Why reservation will never work
The market – which is profoundly hated by socialists and communists for its ‘irrational’ behavior – is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. It is the market which allows humans access to things that they want to purchase as long as they can afford it. In fact that is its only function. As long as governments legislate sensibly, the market works rationally. The moment governments start getting into the moral sphere, that part of the business which is now illegal will go underground, but will not disappear. And no one can do anything about it. That is the reason markets work anywhere, regardless of whether the country is a democracy or an autocracy. If RTO officials won’t issue licenses without a bribe, a new market, managed by touts, will emerge to take care of the situation. The bribe here, is the service charge for processing the request without delay. The customer is happy because he gets what he wants. And so are the middleman and the official. And this will happen in every sector where government makes it difficult for the average person or business to go about their work. What is the relation between the market and the quota system? To figure that out, one needs to understand how employers go about looking for workers.
Businesses in the job market are looking for one thing and one thing only – the best possible talent at the lowest possible price. They know the condition of the education system in the country and also the quality of output of every institution. Since the reputation of institutions is kept alive by the performance of its alumni, any institution that begins churning out half baked graduates will soon lose its aura. This is the reason we have so many unemployable graduates and post-graduates in this country, across the caste spectrum. Their unemployability stems from this very lack of quality that substandard colleges and universities teaching outdated syllabi suffer from. No one will touch them because even after 5-10 years of education, they are skill deprived. This has happened because the government is loathe to let go of its hold on the education sector. A completely open education sector will result in an increase in the number of private schools, colleges and other institutes of higher learning. Investment will come into the sector, teachers and professors will be made accountable, and the syllabi will be linked to what the industry demands. The quality of education will increase because if schools and colleges don’t do that, their business will crumble. But instead of doing this, the government is hell bent on destroying every sector of education right from primary level to post graduate level through lack of investment and general apathy.
The idea that reserving seats in institutes of higher learning will help backward castes come up is flawed. I don’t say that they won’t come up (intelligence and caste are not correlated; education and caste are not correlated; and most important, intelligence and education are not correlated). I say the idea is flawed. By amending the constitution, what parliament has done is to try to pry open the gates of IIM, IIT and AIIMS to those OBCs who would not otherwise have got in. That is the basic intent of the constitutional amendment – it is a fight for about 10,000 seats. But businesses are not stupid. Where previously they would accept any two IIM graduates as near equals, depending on their educational record, now they will also ask for information on how they entered the institute. If the government thought that by relaxing entry norms, it can cloud the issue, that is surely not going to happen. Of course it depends on the quality of the candidate. If the candidate is someone who missed out because there were fifty others who scored better than him, then it won’t make much of a difference because if there had been three more IIMs, or more seats in the existing ones, he would have gained admission without going through the reservation nonsense. But if the candidate is one who is a long way off educationally, and he is able to leapfrog 10,000 people because of reservations, that is not good. And employers will take note of that.
Reservation or no reservation, businesses are only going to employ those people who are going to make money for them, and no reservation policy is going to change it. If they find that the system is messing up their measurement scales, they will come up with their own methods, as lots of IT companies have had to do to filter out the millions of applications they get each year. Some people argue about a bias against candidates from the backward classes in employment. While you can’t completely deny this (after all, people are people, and some of them are going to be asses), it is not in the interest of any business to dump a candidate on the basis of his caste or religion if he meets the other criteria.
In the face of all this, the only way the government can ensure that those admitted under the 27% quota do get jobs similar to their non-quota mates is to move forward and impose reservations on jobs in the private sector. And the cynic in me warns that this is going to happen sooner or later. The SC verdict is only going to embolden the quota brigade. But this step will be radical, and its impact will be felt worldwide, because services provided by Indian companies are not restricted to India alone. It will have to be seen what the world has to say on this.
Reservation won’t work. It is not about willingness or investment or any such thing. It is simply that the concept is seriously flawed and it is time people realized that. If at all people want to work for uplifting of backward classes, what stops them from starting their own schools and colleges and hiring the best minds to do the teaching? Or if some companies want to help, what stops them from reaching out? In any case there is a fundamental problem in the concept of a constitutionally mandatory and hence legally enforceable reservation system which most people miss. It is that such a system is an assault on the principles of equality and freedom. But, when the law is used to cure social problems, freedom is bound to suffer. And that will happen again and again and again, till governments realize that they do not exist to sell milk or vegetables, or to control the viewing habits of people, or to cure social evils, or to enforce minimum wages, or to run business empires; but that they exist to do two things only – protect people from violence, and to see that contracts are enforced – which, history proves, most of them have been thoroughly incapable of doing.
There is only one moral stand that can be taken on any enforced reservation – against it. All those spineless people who go about saying we are not against reservations but… should consider what Ayn Rand had to say on this behavior – there are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.
Nice post. You have been linked.
Abhishek
April 11, 2008 at 4:06 am
No… Reservation will work 100%. Proof is our caste system. It’s working hundreds of thousands of year in our country. The thing is now its working against those who are the created caste system.
You’re trapped in your own caste system
Native Indian
April 11, 2008 at 10:06 am
You are wrong.
The caste system, as we call it, and its variations operated (and operates) in two ways. The first one was through legal enforcement. Kings, emperors and their governments had laws in place on subjects such as which caste was supposed to do what, their personal lives and so on. And any deviation was punished. Kautilya’s Arthashastra is one source of information on how the system worked 2000 years ago. The second one, which prevails to a great extent even today is at a social level. If the caste lines are not preserved, social boycott or similar societal action (including use of force) is taken against any deviations.
Violation of any rights through law is an abuse of power and is therefore immoral and illegal. The fact that governments practiced it till a couple of centuries ago does not mean it has to be practiced in reverse today. As for the existence of the system in the social context, it can only be solved socially. Those at the receiving end should boycott their victimizers – don’t work for them, don’t buy anything from them, don’t sell anything to them and so on. If violence is used, get the law involved. If the law doesn’t help, it has abdicated its responsibilities, so hit back.
As for your assertion that the current reservation will work, if things have not changed in 60 years, what makes you think they will change in another 60? The only thing that has been happening is that political power is now concentrated in the hands of parties that are supposedly looking after the interests of the oppressed. But power tends to corrupt the best of people. And the current crop of leaders are hardly that. So, in spite of every thing that will be tried, status quo will remain, from a reservations perspective.
The only thing that will change (and is changing) things is acknowledging the concept of liberty and free markets because these systems don’t care a rats ass about who the buyer, seller, employer, employee etc is. This and this alone will bring more and more people into the mainstream. But if people are intent on drawing thicker lines demarcating castes, I would simply smile and move ahead for I know what that had done, and is going to do.
I would have thought that those who suffered the most at the hands of authoritarian rulers and high priests of politics would be the first to demand a reduction in the powers of government and also reduce its scope of operations to the two areas I mentioned. Unfortunately, but as expected, discussions and actions on caste seems to silence reason and awaken caste loyalties.
Oppression can only exist either with government sanction, or when the government is not involved, through an implicit threat of
previousgrievous bodily harm. These are the problems that the concepts of liberty and nature and role of government deals with.Reservations don’t solve problems, they increase them. But market, while being neutral on the moral aspects, has its own measuring scales and methods of operation, and it always wins – regardless of what anyone says.
aristotlethegeek
April 12, 2008 at 12:06 am
It is refreshing to see an analysis opposing reservation on moral grounds. I have posted a related entry on the doctrine of equality that motivates policies such as reservations.
K. M.
April 12, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Regarding reservation in higher education- the person
claiming hisor her right to a place on the basis of social
discrimination- is really a mockery of the system itself.if a
person even after becoming adoctor or engineer ,still demands reservasion in higher studies,then the education he had so far has not helped him to gain confidence to face the challenges.Once handicapped -remaines handicapped forever-so what use of this policy?Even physically challenged persons have lot of selfesteem and self-confidence.
vimala
April 14, 2008 at 4:20 pm
My opposition to reservations of the enforced kind is fundamentally different from yours as also that of some forward caste groups. My opposition is purely on the basis of two separate concepts of freedom – personal freedom and economic freedom. Reservations infringe on both. That is why I also oppose the state’s role in the education system.
Anyone who says the state should be active in the education sector, supply land at concessional rates to private schools and colleges, maintain controls on fees and donations being charged by such institutions, but should not think of reserving seats, is being hypocritical on a gargantuan scale. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
That said, what is happening today is nothing but a game of appeasement. If the political parties are so anxious, let them get in 27% reservations including the creamy layer. And lets wait for another 50 years. Unless our economic and political system recognizes the individual’s right to his life and property, nothing substantial will happen.
aristotlethegeek
April 14, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I am in favor of reservation mainly because with the lack of resources this country faces it is the only possible solution
to provide some kind of support to the backward classes.
You have to realize that this country never introspects, people take some kind of egoistic pride in our retrograde culture and its traditions even though it hold us back and has the glorious past of racism, child marriage, Sati and what not. Things are even worse in Villages where dalit discrimination is a tradition deeply rooted in every part of the Rural India. Reservation is the only way to give rights to those people otherwise they will be continued to be discriminated against for water, land money etc…
The other sad thing about this whole debate is that
India is not really a democracy. The Constitution of India
is written to create a bureaucracy and a bureaucracy it is.
The government has the last voice on everything including Anal sex. It is not surprising that such a stupid method of government will not be able to provide efficient levels of
infrastructure to its people. I guess if you are honest enough you’ll be able to see the gross levels of Incompetence and ignorence among general public and government officials.
Although in conclusion it might be a good idea to remove reservations in the metros.
you12
April 28, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Reservations are not a choice, but an enforcement. When the parliament passes the law and the courts uphold it, now the executive in the form of the bureaucracy will enforce it. And we know how the bureaucracy in this country works.
I know how most people in this country are. You can attribute nearly every evil deed to one thing – a false sense of pride or belonging to a community or nation and assuming that your greatness lies in that of the community or nation. This is the root of the caste system too. And this is why I say that the assumption that reservations are going to fix anything is a simplistic one.
It is a fact that people are discriminated against in the villages. Discrimination is a kind of bullying And what bullying does is shatter the self esteem of the person being bullied. So, even if you get a thousand of them through the IITs through reservations, the self esteem that has been crushed is not going to come up suddenly. In fact, things might get worse because they will forever be saddled with the ‘quota’ tag.
I don’t believe in the crap that some groups spread – government should concentrate on primary education etc etc. – because it does not work. Business and charity work best when the person whose money is on the line is involved. That is why private schools seem to deliver better education at an overall lower cost than public ones. And that is why private charities can do more compared to government ones. You cannot trust the government to do good because it is not accountable to anyone or anything.
Discrimination can only be eliminated if the discriminated are able to stand up on their own two feet without the help of crutches – especially those provided by politicians. Reservations were and continue to be nothing but a shortcut employed to fix problems. And we have wasted half a century because such shortcuts rarely if ever work. Unless there is a complete overhaul of our political system, things are going to remain as they are – reservation or no reservation.
The parliament can try to enforce social justice, but it will fail. Neither the law of gravity nor human will is subject to legislative fiat.
aristotlethegeek
April 29, 2008 at 12:16 am
Really well written article!
Pramod Biligiri
September 6, 2008 at 1:29 pm
One of my better ones. I have also written some not so good ones which I hope no one notices, or if they have, they forget.
aristotlethegeek
September 7, 2008 at 12:45 am