Alternative to Reservation System

‘GRACE MARKS’ AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO RESERVATION SYSTEM

History and how it has changed:

Historically the society practiced discrimination in every sphere of life. Be it education, religious places, or even restaurant services. Hence the founding fathers of this country decided that to undo the harm, one has to compulsorily put people together to end discrimination. Moreover, they had experienced little reform in this practice during their lifetime; hence they did not foresee an early end to this problem.

But things have changed a lot since then. Today there is no discrimination on the basis of caste in public matters. In India today, any person belonging to any caste can freely go to temples, hotels, doctors and schools without facing any discrimination on the basis of caste. Keeping this reality of the 21^st century in mind, we need to device new ways of empowerment. Even in private matters like marriage this discrimination is getting lesser importance largely due to films and liberalization.

Bottom-line is, discrimination is fading and amalgamation of the society is taking place. This should be allowed and encouraged and not prevented by force (law) of any kind.

Fix the Blame before fixing the fault:

The so called upper caste people are being wrongly accused of having a strong hold over education or jobs. There has not been a single case in any institution where a capable person has been denied an opportunity on the basis of so called lower caste. Representation has never translated into dominance or discrimination. When statistics show that the so called upper caste proportion in higher education, jobs or professions is more than their proportion in population this shows the following facts.

One is the failure of govt. to create more avenues of higher education by itself or allow private sector to do so. This has resulted in fewer increases in seats while the population has skyrocketed. Second, again is the failure of the Government to provide social education which emphasize on good social practice among the so called lower caste people is also missing. The practice of child marriage, lack of family planning, no emphasis on education and lack of women empowerment are responsible for their backwardness and consequent under representation in higher education. It also means a colossal failure in building minimum infrastructure like roads, electricity, school buildings and providing primary education with adequate quality and quantity.

A doctor, for example, belonging to any caste, creed or religion or country will treat his patient equally irrespective of the above. This has been demonstrated even while treating patients from Pakistan. Same is true for architect/artist/engineer/lawyer etc.

The above example also shows that there is no need to say that all social groups ‘must’ be represented in ‘every’ profession to make them feel empowered. Every individual has her/his choice. The buck clearly stops with the govt. which for reasons of corruption, inefficiency and mismanagement has not been able to do its job. It must stand up and accept the blame before preaching any solution.

Identifying a needy (disadvantaged) person

As mentioned in the beginning, the equivalence of caste and backwardness and caste and discrimination is not true today as much as it was at the time of independence. Although, the fact is that a majority of so called lower caste people remain backward, it cannot be concluded that they are backward because of their caste. As explained earlier the problem is not based on caste. Then, logic dictates that if the problem is not based on caste, solution also should not be based on caste.

Today thanks to computers, we are able to collect and make meaningful interpretation of vast amounts of data. Its time that we can device a system which takes care of each individual rather then lump her/him into a group. In today’s world a disadvantaged person is the one who does not have access to minimum means which enable her/him to compete with others for opportunities available in the society. These minimum means are infrastructure, good teachers, and access to affordable education at primary level. At higher education levels, the list also includes easy credit facility for high cost education.

True empowerment and Equality

Empowerment comes with increase in abilities which are a result of free competition. If a person is unable to enter the competition due to limitations beyond his control then he/she needs help to be able to compete. For example, parental education and income are factors beyond the control of the student which limit his ability to compete. Hence s/he need well educated teachers and academic aid. The above does not mean that s/he must be given compulsory admission or jobs with complete disregard to any abilities. Lack of infrastructure is another factor which is beyond the students control and needs to be compensated. In this regards, institutions/companies can place a ‘grace mark’ system which can be added to students’ performance.

Then, there is also a case for empowerment of institutions or companies. Government can and should be allowed to form laws that create healthy competition and protect the consumer. Government or any other body cannot determine the input prices, quality or selling prices for any business. We have examples in telephony, electricity and host of other things where Government intervention has resulted in loss for consumers and crisis.

Also, there is a case for individuals’ empowerment. Just as the Government can not decide that young people belonging to certain region, caste, religion or background must join defense services or any other profession like doctor, architect, lawyer etc. It can not be allowed to decide that certain profession must make join young people of certain caste, religion, region etc. It is all a matter of choice of an individual.

Hence, as each person is free to apply for admission in any institution or job in any company, for empowerment and equality, the institutions and business must be allowed to determine on their own the ‘grace marks’ they will add while evaluating the performance of the disadvantaged candidate.

Towards a casteless and no discrimination society:

We must decide the ideal society that we wish to create and put a time target on ourselves to achieve it. Here, it must be mentioned that those responsible (Government, again) for creating the sorry state of affairs must stand up and accept the blame for their mistakes. Again, logic dictates that to find a solution we must rely on data (facts) rather than assumptions (rhetoric).

The ideal society is the one where there is no discrimination and which helps the disadvantaged to become empowered, i.e. it teaches a man to fish rather then ask him to beg for it everyday.

Hence the immediate need is to do away with ‘caste’ based empowerment and get on to empowerment based on ‘practical’ disadvantages faced by the disadvantaged. In order to achieve this each education institution (private or public) and each corporate must be given clear statistical parameter which defines disadvantaged in terms of parental income, parental education and infrastructure constraints at the place of education. Then it should be left to the institutions and corporations to determine the ‘grace marks’ they would add to the performance of the individual. This is the only way to end the discrimination and fade away the relevance of caste in the society.