and it is at the grass-root level and in providing facilities so that these people can afford what it takes to reach the level. You can only measure progress by setting the bar higher not by bringing it lower. The Government says, it will increase the number of seats, so that the number of seats are not lessened, however, this is for the general seats. It could have as easily said - the system will remain the same, additional seats will be introduced every year to facilitate joining of new OBC candidates - it won’t because it knows that this additional seats is a temporary carrot to be forgotten in the next change of Government or in the next budget.

Our Education system, is one of the better ones in the developing countries and have produced numerous renowned educationists post independence from the great Radhakrishnan to the CK Prahlads and Raghuram Rajan’s of today, but decades of apathy has made teaching one the most unsustainable professions in India. A teacher in a school with about 15 years of teaching experience makes a paltry 5000 Rupees a month and it is much worse in the rural areas. The revered and coveted IIT professors, who teach the best and the brightest make about Rs. 22500 a month with an increment of Rs. 500 every alternate year. So by and large only the desperate and the abject failure ended up teaching apart from the truly handful of genuine educationits. Considering that the 2008 – 09 Union Budget makes an investment of Rs. 34,400 crores towards education and similar allowances for the past many years, things at the ground level things have remained practically unchanged. So today, in a cruel way, many of these intelligentsia will come back to teaching to teach the so-called downtrodden who in turn can take away the rights of their own children.

This is a global economy, where nothing but the best will or can survive. Any attempt by the Government or anybody else to subvert this will end in disaster both socially and economically. This is a dangerous precedent, and not long far is the day, when a political party will offer one seat at the IIT to every family – after all, if they can offer a TV, why not a seat. In 50 years, I have not seen one caste being declared that they have benefited from the reservations and they no longer need the same and of course no one will want to disturb that for fear of losing that particular section of the ‘vote-bank’.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

PS: For a counterpoint, please read this.

First Posted at Prem Panicker's on April 14, 2008.