I recently read this letter written to the PM over the quota rows by a student residing abroad:
http://chhokra.blogspot.com/2006/05/letter-to-prime-minister-manmohan.html
I object, and here is why:
Why kid yourself, even without reservations Indian universities dont match up in terms of research and infrastructure to good unis outside, especially in the US. IIT grad school especially, needs to change a lot. There is something wrong that goes much deeper than quota rows, I think it is high time to stop crying about who got what quotas and look for alternatives.
Plus, if everyone, including the opposition is supporting quotas, then we dont have much choice do we? and the other thing is we need to see if we are missing out on the big picture or not. Afterall, affirmative action is supposed to serve a purpose. The whole problem is not affirmative action, the problem is lack of quality institutes to cater for all the students. US, Germany, Australia have excess of seats, and we are dying for seats, that my friends is the problem, not affirmative action.
It is time to increase the number of quality institutions, either by privatizing (regulating and privatizing) or by simply continuing the export of Indian students abroad, and then luring them back with higher wages/benifits/cost of life. You can kid yourself as much as you want, but you know that living standards are far better in India in terms of services (kaamwaali, driver, plumber, dentist, medicine), hospitality( restaurants, going out, movies, travel), and consumer goods (food, clothing) and Indian salaries give high buying power for the qualified individual, much more than American or European salaries. The only thing you will miss is infrastructure, which is improving day by day in India. Plus you got over 10 airlines to choose from, so stop crying about bad roads. Clean roads, pollution, poppulation etc is not going to go away in a day due to removal of affirmative action, so its not relevant here.
I agree that Indian politicians are playing the affirmative action game to lure voters, but you cant really blame them, considering most of Indian society does consist of backward caste, higher caste have always been the minority. They play for power, its their job! Plus, it is important to bring the lower caste ppl up, yes there is a creamy layer in the cities, but that is a very small fraction of the lower caste.
I dont want to judge anyone, but for me it has become apparent that affirmative action is something we have to live with, The courts might decide that it is exorbitant, and reduce the quotas (highly unlikley) but they are not going to manage to abolish them. If the govt is saying that its going to increase seats, let them. Yes, it will be hard to transition to higher number of seats in a year, but in the long term it makes sense to have more high quality seats anyway.
Its really easy for a well brought up higher caste guy to pass judgments on the lower caste, and say: " oh that guy with reservations got in COEP with lesser marks than me", without realizing the whole big picture that unfolds behind. But I say that even if the quota system helps only 10% of the worst hit backward class to climb up the social ladder, its worth it, every bloody seat of it. True there is the creamy layer, but quoatas are a big factor in letting it become creamy.
Hence, it seems highly unlikely that we are going to be able to abolish affirmative action, atleast in our lifetime, so lets look for alternatives. What do you guys say?
The most attractive alternative right now is to enforce the proper following of caste quota, and ensure that those who really need affirmative action are getting it, and not the so called creamy layer who seems to relaxedly mooch off of the reservation system.
http://chhokra.blogspot.com
I object, and here is why:
Why kid yourself, even without reservations Indian universities dont match up in terms of research and infrastructure to good unis outside, especially in the US. IIT grad school especially, needs to change a lot. There is something wrong that goes much deeper than quota rows, I think it is high time to stop crying about who got what quotas and look for alternatives.
Plus, if everyone, including the opposition is supporting quotas, then we dont have much choice do we? and the other thing is we need to see if we are missing out on the big picture or not. Afterall, affirmative action is supposed to serve a purpose. The whole problem is not affirmative action, the problem is lack of quality institutes to cater for all the students. US, Germany, Australia have excess of seats, and we are dying for seats, that my friends is the problem, not affirmative action.
It is time to increase the number of quality institutions, either by privatizing (regulating and privatizing) or by simply continuing the export of Indian students abroad, and then luring them back with higher wages/benifits/cost of life. You can kid yourself as much as you want, but you know that living standards are far better in India in terms of services (kaamwaali, driver, plumber, dentist, medicine), hospitality( restaurants, going out, movies, travel), and consumer goods (food, clothing) and Indian salaries give high buying power for the qualified individual, much more than American or European salaries. The only thing you will miss is infrastructure, which is improving day by day in India. Plus you got over 10 airlines to choose from, so stop crying about bad roads. Clean roads, pollution, poppulation etc is not going to go away in a day due to removal of affirmative action, so its not relevant here.
I agree that Indian politicians are playing the affirmative action game to lure voters, but you cant really blame them, considering most of Indian society does consist of backward caste, higher caste have always been the minority. They play for power, its their job! Plus, it is important to bring the lower caste ppl up, yes there is a creamy layer in the cities, but that is a very small fraction of the lower caste.
I dont want to judge anyone, but for me it has become apparent that affirmative action is something we have to live with, The courts might decide that it is exorbitant, and reduce the quotas (highly unlikley) but they are not going to manage to abolish them. If the govt is saying that its going to increase seats, let them. Yes, it will be hard to transition to higher number of seats in a year, but in the long term it makes sense to have more high quality seats anyway.
Its really easy for a well brought up higher caste guy to pass judgments on the lower caste, and say: " oh that guy with reservations got in COEP with lesser marks than me", without realizing the whole big picture that unfolds behind. But I say that even if the quota system helps only 10% of the worst hit backward class to climb up the social ladder, its worth it, every bloody seat of it. True there is the creamy layer, but quoatas are a big factor in letting it become creamy.
Hence, it seems highly unlikely that we are going to be able to abolish affirmative action, atleast in our lifetime, so lets look for alternatives. What do you guys say?
The most attractive alternative right now is to enforce the proper following of caste quota, and ensure that those who really need affirmative action are getting it, and not the so called creamy layer who seems to relaxedly mooch off of the reservation system.
1 comment:
What is the proof that quota doctors are crappier? or that quota pilots cause crashes? Prove it! If you cant, and you still just blame them because they are from the quota you are just racist!
Anyway, I was talking to an IIT prof the other day, and I asked him whats the deal with quota and how do they filter quota student, here is the algorithm he told me:
1. Set a cutoff lower than normal intake, say if the normal intake is at 90 of 100, then quota cutoff is 70
2.If the quota fills then good else set anather lower cutoff, say at 50 but do not admit those students directly to first year, rather have them go through one year refreshment course and make them sit an exam at the end, usually 50% of students make it through.
THe most imp thing is that these cutoffs are decided before the exam is set. The prof also said that many-a-times the qutoa seats are not filled at all. Hence the problem is not quota, but the proper implementation of it.
See dude, the problem is not quota, quota can still be there, but the quality of the quota students can increase! This is what the govt should be concentrating on. This is what we should be concentrating on, removing quotas doenst help anyone in the long term.
Plus about bad roads, the govt is trying to fix that, and I dont see what it has to do with the quota problem! Quota problem is about affirmative action, road problem is about bad infrastructure.
Post a Comment