A new Indian proposal would reserve half the seats of India’s city on a hill, the exalted halls of IIT, for historically oppressed castes.
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Would you riot for Samuel L. Jackson, foo’? |
But it’s not just India. The NYT reports that not only is the misuse of quotas politically appealing in America, it’s so appealing that white students are using DNA tests turning up two to three percent black or Native American ancestry to claim minority status in college admissions. It’s a microcosm of the American national character, both high tech and shameless 
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Prospective employees with white skin are using the tests to apply as minority candidates, while some with black skin are citing their European ancestry in claiming inheritance rights… Americans of every shade are staking a DNA claim to Indian scholarships, health services and casino money… “It’s about access to money and power…”“If someone appears to be white and then finds out they are not, they haven’t experienced the kinds of things that affirmative action is supposed to remedy…” Ashley Klett’s younger sister marked the “Asian” box on her college applications this year, after the elder Ms. Klett, 20, took a DNA test that said she was 2 percent East Asian and 98 percent European… she did get into the college of her choice. “And they gave her a scholarship…” [Link]
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p>One person is after not just money, but a Scottish castle:
Pearl Duncan… wants a castle… the DNA test confirming her 10 percent British Isles ancestry gave her the nerve to contact the Scottish cousins who had built an oil company with his fortune. The family’s 11 castles, Ms. Duncan noted, were obtained with the proceeds of her African ancestors’ labor. Perhaps they could spare one for her great-great-great-grandfather’s black heirs? [Link]
I can’t speak to American Indian princesses, but Indian-American Princesses are already legendary 
… the three-year-old company had coined the term American Indian Princess Syndrome to describe the insistent pursuit of Indian roots among many newly minted genetic genealogists. If the tests fail to turn up any, Mr. Frudakis added, “this type of customer is frequently quite angry.” [Link]
IMO economic affirmative action in education is a good idea to help break the cycle of poverty. In contrast, race-based affirmative action is incredibly imprecise, clubbing wealthy minorities in with the poor and casting a pall of suspicion on all those who made it on merit. In fact, the remedy is not only indirect, it’s intrinsically flawed. The overlap between race and class is imprecise, and the more successful affirmative action in its stated goals, the greater the divergence. In race-based affirmative action’s birth lie the seeds of its destruction.
Quotas in the workforce are a terrible idea because because no one wants someone with lower abilities as a neurosurgeon, astronaut, pilot or the cow-orker in the next cubicle. And setting the quota at 49%? Organizational suicide.
Actually I just realized that the data I was looking at was 1981 census when there was no Chattisgarh. I think thats why Madhya Pradesh topped. It would be a different situation now that Chattisgarh is a state. NE states and Chattisgarh now would be very close.
But I was always asked, everywhere, what my last name was.
Ms. Dharma Queen,
It could mean anything – sometimes, just to figure your state (region) of origin, religion, and/ or caste. Let’s not rush to decisions.
I gave example of Singh family name – it can be a Sikh, Rajput, Thakur, and from lower castes.
Another example, Saira Chaudhury, could even be a Bengali Hindu or Bengali Muslim.
An example on SM is Vinod, one of the blogger on this portal. It ain’t that simple.
Kush, don’t get persnickety. I was asking people what it meant, wasn’t I?
I will rush to the following conclusion – people in India seem unusually concerned about where to ‘place’ you, whether that signifies placing in terms of religion, region, caste etc. And yeah, you do run into that here too, but less so.
Situations get out of hand very quickly in India no matter where or who is involved… it seems similar the out of control protesters of Babri masjid.
Reason for riots: Apparently, the government did not make proper and timely arrangements for public viewing and later cremation of the actors body (due to usual red tape etc.) – and this angered the common Kannada man a lot, for Rajkumar was a veritable god in his eyes.
Does using a word like persnickety make you persnickety !!
@#32 Krish
If you look carefully, the Indian blogosphere has opinions on both sides of the issue. That is why there is a healthy debate going on, not an unidimensional rant. Additionally, many bloggers (such as myself) are against the proposed increase in reservations at IIT/IIM – not absolutely against reservation. Almost all agree (even prr-reservationist) that the present system is not perfect and the goverment really needs to mend the primary education system in Indian so that people of all, class, creed, religion etc arrive at the post-high school level with a level playing field. What you are calling ‘whines’ have been on the whole, reasoned debates.
“One has to look at private sector in india. no one gives a rats ass about what your caste is but if you can do the job regarding disintegration in india is not a caste based issue”
This is funny though. Priviledged class will suppress under priviledged for three thousand years. Then they will open the gates and ask them to compete against priviledged sections. They will then show the success of private sector where the priviledged sector holds a monopoly. Isn’t it common sense that the level playing field is totally biased against under priviledged sections in any competition because of the suppression for more than 3000 years. Science clearly shows that some sort of affirmative action or reservations are needed to level the playing field (if anyone wants to debate on this topic, I am ready with whatever proof that is needed). Also the reservations implemented in the last 50 years or so (that too badly implemented by the government) is not enough to level the playing field. The whinings against reservations (including those bloggers quoted by many commenters) are from people who are from the privileged sections of the society or those from families that has escaped any kind of suppression. Show me one person from the bottom of the Indian caste structure who had come up and who claims that the playing field is leveled, then I will even consider the arguments against reservations. As long as it is not done, it is just the whining from those people who fear losing their monopoly in education, jobs, etc.
Let us take IITs and IIMs. The government spends several lakh rupees for each student admitted into these institutions. If you see the statistics, you will find that more than 80% of the students from these institutions are from priviledged sections of the society (don’t tell me this is not true. I am from IITB and I know the statistics. In fact, I am giving a conservative estimate). Why should tax payers money help only those guys/gals from priviledged sections of the society? Why can’t we change the scenario so that all sections of the society benefit from the government money?
Then there are whinings saying it will bring down the quality of students produced. I think this is the most racist comments I have heard. Why do you think that people from underprivileged sections of the society will bring the quality down? Come on, people in priviledged sections will suppress them for several thousand years and not allow them any education. We also know from scientific studies that this suppressive environment is the reason why it is difficult for them to compete on par with people from privileged sections. It is also clear that there should be some sort of an “external helping hand” for few generations in order for them to compete with the privileged sections of the society (in other words to level the playing field). Under such circumstances, the “output quality” may come down in short term. But, in a long term, it will bring equality in India and the “quality” will eventually get back to the current levels with people from all sections of the society. They are not responsible for the “bad quality”. It is us (people from privileged sections and their ancestors) who messed up with their life. We cannot run away from the sins of our ancestors. Someone has to pay to bring in the equality and we better pay it now rather than continue the same tactics of our ancestors in a more sophisticated fashion. I would rather be ashamed of the inequality in the IITs and IIMs than the reduction in quality for a short term.
In US, it is a shame for educated and sensible people to make racist comments. In India, if you are educated and make shameful and racist comments, you will find support among other educated people. What a shameful state we are in!! We don’t even realize that our comments and actions are shameful. I would just blame our education system which is responsible for grinding out people who cannot even think properly.
BongoPondit,
You are right. There are people who are in support of reservations. When I say about blog-o-sphere being filled with people against reservations, I simply mean that the big majority of them are against it. I used the word “whining” with a reason. I can definitely show how many people had really whined rather than debate about this issue. I am sorry if my comment has hurt people who debate rationally.
Krish – thanks for your comment. I agree that the assumption that the quality of graduates would decrease with increased reservations is shameful and elitist. The same arguments are advanced here with affirmative action quotas and they are often racist at bottom. But with caste-based reservations, isn’t there a risk of excluding, say, the brahmin rickshawallah’s kid?
“The whinings against reservations (including those bloggers quoted by many commenters) are from people who are from the privileged sections of the society or those from families that has escaped any kind of suppression. Show me one person from the bottom of the Indian caste structure who had come up and who claims that the playing field is leveled, then I will even consider the arguments against reservations. As long as it is not done, it is just the whining from those people who fear losing their monopoly in education, jobs, etc.”
not entirely true. as said before, the dalits (the most underpriveleged) have been complaining about these reservations for obcs, scs etc. because they fear they will adversely affect them. no doubt the playing field should be levelled, but not just at or beginning at the higher level. it should be coordinated with a levelling of the playing field at the primary and secondary levels. also, how to accomodate those from the upper castes who have not been priveleged and are poor? it would be nice for the reservations to be part of a properly thought-out revamping of the entire indian education system instead of a vote-getting, caste-politics gimmick by the current govt.
Anyways, I would really like somebody to explain this concept of reservations to me and where is it going to end.
When people stop asking for a boy from a suitable subcaste on shaadi.com? Never maybe?
Shouldnt more focus be on reaching out to the truly under privileged and making sure everybody has access to primary and secondary education so that the playing field is levelled.
Sure … in addition to reservations. We need to create emulable role models in backward caste communities, and allow them to build social capital in the short run. In the long run there is far more to do…starting with literacy.
The bulk of the OBC students that I have studied with, were no different from the general category. And even though i havent been in an IIT or IIM, i have heard from a lot of friends that candidates who come in through the quota system cannot cope up with the immense pressure and eventually drop out (This is purely anecdotal, i think IIT alumni here can throw more light on this).
So if they’re just as good as you buddy, there should be no problems then! The OBC category will be far stronger than the Dalit category. BTW Nokia and other multinationals are flocking to Madras and recruiting people who came through a whopping 69% reservation system. The OBC category is brutally difficult there. McKinsey says that a higher percentage of Indian graduates are “multinational employable” than their Chinese counterparts. India has been growing at 7% right through the entire Mandal period. Elite institutions cannot, should not be upper caste bastions.
In the course of creating a casteless society, employers coming in to IITs/IIMs will have to ask candidates what their caste is. What then ?? Introduce reservations in the private sector as well ??
Why not? Dalit groups are lobbying for just this.
not entirely true. as said before, the dalits (the most underpriveleged) have been complaining about these reservations for obcs, scs etc. because they fear they will adversely affect them.
Mayavati has supported reservations for OBCs and for disadvantaged forward castes to boot. Seriously, why don’t upper castes fight for this rather than try to dismantle a system which they simply don’t have the votes to dismantle?
Krish:
Agree. But it is not the education system but a mentality that is there in most non western nations – not just India. Although as Indians we see it more.
It is about thinking. One guy is more than happy to be the master and the other more than happy to be the servant and that too for ever without even trying to improve the situation for the next generation.
I firmly believe that if you really want change you can get it but you must want it. One of the problems is that this is all mixed in with mifa politicians and corrupt officials. Is it no wonder the maoists are out there?
For change to happen not just the masters but the servants must want change themselves and help bring it about within the legal framework as individuals.
There was this gentleman called Dr.BR Ambedkar; and then another person in recent times who is now in coma; Kanshi Ram. Chandrabhan Prasad a tireless campaigner for the rights of Dalits is against the present system of reservations and would rather have a more selective one where economic criteria are applied rigorously. LM Naik the sole Dalit member of the original Mandal Commission that in 1980 recommended rervations for the Backward Classes not Castes wrote a note of dissent objecting to many recommendations of the commission.
Read Chndrabhan Prasad here But rarely do we confront a basic question – why did L R Naik, the only Dalit member in the Mandal Commission, refuse to sign the Mandal recommendations?
shiva the original?
did i steal your id?
Shiva the Original – do you really think Ambedkar would proclaim the playing field leveled??
is there such a thing as a level playing field??? acn someone answer me that??
In the US, politics and industry/ business is dominated by one class/ caste of people. The Ivey League educated bunch.
Exists only in theory (Communism/ Marxism) – in real world it can never be achieved, though that will not stop people from trying.
“Mayavati has supported reservations for OBCs and for disadvantaged forward castes to boot. Seriously, why don’t upper castes fight for this rather than try to dismantle a system which they simply don’t have the votes to dismantle?”
well mayawati just shows that you can’t generalize about all members of a certain class or caste thinking alike, because there are dalit opponents of the reservations. likewise, not all upper castes are against reservations and are trying to dismantle the system. and try fighting for reservations for disadvantaged upper caste members (especially the “notorious” brahmins and you’ll have people like s. anand of outlook magazine and kancha illaiah foaming at the mouth 🙂
there is no such thing as an ideal level playing field, but we can strive to be more equitable (and a properly-thought out reservations system is part of this) and eventually arrive at a purely merit-based system. another effect of caste-based reservations is that people who have left religions which have caste for those which ostensibly don’t (but in reality do) are now claiming caste again so they can get benefits and reservations, even though they are not underprivileged.
will these reservations apply only to IITs/IIMs or will they also apply to privately-run colleges run by hindus, christians, muslims or other private entities etc?
@60, dharma queen, let us leave political correcness aside for a while. Tell me why is it not so – after all, there is much more competition in the general category, and the cutoffs for reserved categories are noticeably low. SO if you have faith in the ability of the entrance exams to judge merit, you must agree that the institutions are taking in more students of lesser aptitude if the reservations are more, right? then why is the expected decrease in quality not realistic?? note: plz dont assume that im against reservations – i’m not, but the devil is in the details.
@krish. #58 i agree with the drift of your comment. i don’t think it is fair to scrap reservations as yet, and it is ridiculous to think that dalits and some obcs are anywhere near emancipated.
but i don’t agree with you completely either. in this particular instance of iit/iims i believe it is populism (elections round the corner in some states) rather than enlightenment. just like the assam govt wanted to reserve seats for assamese in iit guwahati. elections got over, you don’t hear a whisper abt that now.
1.
in the case of iits and iims, this is a specious argument i hear many many times. the taxpayer money subsidizes those who pass the entrance exam, not previledged sections. there is a difference in intent which is ignored most of the time. and as far as the exam goes, it is largely fair.
that said, i am all for iits and iims being required to train underpreviledged classes for the entrance exam, which already happens at least in iit madras in the case of dalits.
you should be aware that i can use your argument to say that india should not have airports, for example. it is not even 80% here, 99% of the country do not use airports.
i know i am on a slippery slope here. iits should have a broader impact, but at present, they will take in only 2000 or so.
iits should have a broader impact, but at present, they will take in only 2000 or so. Byteword,
I agree with most of your points. However,
IITs = MIT/ Caltech/ RPI of India. MIT, Caltech, and RPI has very small and selective admission policy too. These small technical universities are not for everyone, here and even there. Sure, the selection process should be fair. In principle it is (as you said) for JEE/ CAT exams but I guess economics plays role in leading up to admission process.
IIMs = Sloan/ Wharton of India. At least, they have entrance exams and on paper, you are on level-playing field in IIMs. Here you can supossedly walk into Sloan or Wharton if you got educated @ Cornell/ Darmouth, get grade-inflated (don’t tell me it doesn’t happen, I know it rather too well), get uber-coached for standardized tests, and whalla, you are in. George W. Bush could not get admitted to UT, Austin law school but was admitted to Harvard Business school. Recently, in news, there was IIM A graduate whose mother is a street-vendor who turned down some blue chip offers. Quite unlikely, at HBS.
Regarding IIT/ IIM reservation, I am kinda neutral. I know some IIT/ IIM graduates who made it initally through reservation, and then they rose to the top. Some sank without trace.
Sure, to be competitive for IIT/ IIM exams, one has to be in the right socio-economic class that can afford coaching, etc but same is here.
DesiCynic:
I read a copy of an ICS exam some time ago that makes me think that the entrance exams, like many entrance exams to many institutions around the world, are dubious indicators of aptitude. The questions were class-biased and general (some of them had to do with recent tennis champions!). I admit I don’t know what IIT’s entrance exams are like. But surely someone from an underprivileged background may have the aptitude to be a stellar scientist/engineer/whatever, yet not have the knowledge to do well on an entrance exam. If entrance exams were true indicators of aptitude, the best scientists and thinkers would always be those with the highest entry marks.
What is a JEE exam for IIT admission? From http://www.webindia123.com/career/entrance/jee/intro.htm
In principle, they are about calculus, and physics problems. They are not any “goofy” eassys like here or about honor societies or debate clubs.
So Kush, merits of ‘goofy’ essays aside, how does this refute the point that an underprivileged person might not have the background or knowledge to do as well on an entrance exam? If Student A has been tutored to death, gone to the best schools, and had a rich set of parents nagging at him to study, while Student B has gone to a government school and been plagued by a host of poverty-related problems, there’s a far greater chance that Student A will get past the entrance exam.
Maybe if you’d written a few goofy essays you’d know how to address an argument.
@dq, 74 the entrance exams for jee are reasonably fair. there are several coaching centers that claim to be know “how to get into the institutes” and they do manage to get a lot of people into the iits. but they drive their students worse than the most illtreated donkey, so it could just be the effort that pushes the students in.
where i came from, we had no good coaching centers then. so we were left to fend for ourselves. (good) correspondance coaching though is in the reach of most aspirants (abt 2k-3k = roughly 50$ or so for 2 years), so almost every one in the country can afford these.
since we are talking technical exams here, there is not much scope for class-bias or anything like that. and yes, the exams are purely technical, no general interest categories or anything like that.
and the jee has been successful in one regard—all the students who do well are good. what it does not or cannot achieve is to measure small differences in aptitude. but yes, those in the top 250 or so in jee are significantly off the charts by almost any measure. and you will be surprised how well represented some god-forsaken village in bihar is in this list.
what krish pointed out is however true. you will not see dalits in this category—endemic discrimination is definitely to blame for it. the exam acknowledges this drawback—you do have 22% reservation for sc/st in jee.
how does this refute the point that an underprivileged person might not have the background or knowledge to do as well on an entrance exam?
Sure, economics plays a big role getting in IIT/ IIMs. For most part (not always), the people who get admitted to IIT/ IIMs are educated in private schools/ high quality public schools/ with coaching classes, etc. Not always. I am sure some of the IIT/ IIM graduates from humble socio-economic background will comment themselves @ SM. Let them speak out.
In general, a son or daughter of a street-vendor even sharp as a knife will get lost in the economics of staying afloat and day-to-day struggle, and will not be competitive. However, if you walked into IIT campus, you will see more students from humbler background than Cornell, Harvard, etc. Please note the key word is “more”. I have two sample points: IIT (Roorkee), and Cornell. I am not going-off the tangent.
Bytewords, I’m an arts graduate and wrote a lot of goofy essays, so bear with me:
In Canada, Native Canadians can get into certain programs in university without meeting the same requirements non-natives have to. The logic is that if you were sent away to residential school (terrible schools, for the most part, where native children were abused), your parents were alcoholics, you were abused, there was no food at home, you were subject to isolation, racism etc. you might have more difficulty meeting the requirements most non-natives can. I don’t have a problem with this because it seems to me that a Native may have the necessary aptitude for a field, just not the necessary experience/knowledge. Just because some sweeper woman’s son can’t solve a physics problem as well as my cousin on entry to IIT, does not mean that he won’t be able to solve it better on his exit.
Kush Tandon
Regarding IIT/ IIM reservation, I am kinda neutral. I know some IIT/ IIM graduates who made it initally through reservation, and then they rose to the top. Some sank without trace.
There is a Dalit fellow now a grad student at Stanford who topped IIT-Bombay in aeronautical engineering after getting in on a reserved seat. There will be scores of success stories like this in the future. As bytewords says this is exceedingly political and it may not even happen–Brand India (All rights reserved) may just win out in the end, but I think debates like these are important.
@dq, #80 what goofy essays??
ah you assume iits want to turn out the best graduates. no, they want to take in the “best” students after 12th. best of course in a qualified sense.
all that can be said is that if you are exceptional, you have a chance of making it if you really desire, no matter how poor you are—i am speaking with some qualifications here. and if i am not good, i have no chance of making it, no matter how rich i am—no qualifications here.
but trust me, 1/2 my class had to take out loans (easily available though if you make it into the institute) to pay the tuition+board per semester. many are not particularly well off at the iits, and you will find a better mix of all economic classes in the iits than almost anywhere else.
The IITs select (and subsidize) those who do best in the JEEs. They do not look at the checkbooks or bank accounts of the parents. Yes, it is true that those who get in can generally afford private tuitions and are not generally destitute. But that is a far cry from saying that it subsidizes the privileged and undeserving. To pass the JEE in the open category, you have to slog like crazy and/or be very smart. The kid of Azim Premji cannot get in without passing the JEE. The IITs are/were following the right strategy, because it is an investment likely to pay off very big. It is not a handout without a payback. Are you telling me that the subsidy that went into educating Narayana Murthy, the son of a very average middle class teacher, was not worth it? I would argue that just one Narayana Murthy was enough to make up for all the subsidies given to all IIT students at that institution. Not to mention all the others who have raised India’s profile and also brought in investment and technology from abroad. And all sections of society do benefit from this. Using Infosys’ example, all the ancillary industries that have sprung up to serve as vendors to Infosys have jobs because of the employees and management of Infosys. BTW, as India gets more prosperous, the size of the subsidy can be cut. But if you treat an IIT admission as a handout rather than something worth competing for, it will lose its value.
Does the Dennis Lillee Foundation select the slowest bowlers from the pool of youngsters? Or does it select the ones with the best combinations of speed, strength and skill?
i am lost in the detail, but it is fascinating, but, a few comments….
i don’t know many brown people, but over the past few years i have talked to some and it is clear that a small, but vocal (or unseemly, depending on how you look at it), subset of americo-browns are very caste/ethnic conscious. of course these tend to be self-perceived “high castes.” they are not caste conscious in the “kill the sudra who looked at my wife way,” they are caste conscious in the embarrassing-guy-who-brags-he’s-descended-from-the-king-of-france sort of way. i always think, “but dude, what do you call an indian dude who is of brahmin origin? a brahmin sand nigger.” i think the caste consciousness you see among some on this message board is simply a reflection in differences in the south asian american and western south asian community. while i believe a majority are either fully assimilating or generating a new pan-brown-identity, a large minority are crystallizing and reinforcing their own self-perception as “iyers” or “punjabi khatris” or “kashmiri pandits,” etc. more power to them, but a minority of this minority are not sincerely reaching for a deeper and more fully realized understanding of their ethnic identity, but just want another merit badge to impress other people with, and it usually shows (among muslim browns those who ostentatiously claim non-brown origins all the time is similar, muslim browns do have non-trivial % of non-brown ancestry, but it is somewhere around 5% turk/persian/arab vs. 95% brown).
re: reservations. i don’t care much about the details, but one might want to consider the % who graduate or succeed of those let in. one can always find instances of those who succeed ‘despite the odds,’ but if you let in 10% on reserved slots but only 30% of these graduate vs. 80% of non-reserved slots you might want to consider that. 30% is still a large enough % that you will be able to general many anecdotal examples of success.
finally, i hope you canadians are freezing your asses off. you have a queen, but we’ve got longer growing seasons!
Assuming that entrance tests has some correlation on the applicant’s success in college whereas caste has none. It follows that greater reliance on the latter will reduce the quality of the applicants.
It’s shameful and racist to assume that natives are bad parents and alcoholics.
It’s also racist to assume that black kids or lower caste kids will be disadvantaged. We do it anyways.
Quotas and affirmative action are NOT about priviledge. They are about trying to keep the peace between largely endogamous clans by artificially reducing interclan disparities.
I’m not trying to nit-pick here but ICS exams include questions on tennis and the like which can be answered by merely reading the newspapers and are not necessarily class-biased. Meaning I don’t have to play tennis to know who won the Australian Open last year.
Maharashtra has a “quota” for women in most colleges which sadly led a lot of the boys I knew to assume ALL the girls had gotten in through the quota! Trust me, that allegation hurts if you have an awesome rank on the merit list. That experience taught me that reservation would never bring the underprivileged on par, atleast not in the minds of the others. Better to fight it fair and square methinks.
And it’s become a matter of convenience too. The boy who consistently topped Pune university in my batch happened to belong to the OBC category. When the time came to apply for a Master’s degree, he easily got in through the “general” list, but a lot of students on the waiting list approached him and asked him to instead apply through the OBC/SCST quota which was pretty much open. This would allow one of them (a non-OBC) a chance. For obvious reasons, the topper refused and thus earned the reputation of being inconsiderate and selfish. You can never win on this one it seems.
i have several similar stores. one is almost identical. this friend of mine from maharashtra used to be vehemently opposed to “any kind of reservation”, as she put it. we never understood why, since she was usually very sensitive in acknowledging that dalits are tremendously disadvantaged. then we found out that her college had this kind of reservation. so she had this position to protect herself from being perceived as one of those who got in through reservations.
it is amazing how many different ways people will think. 🙂
Whose God is it anyways,
I agree that it should come from bottom to the top. I also agree that Arjun Singh is trying to bring in reservations in IITs and IIMs without even bothering to fix the existing reservation system for purely political reasons. However, we cannot deny the fact that we need some kind of a system where IITs and IIMs also benefit other segments of the society. Also I am talking about people who are totally against the concept of reservations itself. Those Dalits who speak against OBC reservations are doing it for political reasons. They wouldn’t say that the concept of reservations is unnecessary.
Shiva the original,
None of the people you quoted have said that the playing field is leveled. I didn’t ask for people from under privileged section who had made to the top. There are many including our ex president K.R. Narayanan. I wanted you guys to show one such person who had claimed that the playing field in India is leveled.
bytewords,
“in the case of iits and iims, this is a specious argument i hear many many times. the taxpayer money subsidizes those who pass the entrance exam, not previledged sections. there is a difference in intent which is ignored most of the time. and as far as the exam goes, it is largely fair.”
I never said that IITs and IIMs are meant to train only the priviledged classes. I just said that the people who get in are mostly kids from privileged sections. The reason for this is that the playing field is not leveled and it is biased totally towards the privileged sections. It is my argument that there should be some kind of “external force” that will allow the kids from under privileged sections to get into these institutions.
Just because the playing field is not leveled anywhere doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t aspire for it. You need not be a Marxist believer to aspire for it. Even if you are a capitalist, you should aspire for a level playing field. Capitalism will be 100% successful only in a level playing field. If only the playing field in US is a leveled one, we wouldn’t have had events like Katrina. So I would not agree to the spin that level playing field will only exist on the marxist theories. Just because a society doesn’t follow marxism also doesn’t mean that the society shouldn’t aspire to have a level playing field.
Beef,
Point taken about the assumptions re Native parents. Let’s just say that generally speaking the substance abuse rates, poverty rates, history of abuse, single mother rates on reserves have been shown to be a lot higher than in the general population. It’s not racist to say that its harder under those conditions to get high marks, or study with great concentration. I don’t buy that entrance exams are an absolute indicator of college performance. If you use them as an absolute indicator, you risk excluding people who haven’t yet had a real chance to prove themselves.
Vanya,
If you’re a village girl in Bihar, are you as likely as some pampered Mumbaikar to be reading about the Australian Open? Of course these questions are biased!
Razib,
Yes, but we’ve got the oil. Come winter, tick us off and we’ll see whose asses freeze off.
reservations hurts those who would have gotten in anyhow, but probably helps the majority of a given group. so it depends on who you empathize with. here is a black american law professor:
i feel for this guy. there are many dumb white people who couldn’t hack it who assume that asian americans have it easy in college admissions because they need an excuse and want to make themselves feel better, how do you think they perceive people like this black law professor? of course, very few black americans score really high on standardized tests, so if you want to play it by the greatest-good-for-the-greatest-number than it is fine that people like the one above go their whole lives being assumed to be less intelligent by their intellectual inferiors until proven otherwise (ie., the assumption of “but he needed affirmative action”). ultimately, i’m selfish enough not to care too much, i’ll just make sure i don’t have a black doctor unless i can check his MCATs or something objective if he is a specialist.
i mentioned one of the things that are being done to level the playing field in the line after the sentence you quote from me. iitm at least trains dalits for the entrance exam. i prefer these methods—which work in my opinion—to increasing reservations from the current level—the increases are political, may or may not work and have unknown, unconsidered side effects.
I admit I am probably one of those “sand niggers”, but my self-identification came because of other reasons – certainly not over loss of privilege, and certainly not to impress people. Do you remember the scene in “Saving Private Ryan”, in which there is a Jewish US soldier wearing a Star of David, walking past a line of German POWs pointing to his Star and saying “Juden”? That is overstating it, I agree, but that is the general feeling I get about my own self-identification. It was a drag living in a state where the founder of the prevailing ideology said, “If you see a snake and a brahmin, kill the brahmin first.” My own circumstances were humble, I used hand-me-downs a lot, and there were lots of others like me – why the hell were they baiting me and my kin? To me, my own relative success is a big fat “F*ck you” to them and their ilk. The fact that others like me were also successful was icing on the cake.
dq,
Glad you asked. I lived in Allahabad for 2 years and you’ll be amazed at the sheer number of coaching institutes for “IIT/PMT/IAS” punctuating the scenery. About 95% of the girls living in the hostel I was at prepared on average for about 3 years to qualify for the big names (somehow, they didn’t care for the average Engg/Med schools). A large number of them being OBC/SCSTs. The odds of them knowing who won the AO last year are most definitely higher. And you may want to check on how many successful candidates on ICS exams are “pampered mumbaikars”. You’d be surprised. I totally agree with you, ICS exams are not a fair judge of anything, but it has nothing to do with a class-bias.
By the way Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala print the same news the English dailies do.
I admit I am probably one of those “sand niggers”, but my self-identification came because of other reasons
actually, no, i am talking about born in america browns. and, i think there are those who are very ethnic-caste conscious who are not necessarily “sand niggers” (kumar the kashmiri pandit sounds like one). i’m saying that the subset who are ethnnically conscious and ignorant are the ones that tend to annoy, and, embarass. and extreme form of this is an individual of mexican-american heritage who claimed descent from the royal house of spain. i immediately asked, “oh, are you a bourbon?” he was like, “say what?” there was a pre-bourbon royal house, but someone that’s probably not the reason he didn’t know that the current royal house of spain are the bourbons.
From what all of you who actually know about these entrance tests are saying, caste isn’t an issue – there are tonnes of low caste people in hostels or coaching institutes, studying away and getting into the schools of their choice. So then it’s poverty that is the real issue. I’m thinking of some of the sun scorched huts I saw outside of Santiniketan, and the tiny rural schools, imagining a kid from one of them making it…
But if poverty is the real issue here, then why are people in India still sticking together and voting in terms of caste?? (And yes, I know that is a sweeping generalization, but presumably these caste-based reservations are in place largely in response to popular demand.)
not my business to answer, of course. but it is sort of common knowledge (i believe the syllabus also mentions it) that part of the preparation for ics is reading newspapers, and keeping up to date with all sorts current affairs–incl the example you cite. newspapers are cheap and widely available even in bihar, and most cover a significant amount of international news unlike american newspapers at least. so it is not abt pampered mumbaikars here.
i am not saying the ics is not biased, i don’t know abt that.
again, with regard to #80 too, there is a difference between how you would think in india and canada. what is seen in canada as an indicator of class bias may not be so in india. you are just extrapolating something you picked up and applying it blindly to an entirely different scenario. trust me, a poor person on social welfare in canada may be more previledged than many newspaper-reading-aussie-open-fans in mumbai.
I’m not just a sand nigger, I’m a kulin brahmin sand nigger (we’re the ones that were allowed two wives a while ago). And personally I think I descend from those five guys from Kanauj who rode into Bengal to civilize the Vangas.
You Americo-browns learn to spell yet? That’s colour, not color!
canadians/aggressive = undefined.
they are more common in iits than you think. i can give you one you may know already: sk dubey. while what sk dubey is uncommon (and remarkable), his background is not very uncommon.
voting in terms of caste??
Do they really? Say if there is constituency which is dominant in Thukars, all the candidates from Congress, BJP, Samajwadi Party, Janata Party, CPI, CPI (M) will have a Thakur candidate in an election, no matter what. If the constituency is dominant in Muslims, then all the candidates will be muslims (even BJP), for example, parts of Uttar Pradesh. Therefore, in the end voting is about more than about castes that since all the candidates belong to dominant religion/ caste of that constituency. You think any of the party is that naive.
Just like US of A or UK. Race politics and gerry mandering just like west – no different. Just hispanic/ African American vote in USA.
Often, for Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), it is the cult of personality that matters most – that too same as West. Are people from Rae Barelli constituency from Sonia Gandhi’s caste (white catholics)? Or for Sachin Pilot or for LK Advani for Meolind Deora? Or George Fernandes – in past he used to get his vote bank from factory workers? CPI/ CPI (M) ususally goes after factory worker vote banks. Movie actor politicians need not belong to dominant caste either.
Jaya Prada (a South Indian Telugu) is a Member of Parliament from Uttar Pradesh (Rampur constituency) – Go figure. No caste common there – nada.
The latest Bihar elections have even challenged conventional wisdom about Laloo Prasad Yadav’s style of politics.