Exclusive Inequalities: Merit, Caste and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education Today Author(s): Satish Deshpande Reviewed work(s): Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 24 (Jun. 17-23, 2006), pp. 2438-2444 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4418346 . Accessed: 02/09/2012 23:48
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and are Basedon thethreepremises effective unreserved for groups thesedifferences for reservation policiesthatthis articlebegan likely to have implications the extent with,is therea case for OBCreservations to which students who enter through in highereducation? limitedavailable reservations The successfully complete their evidence on averageoutcomesof OBCs higherdegrees. Ml relative othergroupssuggestssomedisto relativeto unreserved Hindus, Email:[email protected] advantage butthesedifferences smallin compariare son to thoseof the SCs andSTs. The large References numberof groups in a complex social Banerjee, Abhijit and Rohini Somanathan:’The Political Economy of Public Goods: Some hierarchy implies a greatdeal of heteroJournalof EvidencefromIndia’,forthcoming, geneityamongthe broadcategoriessuch Development Economics. as the OBCs.This, togetherwith the fact and Glenn Loury (1993): ‘Will that some communities have, through Coate, Stephen Action Eliminate Affirmative Negative effectivepoliticalmobilisation, been able Stereotype’, American Economic Review, to comera disproportionate shareof state December, pp 1220-40. of action Deliege, Robert(1999):TheUntouchables India, resources thataffirmative suggests Berg broadsocialgroupsare Jaffrelot,Publishers,Oxford. India’s Silent policies thattarget Christophe (2003): notgoingto actas powerful toolsof social Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India, Columbia University Press, justice – too many of the disadvantaged New York. will be excluded in favour of the more Mendelson, Oliver and MarikaVicziany (2000): affirmative Lastly, alternative privileged. TheUntouchables: Subordination, Povertyand actionpoliciesmighthavedifferent effects the State in Modern India, Cambridge on the effort levels of reserved and University Press, Chapter 1.
The Term Paper on History Of Economic Development In India After 1947
Today, Indian economy is the 10th largest in the world by nominal GDP and the 3rd largest by purchasing power parity. India is a member of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and one of the G-20 major economies. But India has come a long way in terms of economic growth since its independence in 1947. Indian economy and its journey since independence Before the British came, India ...
The Problem: What Is at Stake in Mandal II?
It is hardly surprising that the recent decision to introduce 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs in elite institutions of higher andprofessional education met with such determinedand vociferous resistance. Nor is it surprisingthatthe anti-reservation views that dominated the media described the move as motivated by “vote bank politics” designed to benefit a particular caste-bloc which is also an electorally powerful constituency. Although in this particularinstance the Congress Party on the whole appearsto be more of a bemused spectatorthana wily conspirator,the charge may well be true in the larger sense. However, to begin the story here is to begin in the middle; but this suits the antireservationists very well, for they would much rather forget the beginning.
In the Beginning
Exclusive Inequalities
The Term Paper on Changing Nature of Higher Education
Proprietary education first appeared in the 1600’s about the same time that institutions like Harvard were being created. For much of US History these schools provided popular mass education in contrast to traditional colleges that were often reserved for the elites (Thelin, 2011). Generally, the purpose of these schools, besides profitability was to provide practical and narrowly focused ...
in Merit,Caste and Discrimination IndianHigherEducationToday
This essay suggests that questions of merit, caste and discrimination in Indian higher education can be usefully analysed in a framework defined by “exclusive inequalities”. Beginning with a discussion of continuing caste inequalities in higher education, the argument outlines the specificities of this sector and its peculiarities in the Indian context. The idea of merit and the modalities of the examination are evaluated in terms of their contributionto the legitimationof higher education.
DESHPANDE SATISH
stake in the recent conflicts over other backward class(OBC)reservations elite in he mostacuteandextensiveexami- higher and professional education. nation of compensatory discrimi- SectionII outlines the reasons why the nation policies in independent education us specificitiesof higher require India describes them as being framed by to think in termsof inequalitiesand exthanequalities compeand “competing equalities” (Galanter 1984).1 clusion(rather This essay argues that the notion of “ex- tition),andwhatimplications has for this clusive inequalities” provides a compa- affirmative action III policies.Section takes rable heuristic framework for analysing upthekeyideasof merit casteandtheir and similar policies in the specific context of centrality the ideologicalcontestations to higher education in 21st century India. andthepractical manoeuvring goingon in Section I begins to spell out this argument publicly funded higher and professional with a description of what precisely is at educationtoday. 2438
The table shows where the “Mandal II” story really began. It shows the number of graduates and postgraduates (including diplomas and other technical qualifications) in urban India who were identified in a sample survey done by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).
Done in 1999-2000. this was one of the “big sample” five-yearly surveys of the NSSO covering the entire country, but the data shown here are for urbanIndia alone, since that is where higher education is concentrated. The survey covered about 2.24 lakh people, which when adjustedfor the relative weight of the particular segment of population covered, amounts to about 1.51 lakh persons. The first column lists castes and communities, while the last column gives their percentage share in the total urbanpopulation as estimated by the survey. The middle columns give the castecommunity-wise number (in normal lettering) and the percentage share (in bolditalics) of graduates and postgraduates in the agriculturalsciences; engineering and technology; medicine and related fields; andall otherfields, which means the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. You need to read only one row – that for the “Hindu upper castes” (UCs) – to get the basic story line. Looking at the percentage share figures first, and reading right to left from the last column, this row tells us that according to the NSSO, the Hindu UC formed almost 37 per cent of June 17, 2006
The Term Paper on Should All Higher Education Be Government Funded As In Many Countries In Europe
Should all Higher Education be Government Funded as in Many Countries in Europe? Education plays a very important role in our lives. Everyone is getting educated since the day he/she is born. There is a rapidly growing demand for a higher education in the world today. Although a higher education is difficult to receive, the rewards of self-improvement, job insurance, a development of character, ...
Economic and Political Weekly
the population of urban India. But they accounted for almost 66 per cent of all nontechnical subject graduates, more than 65 per cent of medical graduates, almost 67 per cent of engineering and technology graduates,and about 62 per cent of graduates in agricultural sciences. In sum, the Hindu UC are a little more than one-third of the total urban population, but around two-thirds of professional and higher education degree holders: their share in the highly educated is about twice their share in the general population. We already know from this information that since the Hindu UC are heavily overrepresented among the highly educated, some other castes and communities have got to be under-represented.This is indeed true for all the rows above the Hindu UC row – the Hindu scheduled tribes (STs) and scheduledcastes (SCs), Muslims andHindu OBCs are under-represented among the highly educated relative to their share of the total urbanpopulation. Hindu SCs are the most severely affected – almost 13 per cent of the urbanpopulation, they are less than4 percent in all fields, and only around 2 per cent in engineering and medicine. It is clear that Muslims and Hindu OBCs too are severely under-represented in higher education in urbanIndia.
On the other side, the rows below the Hindu UC are all overrepresented,whetherslightly like the “other religions” (Parsis, Jains, Buddhists), or quite significantly like the Sikhs and speHowever, though overcially theChristians. representedin proportionalterms all these communities are very small in absolute terms and together account for under 6.5 per cent of the urban population. By contrast, the under-represented groups the Hindu “lower” castes and tribes (STs, SCs, OBCs) plus Muslims – account for well over half (about 57 per cent) of the urban population. Indeed the caste divide in urban higher education is even worse than what it looks like here because the table ignoresthe well known caste divisions within the non-Hindu communities.2 But the story is not just about the caste divide – the punchline is the overwhelming dominance of the Hindu UC in higher education. This is broughtout very starkly by the figures for the sample numbers. Although the point is already made by the percentage share figures, the sheer weight of the Hindu UC is palpable when you compare its absolute numbers with those of the next biggest category, the Hindu OBC. In the total sample (about 1.51 lakh persons in urban India), there were 1,359 Economic and Political Weekly
The Essay on Should High School Education in China Be Free?
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persons with engineering degrees, of which as many as 908 belonged to Hindu UC; the next highest figure is 202 for Hindu OBCs – less than one-fourth the former figure. Similarly, Hindu OBCs account for 56 doctors out of the sample total of 535, but the Hindu UCs have as many as 350 doctors, or more than six times the OBC figure! Among the non-technical graduates 11,529 out of 17,501 are Hindu UC, which is more than four and a half times the figure for the OBCs at 2,402. The nature and extent of this dominance is reflected in the fact that the Hindu UCs alone have roughly double the total number of graduates among all other castes and communities put together. And yet this measure may be an understatement because the table includes all types of educational institutions and all types of degrees from the humble BA upwards. If we were to do a survey of postgraduate and professional education in elite institutions, it is a safe bet that the extent of Hindu UC dominance would be much more. This is where the story of Mandal II really begins – in the undeniable fact that, more than half a century after the formal adoption of a Constitution that explicitly forbids recognition of caste (except, ironically, to provide compensatory discrimination to the lower castes), the dominance of the HinduUCs in Indianhighereducation is still substantial, while the lower castes and Muslims are significantly underrepresented. The story begins here, but, as they say, this is only the beginning.
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WEB DUBOIS WEB Dubois was born and raised in Barrington, Massachusetts. After high school and with the help of friends and family, and a scholarship he received to Fisk College (now University), he eagerly to Nashville, Tennessee to further his education. This was his first trip south. And during his stay there, his knowledge of the race problem became clearer. He saw discrimination in ways he ...
From Inequality to Injustice
The table (or other evidence of this sort) surely proves that Hindu UCs and the under-represented groups are definitely
different and unequal in terms of their access to higher education. Since differences of this magnitude appear to have survived for so long after the “abolition” of caste, thetablealso provesthatthese must be the productof durable,self-reproducing mechanisms that are systematic (i e, not accidental or random) and systemic (i e, relating to system properties rather than to the attributes of individuals).
In other words, looking at this phenomenon from another angle, it is clear that there is something in the gate-keeping mechanism which regulates entry into higher education that makes it discriminate in favour of the “upper”and against the “lower” castes. However, the existence of inequality and discrimination may be necessary, but it is not sufficient to prove the existence of injustice. For there are many kinds of inequalities and of discrimination that are considered just and desirable. Most people believe, for example, that those who work more should be paid more, and vice versa; i e, they believe in unequal pay for unequal work. (This is actually a corollary of the popular slogan, “Equal pay for equal work”.) Similarly, Indian cricket fans would hope and pray that the national selection committee systematically discriminates in favour of more talented players and against less talented players. In fact, the word “discrimination” bears both good and bad meanings – prejudiced or malicious bias, as well as discernment or the ability to distinguish better from worse, etc. (The contrast with “indiscriminate” also brings this out.) So there may be inequality and discrimination behind the dominance of the Hindu UCs in higher education, but how do we know that it is not legitimate or “good”
Table 1: Sample Number and Proportion of Persons with Graduate Degrees, NSSO 1999-2000 Castes and Communities Numberand Percentage Share of Graduatesin Various Caste/Comm Share of Total Disciplinesin the Sample UrbanPopulation Medicine OtherSubjects (Per Cent) Agriculture Engineering 2.4 18 3.8 30 9.4 68 10.0 202 62.1 908 8.4 70 1.7 30 2.4 33 100.0 1,359 1.3 2.2 5.0 14.9 66.8 5.2 2.2 2.4 100.0 10 10 54 56 350 35 11 10 535 1.8 1.8 10.0 10.4 65.3 6.6 2.1 1.9 100.0 229 629 1,006 2,402 11,529 707 419 581 17,501 1.3 3.6 5.7 13.7 65.9 4.0 2.4 3.3 100.0 2.6 12.9 17.0 24.2 36.9 2.8 1.6 2.0 100.0
The Essay on Special Education Laws Discrimination Independence
Introduction I am here I am there I am everywhere Spread thin So that my existence My consistency My reality Can be denied Mesmerized Until I boil down to nothing At the bottom of the pot Anonymous with a disability Disabilities affect every race, culture, sex, and religion. It is non-discriminatory. Almost everyone can think of someone they have come into contact with or are related to that has a ...
HinduST 26 HinduSC 41 AllMuslim 101 HinduOBC 108 HinduUC 669 AllChristian 90 AllSikh 18 Allothers 25 Total 1,078
Notes: (i) Figures in bold-italics show caste/community share of graduates in urbanIndia. (ii)Includespersons withpostgraduate degrees. (iii)Cells show roundedand multiplier weighted sample numbers and proportions.(iv) Columns may not add up due to rounding.(v) Total unweightedand multiplier weightedsample sizes are 2.24 and 1.51 lakhpersons respectively. Source: ComputedfromNSSO data on CD.
June 17, 2006
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If discrimination?thegate-keeping mechanism is favouringthe uppercastes, is it becauseit is doingitsjob well or because it is malfunctioning? is essentiallythe This nature the splitbetweenthe two opposof ing sides in MandalII. While the fact of is and uppercaste dominance undeniable implicitlyor explicitlyconcededby both sides, one claims that this dominanceis perfectly justifiedandtheotherclaimsthat it is unjust. Seen in reverse,the institution of reservationfor OBCs in elite higher educationis seen by the uppercastes as a travestyof justice – indeed,as the perof The lowercasteson petration injustice. the otherhandsee it as the long arm of justicefinallycatching withtheunfairly up privilegeduppercastes. We are now at the point where the anti-reservationists wanted to begin the of MandalII. In orderto proceed story further with the story we need to understandthe specificitiesof highereducation as a sector and their consequencesfor affirmative action.
II
Specificities of Higher Education It maybe usefulto dividethe specificities of highereducationas a sector into thosethatapplyin any context,andthose thatare peculiarto a poor and populous countrylike ours.These are discussedin turnbelow. General Features of Higher Education First of all, unlike primaryeducation, healthcare similar”basicneeds”,higher or educationis not a matterof right, leave alone a fundamental right.No personof caste or communityhas a right to any become a doctor,engineeror otherkind of highly educatedperson.Everyonehas therightto aspireto suchstatusandto fair andequalconsideration the admissions in process,accordingto specified normsof fairnessand equality.But no one has an a prioriright to actualadmission.3 Second,by its very naturehighereducation is a selective field – its elitism is an integralaspect of its nature,not necor of essarily onlytheperversion thisnature. Fromthe pointof view of bothefficiency and ethics, higher education is not an “universalisable” resource.Althoughthe relative numbers and proportions that determine idealor desirable levels will be differentin each case, and althoughwe 2440
need much larger numbers than what we currentlyhave, it is neverthelessintuitively clear that only a very small of (sometimesminuscule)proportion the will ever be neuro-surgeons, population space scientists, architects,or even genericnon-technical PhDs.Howeverlarge (relativeto presentlevels) the ideal number or proportion it will still be small is, relativeto thepopulation. do notneed We more;we cannotaffordmore;and there do not seem to be any obvious moralethical reasons why we should want to change this state of affairs.4 If the pattern economicrewards of and social prestige associated with higher education-based professions(relative to the rest of society) does not changedrasto tically,it seemsreasonable supposethat the number aspirants wish to enter of who such fields will not decline and is likely to rise.Incombination whathasbeen with saidabove,thisleadslogicallyto the conclusion thathighereducationwill necessarilyremaina selectiveor elite sector.In otherwords,therewill alwaysbe a funnel effect here- morewill wantto get in than canbe accommodated, atleastsomeand so probably verymanywill haveto be turned away. The important point is that this is trueandwill remain moreorless trueeven if Indiamiraculously turnsinto a richand overdevelopednationtomorrow.
It would seem thereforethat because education inherently exclusive is an higher field, modesof exclusionarebuiltintoits fundamental structure a matter prinas of in ciple. Discrimination the sense of principledexclusionis thusa definingfeature of highereducation.This in turnmeans thatconcretemodalitiesfor selectionand rejectionare a criticalcomponentof its institutional design.Howthesemodalities work, how they are percievedby differand entlyplacedparties, howtheyrespond to thepressure conflictandcontestation of are thus important questions of both principle and practice. Giventhecentrality contentiousness and of the modalities discriminating of (rather than indiscriminate) selection to higher education,it is not surprisingthat their design follows the same generalpattern. In most societies and contexts, institutional mechanismsregulatingentry into highereducationare basedin practiceon some formof scholasticexamination, and in principleon some notionof merit.The idea of meritis particularly as important it bears the heavy ideologicalburdenof legitimisinga system explicitlybasedon
exclusion by discrimination. However, despite the extensive domain of beliefs, values and norms that merit invokes, in concrete practice it depends on the mundane mechanism of the examination or some variant thereof. In modern societies, degree of.dependence on the examination increases in direct proportion to the pressure of demand for scarce higher educational opportunities.The more sought after and competitive a field, the greater the likelihood that entry will be regulated by examination. The role of merit and examinations will be discussed in detail in Section III below. A third general feature of higher education in all societies is its role as the institutional context responsible for creating and nurturingan intellectual vanguard entrustedwith the taskof thinkingon behalf of society and preparing the present to meet the future. This abstract and rather grand description provides a telegraphic summary of what is expected of “criticism”, “research” and related activities. Not all of higher education is devoted to such pursuits, nor need all such pursuits necessarily be located within higher education. But there is undeniably an institutional affinity between higher education and the research function, regardless of whether and how well higher education manages to support it. The main implication that is commonly drawn from this is that higher education, or at least some segment of it, can legitimately claim exemption from the “normal”rules and responsibilities imposed on other sectors of public life. I will return to this point later in the argument.
Higher Education in a Big and Poor Country5
First, in countries like India, higher education is almost entirely state funded and is still among the most important avenues of mobility for all classes including the affluent class. This is particularly trueof elite professional education in India, despite the growing importance of private actors both domestic and foreign. In India, the affluent (largely uppercaste) elite have seceded from school education long ago and are beginning to send their children abroad for general undergraduateeducation. The middle classes (with a more mixed caste composition, but still tilted towards the upper end of the status hierarchy) are now abandoning state schools, but they still need state-run colleges anduniversities. June 17, 2006
Economic and Political Weekly
But institutions like the IITs, IIMs and AIIMS are still in demand by everyone from the affluent elite downwards because they offer credentials encashable in the “first world” at “thirdworld” prices. That is why, unlike primary or secondary or even general tertiary education, institutions of specialised and professional education are being subjected to enormous political and social pressure.6 This is happening because the longstanding monopoly of the upper caste and upper class elite over these resources is now being challenged by politically resurgent lower castes and classes. Previously, this monopoly worked through something akin to the “silent compulsion of economic relations”thatMarx spoke of. The modalities of merit went with the grain of society so to speak: they “naturally”favoured the privileged and in effect handed over elite education to them by default. This status quo, consisting of a de facto monopoly masked by the de jure presence of open competition, is now being questioned “by any means possible”. The second feature is very closely related to the first but is important enough to be considered a distinct point.
This is the fact that in a poor country with limited avenues for capital accumulation, statefundedhighereducationprovidesthe safest, most legitimate and least regulated method of privatising public resources. The end product produced by the IITs, AIIMS and similar institutions is a “credentialled” individual who is a free agent but by virtue of the state’s investment in him/her now owns a kind of capital that is perfectly portable and (in this instance) internationally encashable. Being a free agent, the credentialledindividualcan putthis capital to (almost) any kind of use (almost) anywhere – the particularstate and society that made the investment may or may not gain. Compare this to land or industrial capital, and the differences become clear. Although it is obvious that the importance of credential capital has increased greatly in the era of globalisation, we must not forget the special historical role of this process. Massive expansion of state funded higher education in the Nehruvian era saw the uppercaste middle classes convert their landed capital into credential capital. The state at that time fuelled both the demand and supply sides of the higher education equation – it provided educational opportunities and training, as well as employment. The castes and classes who were in the right place at the right time in the early
decades of independence got to occupy an empty and expanding state sector. This kind of historic opportunity is a once only phenomenon, and no other generation will get it. While this may be treated as “historical luck”, it should be kept in mind when trying to interpret the strife and acrimony that marks the present. A third important feature of higher education in poor and populous countries is thatit tends to be associated with various kinds of discrimination in practice. These may be collectively called “resource discrimination” i e, discrimination born out of inadequateendowments of the resources required to access and succeed in higher education. It is well known, for example, that higher education is biased against the poor, and against the lower castes or other groups who suffer from social disadvantages in society. This is true in developed countries as well, but is more starkly relevant in countries like India. By its very nature, higher education presupposes access to a minimum level of economic, culturalandpolitical resources. Only those who already possess such resources can realistically expect to benefit from it. That is why the “creamy layer”argumentneeds to be made with care.
Providing access to higher education is not a method for tackling poverty; by the same token, poverty cannot be made a qualifying condition for granting special access to it. Indiscriminate use of the creamy layer argumentthus risks disqualifying precisely those segments of socially disadvantagedcastes and communities who have a good chance of succeeding. Conversely, with minor exaggeration,one could claim thatheavy handed use of creamy layer arguments would end up admitting students whose cumulative disadvantages make it highly probable that they will fail, thus discrediting the affirmative action programme itself. This combinationof merit-discrimination, or discrimination in principle (discussed above), and discrimination in practice, or resource-discrimination, produces a situation where one kind can in fact masquerade as another, or where claims to this effect can be made regardless of the facts of the matter.The permanentpotential for misrecognition of one kind of discrimination for the other kind makes the issue very contentious and also very hard to resolve because merit-discriminationis considered legitimate and desirable while resourcediscrimination is considered illegitimate and undesirable. While higher educational institutions and administrators are very
that eagerto claimandto demonstrate they meritdiscrimination, are as they practise anxiousto denythattheyarecomplicitous discrimination. of in the practice resource victimsof meritdiscrimination Similarly, may claim to be victims of resourcedisor crimination, beneficiariesof resource discrimination claimto be meritorious. may Finally, a fourthfeatureof the higher educationsector in poor countrieswith is large populations that it must take on the additional burdenof supporting aspirations for mobility. This is somewhat different from the point made above. Because in our context the numberof desirable formal sector jobs is always of much less thanthenumber job seekers, seek must applicants constantly toimproved their credentials.One way of doing this is to acquiremoredegreesand this leads to “credentialinflation”. A significant are of proportion thosein highereducation theresimplyto improvetheircareerprosfields.Thus, related pects in non-research in a poor country,highereducationmust these legitimateaspialso accommodate rationswhichareforcedto takethe route becauseof prevailing of highereducation marketand social conditions.7 of One consequence this featureis that the it counterbalances specialclaimsmade on behalfof highereducationbecauseof to its responsibility pioneercuttingedge for research the future.To the extentthat highereducationfunctionsas an avenue of mobility,it mustbe subjectto thesocial justice or other obligationsimposed on fromthese Exemption publicinstitutions.
obligationsmeans that this routeto mobility is embeddedin a system that is inaccessiblefor many. Ill Meanings and Roles of Merit We are now in a positionto returnto the questionof meritand its criticalrole in as the principalsourceof legitimation a field inevitablymarkedby discrimination andexclusionof variouskinds.What does meritmeanin the contextof Indian highereducation? Examinations and Merit: Denotations We are now in a positionto returnto the questionof meritand its criticalrole in sourceof legitimation as the principal a field inevitablymarkedby discrimination andexclusionof variouskinds.What 2441
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does merit mean in the context of Indian higher education? At the denotative (concrete, literal) level merit usually refers to a certification of competence, aptitude or knowledge acquired through an examination of some kind. In most instances, what is actually involved is the relative rank obtained in the examination. What really matters is not really how “well” one does in the exam, but how much “better”(or worse) one does compared to others taking the same exam. The matterdoes not end here. In the context of entrance exams for professional educational institutions, for example, the critical factor is getting a high enough rank to qualify for admission. Suppose an institution called XIT has 3,000 places available to be filled through an entrance exam. Then “merit”for XIT – and therefore for the candidates aspiring to enter it – means all ranks from 1 to 3,000. From the point of view of XIT, ranks lower than 3,000 are all equal or the same in the sense that they all belong to the category of “Did not qualify”, which is indistinguishable from the category “without merit”.8
The dreaded “cut-off point” is the guillotine thatsevers the candidatepool into the mutuallyexclusive categoriesof and “meritorious” “withoutmerit”.But how is this cut-off point determined? By the number of places available. In candishort, the numberof meritorious datesis pre-determined; exam is only the a means to identify who they will be. How is this identification to be made? By ranking the candidates. The first social functionof the exam is to produce or elicit evidence of inequalityfrom the candidates. examis thusanimplacable The device for generatinginequalityalong a continuousscale, the measurement units of which can be infinitesimal – three decimal placesarenowcommonly reported. Buta curious reversal takesplaceoncethis inequalityis successfully generatedand the rankingdone – then, the obsessively continuous scale suddenly transforms into a dichotomy with the guillotine of the cut-off point creatingtwo internally homogeneous but mutually exclusive groups.The secondsocial functionof the is examination to providean ideologically
defensible method of saying “No” to large numbers.
Examinations and Merit: Connotations
At the connotative (symbolic, figurative, ideological) level, merit functions as a kind of entitlement, a moral claim on society. It is simultaneously a claim in the sense of an assertion about myself (my capabilities, competence, and at the broadest level, moral worth); and a claim in the sense of an expectation or demand addressed to the rest of the world. Merit at this broad symbolic level functions as the raison d’etre of the examination. Or, to put it the other way around, the third social function of the examination is to identify merit. But where the first two functions were latent (i e, unrecognised by or opaque to the actors involved), this third function is a manifest function (i e, explicitly recognised or stated).
We can now resume the discussion about how higher education inherently involves exclusion, and how the merit examination
Call for Papers
Conference on Multidimensions of Urban Poverty in India, jointly organised by Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research
(IGIDR),Mumbai,and the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi, on October 6th and 7th, 2006 at IndiraGandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai. Deadline for submission of paper/extended abstract of 1500 words: July 31st, 2006 Email address for submission: [email protected]
Researchers are encouraged to submit original papers based on rigorous case studies and/or empirical or theoretical research work with an India focus. The organising committee wishes to reach a balance between research on large cities and metropolises and that on small and medium towns. Papers assessing the impact of public policies and specific programmes are also welcome.
The identified sub themes are:
and factorsof urbanpoverty(at the national scale or at a cityscale, linkswithsize of cities, (i) Characteristics determining
(ii) (iii) (iv) (v) role of migration, structure of labour markets etc) Access to social (health, education) and physical (water, sanitation) infrastructure Inequalities in access to credit markets Formal and informal housing markets Urban Livelihoods
Further informationis available on the website of the institutes: http://www.igidr.ac.in and http://www.csh-delhi.com
All submissions will be refereed and authors will be informed on the status of their papers no later than August 18th. Authors of accepted papers are requested to send the final version by September 15th. Since we are able to provide only limited travel support, authors are encouraged to seek their own travel funding. Outstation participants will be provided with
accommodation at IGIDR. For further information,please send an email to [email protected] Postal Address: Attn: S. Chandrasekhar & Marie-Helene Z6rah Organising Committee, Multidimensionsof Urban Poverty in India, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Gen A. K. Vaidya Marg, Goregaon (E), Mumbai- 400 065, India
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combination bears the burden of legitimising such necessary exclusion. From the point of view of allocation of scarce higher education resources, meritdiscrimination is justified as the method of identifying persons who (a) are best preparedand qualified to enter specialised higher education; and (b) will produce the best returnon this social investment. These are actually two distinct claims, but are frequently conflated – it is possible, but not necessary, that the best prepared person in the sense of scholastic aptitude will also be the person who will make the best doctor, engineer or whatever. In principle,examinations identify merit, and merit provides sufficient justification for discriminating in favour of its bearers and awarding them admission in preference to others who do not have merit. In practice, examinations coercively generate inequality expressed in a rankordering, and they help to persuade both the “selected” and the “rejected” that the division is fair. However, as long as they succeed in practice, examinations are presumed to have succeeded in principle. In other words, the only thing an exam must produce is a rank ordering that is not disputed by candidates; this is a necessary andalso asufficientcondition forthe system to succeed. Everything else is an optional matter of assertion and counter assertion. (Imagine what would happen if, with only 50 seats available, the AIIMS entrance exam produced a result where the top 100 candidates had the same mark…) To put the argument sharply, the meritdiscrimination system functionson the basis of formal differentiation of a candidate pool through an examination; it is institutionally requiredto ensure such a differentiation. It is not required to ensure or defend a substantive differentiation of candidates. What must be produced is a differentiated ranking; it is not necessary to explain what meaning the differentiations carry. More accurately, as long as they are present, it is permissible to simply assume that the differentiations mean whatever they are supposed to mean. This is the underlying system that, under the pressure of large numbers of aspirants, produces the arcane world of thirddecimal point differences and cut-offs that are accepted as justifying large claims about the presence or absence of merit. In effect, one could say thatthe preceding argumentestablishes thatthe examinationrankmethod is of dubious reliability. This still leaves open the question of validity Economic and Political Weekly
– do entrance tests really measure what they are supposed to measure, i e, aptitude, likelihood of succeeding, etc? Here we are on familiar ground, for it is well known how difficult it is to devise tests with good predictive power in this sense. We may know a good doctor or engineer when we see her at work, but we do not really know how to predict this before the fact. To argue that a system is arbitraryis not to say that it is useless, or more important, that obvious alternatives exist. The purpose of this argument was to show that the moral weight that is placed on merit is in practice borne by examinations, and that examinations cannot but be arbitrary under the conditions imposed on them. Appreciation of this arbitrarinessshould temper one’s opposition to reservations or similar proposals that appearto interfere with this system. When opponents of reservations (who have themselves survived such a system) use emotive language like “murderof merit”,they are trying to leverage the moral potency of merit to foreclose tempered responses. They are suppressing or disowning theirown intimateknowledge of the heartbreakingarbitrarinessof merit discrimination. They are endorsing the guillotine mentality and refusing to acknowledge that the ranking game starts with the play of infinitesimal gradations. How much “compromise” with merit a reservation scheme will entail ought to be recognised for what it is – an empirical question. How much further down the rankings will we have to go? What is the substantive meaning of this distance in marks or ranks, i e, how much of a difference does it make in terms of the quality of candidates? It is only after we have asked and answered such questions thatwe will be in a position to respond in a reasoned manner to proposals like the recent one for OBC reservations.
in results competitive examsthatqualifyas indicators merit: economicresources of (a) (for prior education,training,materials, freedomfrom work, etc); (b) social and culturalresources(networksof contacts, and confidence, guidance advice,information,etc);(c) intrinsic abilityandhardwork. It is somecombination thesethatallows of people to “acquiremerit”. When it is said that merit alone is for of responsible thedominance theupper castes,whatis meantis thateconomicand culturalresourcesare not important, but it is differencesin sheer intrinsicability alone thatmakefor the inter-caste differences. This is a position that is indefensible, for it cannot be arguedtoday that in largegroupsnumbering themillionsare more or less intrinsically able thanother suchgroups.We have to look to inequalities in the other factors to explain the difference. Once we recognisethe causalcontribution of other inequalities towards the distribution meritandhenceof of unequal educational this higher opportunities, opens the door to consideringinterventions for theirredressal. (Becausethesereasonsfor cannotbe called”justdiscrimiinequality it nation”; is to foreclosethisthatthe”merit as the only criterion” is argument made.) Once we begin to talk in termsof gradato movetowards morerealistic transa and parentpolicy frameworkwhere we can discussthe differentsocial objectivesthat withhighereducationcan accommodate out excessive costs or damages being of imposedon it. The presentframework debate- markedby Manichean dichotomiesbetweenmeritandincompetence (as thoughtherewere nothingin between,or thateach was such a singularmonolithic category)- will not take us forward. it By wayof conclusion, wouldseemthat while more conceptualwork definitely needsto be doneon thesequestions,what we need even more perhapsis more and thicker Mostof all, descriptions. empirical we needgooddescriptions theeveryday of that and practices help produce reproduce social capitaland link caste to privilege or disprivilegein durableways.Bi Email:[email protected]
tions – as we must – it becomes possible
Merit and Resource-Discrimination
The preceding argumenthas kept within the limits of the “merit-only” position; it is time now to move beyond this selfimposed limitation. If we return now to the argument in Section I and the figures in the table, the skewed distribution of access to higher educationwas explained as being due solely to merit by the anti-reservationists. However, the flaws in this argument are too obvious to need much rebuttal. As Marc Galanterhas pointed out, three broadkinds of resources are necessary to produce the
Notes
1 The titleandthisessay itself area tribute Marc to Galanter’sclassic work, Competing Equalities: LawandtheBackward Classes in India(Oxford, New Delhi, 1984).
It is to his credit – and to
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even-handedapplicationof this logic to the two of the collective embarrassment my “caste”of sides in Mandal II. social scientists and specially my “sub-caste” of sociologists andsocial anthropologists that 4 Unless we reach a stage of social development where the wishes of individualsor groupsto be morethantwo decades afterits publication,his involved in higher education for its own sake by superb surveystillremains farthebestanalysis are considered sufficient to justify investment of “compensatory discrimination” in to expand this field. independent India. Its own example and the absent notedherearenotnecessarily events of the “Mandal decade” should have 5 Thefeatures in a richsmallcountry,buttheireffects in a poor been advantageenough for us to at least match the analyticalprecisionand careful scholarship big country are of much greaterconsequence. of Competing Equalities.Whateverthe reasons 6 This argument is made by Mary John; see ‘Schooled in Inequality’in TheHindu,May 30, why this has not yet happened, I hope that “Mandal will providecollective inspiration II” 2006. to overcome them. This is a very preliminary 7 This also happens in rich countries, but to a muchlesserextent.No one needsa postgraduate versionof work in progressand should be read of as such. For more immediate incitement, degree merely to reachthe averagestandard encouragementand critical engagement I am living. grateful to Mihir Shah, Yogendra Yadav and 8 This is because, after the rankingis done and results declared,the XIT cannot meaningfully Mary E John. 2 Thesedifferencesaresharpest differentiate between different “amounts”of amongChristians andSikhs,andleast amongMuslims.The Other merit that are less than whatever was needed for being the 3,000th candidate.In otherwords, Religions in this table include Buddhist dalits it has nothing (or the same thing) to say to all (since SCs are limited to Hindus),and they too would be sharplydifferentiatedfrom the Jains, rankshigherthan3,000 – “Goodbye,betterluck other Buddhists, and Parsis. if you try next time”. There is thus no 3 The strict implications of this are often demonstrabledifference between saying “Not glossed over, as was evident in the less than enough merit”and “No merit”.
The
Eternal
Debate
Caste still remainsan indicator of disadvantageas distributionof both income and wealth are skewed along caste lines. Thoughthe data on OBCs is scanty, there exists a clear disparitybetweenthese castes and others in terms of educationalattainment,occupational success and standardof living. The mechanisms perpetuating for inter-caste inequalityare still strong and alive in contemporary India. Quotas, however, should not be seen as the beginningand the end of affirmativeaction.
ASHWINI DESHPANDE
the Indian version of affirmative action – is in the foreground once Since this time the debate, at least again. ostensibly, is about the other backward classes (OBCs), one of the first stumbling blocks in any informed intervention is the paucity of data. Most of what has appeared in newspapers and television commentaries are a set of pre-conceived notions intertwined with a virulent opposition to affirmative action. Prima facie, this could be attributedto the lack of data: reservations for OBCs could possibly be the first instance of affirmative action for a category that even the national census does not enumerate. The National Commission for Backward Classes only lists the jatis that comprise OBCs without any demographic data about these jatis. Also, there
rT he debate over reservations –
are no firm estimates of the distribution of OBCs in jobs and institutes of higher education. It is entirely true that the government, whether in 1990 or now, ought to have preceded this major move with building a comprehensive case for this particular component of affirmative action, with adequate backing of data that could be released to the public. Also, while this move is supposed to be coupled with an increase in the non-reserved seats, very little thought seems to have been given to the logistics and practicality of increasing seats. Most departments and colleges already face huge constraints in the form of inadequate infrastructure and high student-teacher ratios and have very little scope for increasing student intake, without the concomitant structuralchanges that would be needed to sustain a higher intake. If the government is indeed serious about
alleviating the condition of OBCs via increasing their share in public sector jobs and institutions of higher education, then this lack of preparationnot only worsens its case but actually casts a doubt over the degree of its commitment to the reduction of caste-based barriers. Having said that, it would be a mistake to believe that the opposition to this move is only or mainly because of lack of data and/orpreparedness.The dominationof an upper-caste mindset in the media, the academy and the wider public, is evident in most of the anti-reservation commentaries. Concerns about merit declining because “they”, rather than “us”, will swamp educational institutions; the completely mythical nightmare of “we” or “our children” being reduced to demeaning jobs like shining shoes and sweeping, whereas it is only fair that “they”continue to do so, etc, are only some of the indicators of a latent casteism that constitutes the reality of the supposedly caste-neutral contemporary urban India. Thus, the status quo, in which the share of the upper castes in both good jobs (in the public and the private sectors) and seats in higher educational institutions is far in excess of its share of population, is seen as essentially fair. While state-imposed reservations are seen as a murder of merit, the much more widespread “natural reservations” that come from birth in business (upper caste) families which ensure that no outsiders are ever considered for the top jobs in family-owned businesses; other manifestations of casteclass privilege being expressed via donations, capitation fees, etc, are never seen as threatening merit. Thus, the operation of caste barriers and a beief in caste hierarchies as natural underlies the dominant thinking so completely that, ironically, these beliefs are not seen as casteist, but their questioning is. Indeed, this mindset asserts thatcaste was virtually extinct before it was resurrected by V P Singh or Mandal or Arjun Singh. The possibility that the invisibility of caste from “our” lives is a privilege that “we” enjoy because “we” belong to a small minority of urban, upper-caste elite that has the luxury of leading a casteless existence, something that the majority is far from attaining, are issues that are virHowever, tually never discussed. distinct from this mainstream is the relatively small body of opinion thatrecognises the reality of caste-based barriers and disadvantages and has been engaged with
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Economicand PoliticalWeekly June 17, 2006