The Debate Goes On

I hate to do this, but the debate on reservations in India has simply failed to die down. The elections in some states have caused a welcome break between the announcement of policy and its actual implementation, giving ample time for people to debate this in all kinds of forums. I made some points here.

There have been some very good pieces on this issue. NDTV had some interesting discussions as well, with all kinds of views. Here are some views on the whole debate itself.

1. There is a REAL urban-rural divide in India. This can be understood by looking at the contrast in debates on NDTV 24X7(an English Channel) and NDTV India( a Hindi Channel). Caste is, at best, only a part of identity of an urban Indian; it is the definitive indentity in most of rural India. The most important enabler for social mobility in urban India is economic status. On the other hand, the social dynamics of rural India is governed overridingly by caste. This leads to the familiar arguments for reservation based on economic status by the urban India while people from rural background argue passionately about caste based reservations. The irony however is that the debate on caste based reservation, as we see it, is going on in the urban India.

2. Reservation is potrayed quite frequently as an antidote to discrimination. For example, a dalit who is not allowed to sit in the thakur's house thinks reservation is the way out for people like him. It is nobody's case that discrimination should be allowed. However, it is doubtful that reservations can get rid of such deep entrenched biases on caste.

3. Young people in this country have moved on while the old and senile keep harping the same beaten tunes; the young carry much lesser baggage of caste as compared to the old. Considering most of India is young, much saner policies would implemented if the old decision makes in the country realize this.

The micro issue of the dilution of the IIT and IIM brand is however lost in all this mess.

This aside, here is one interesting piece of news about the possibility that CAT could actually be given in Hindi. If this happens it will mean CAT could be taken in other regional languages as well(e.g. Bengali, Tamil et. al.). Wont this change things dramatically? Looks like this is going to be a fun year for Indian education sector.