A Grave Injustice!
Repercussions of a Faulted System and Alternate Solutions
By Dr. Parvez Mandviwala
We Indians have, of late, started competing with each other in proving who’s more backward than the other and in this regard we seem to stand out from the rest of the world’s population, who, in sharp contrast, compete to prove how developed they are as compared to other competitors! This has led to shameless (and at times violent) protests demanding reservations in education and jobs by almost every Indian community. Obtaining fake caste certificates in the urge to prove themselves backward is also not unheard of. With every community craving to get its share from the reservation pie, this disturbing trend speaks volumes of our low self-esteem and blatant disregard for justice as Indians in general and Muslims in particular.
Allow me to explain how….
What started as a 20% reservation for Scheduled Caste and 2% for Scheduled Tribe has eventually snowballed into a massive 49.5% by the inclusion of 27.5% for Other Backward Classes in 1989 by then Prime Minister V. P. Singh following the recommendations of the Mandal Commission Report. This has left the General category with a mere 50.5% share which is further brought down by the quota for Nomadic tribes, Sports quota, Freedom Fighters’ quota, Ex-Servicemen quota, Handicapped quota, Women’s quota, NRI quota, Management quota and what not!
REVERSE DISCRIMINATION
I, like thousands of students like me, had to compete for our medical seats by securing high ranks in the Common Entrance Test (CET). Our colleges and courses were then allotted to us according to the state-wide merit list. But when we were standing in the queue for the centralised admissions, we were appalled to find out that students way down the merit list were offered the best courses in the best of colleges and the much more deserving candidates were left high and dry. Worse, ‘reserved’ students who had scored even below the 50% passing marks were able to secure admissions in reputed colleges (that’s because their passing bench mark was also lowered) while ‘general’ students securing around 80% marks had to return home empty handed. Now, is this anywhere close to justice?
WHAT ABOUT CALIBRE?
So you admit a non-deserving student to a medical college to uphold some vague and ill-informed idea of social justice. Then what? Do you expect that below-average student to study voluminous medical books and master the intricacies of the human body? Almost all the students I have seen failing in their internal and university examinations belonged to the ‘reserved’ category. They just couldn’t cope up. One such MBBS student took almost a decade to complete the 5 ½ year course studying tirelessly all those years.
But the beauty of medical examinations is that even below-average students can make it through after certain failed attempts and everyone who gets admitted leaves the campus with a degree in hand. A fellow ‘reserved’ student, utterly weak in subjects like Anatomy and Surgery, managed to graduate and finally become a ‘doctor’ one fine day, and went on to complete his post-graduation in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery! Anyone guesses how? Well, as for the PG seat, his father bought it for him. (Buying Medical seats is also a sad reality today, but we’ll save the topic for another day.) You must be wondering how can a ‘Backward’ family afford a seat worth lakhs of rupees, right? That brings us to the next point….
THE RICH AND RESERVED
This guy came from a hereditary ‘reserved’ family. His father received a good education and pocketed a high-paying job thanks to the reservation policy. So, he was no longer the quintessential backward student – what with owning a smart phone as early as 2008 and a car shortly thereafter while still being a student.
There are two objections that can be raised after studying this case:
a. If the father, after receiving reservations, was able to come out of his backwardness, then why was his son offered a reserved seat as well?
b. If the father, after receiving reservations, still required reservations for his son, then what was achieved from the system of reservations in the first place? In all probability, even the son of this Oral Surgeon would abuse his caste affiliations and procure a reserved seat somewhere (at the expense of an open candidate, mind you).
FALLING PERSONAL STANDARDS
A student who knows beforehand that his admission to a professional course, and thereafter his job, would be taken care of by reservations would not put in his best efforts during his school days, would he? He would not strive to touch scores of 95% and instead settle for a mere 50. Compare him with an ‘open category’ student who knows there is no magic wand awaiting him and he needs to slog it out to claim that seat. Educational standards are witnessing a nosedive, my friends. Competency, dedication and the urge to excel are all giving way to a laidback careless attitude laced with arrogance and self-deceit. This has resulted in Reserved category students not giving their 100% to their studies and thereby remaining less educated than their fellow open category students. So, in a major way, it is proving to be detrimental to them as well!
FALLING PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
Non-deserving, below-average students are today being given a degree in hand and allowed to go practise their profession. Not 1, not 2, but a massive 50% of the graduates today belong to this category. Degrees in hand, these graduates go and practise medicine, surgery, engineering, teaching, bureaucracy and every such profession under the sun. Does this scenario not scare you? There is a 50% probability that the doctor operating upon you or the engineer constructing your house or the professor teaching your child is a person who was a below-average student who wouldn’t have even qualified for the course had it not been for the crutches of reservation….
WHERE’S THE DIGNITY?
A person who usurps the seat of a much more deserving candidate does so without an iota of shame and sheer disregard for the latter’s toils and struggles. Society and our politicians have deceived him into believing that he’s actually doing the right thing and it is somehow his birth right to do so! I don’t know with what face I’d admit my daughter to a professional course if, God forbid, the disgraceful proposal for Muslim reservations is accepted by the Government. The thought itself sends shivers down my spine….
Here, I would like to present a couple of examples of self-respecting Dalits who clearly saw through this ploy which makes them fall in the abyss of destitution instead of relieving them from it.
a. We had studied a poem by noted Marathi Dalit poet, Triyambak Sandu Sapkale in school wherein he compares reservations to crutches and looks down upon them with contempt.
b. The only Dalit intellectual in the Mandal Commission was Mr. L.R. Naik and he was bold enough to be the only member of the Commission not to sign the Commission’s Report.
ISSUE OF MUSLIM RESERVATION
Muslim organisations that are coming out on the streets and petitioning the Government to include them in the list of Reservation beneficiaries should understand that there’s a vast difference between the progress and interests of Islam and those of the Muslims per se. We, in the capacity of Allah’s vicegerents on earth, should strive to achieve the interests of Islam and not of any particular community or caste, Muslims included. Many a time it so happens that the interests of Muslims clash with those of Islam. Even in this case, Muslim interests are sought to be achieved despite the injustice and self-depreciation explained above which are clearly against Islamic teachings. Also, Muslims are expected to think of the welfare of all humanity and not nurture or pursue such a selfish and narrow mentality.
The Qur’ān does not mince words when it states in Surah An Nisa ayat 135 that:
“O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it is (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts of your hearts, lest you swerve, and if you distort or decline to do justice, surely, Allah is well acquainted with all that you do.”
SOLUTIONS
Having said all this, the fact remains that social backwardness among countless Indians remains a haunting reality that cannot be conveniently brushed under the carpet. But the solution lies not in providing unjust reservations or opening extra colleges to accommodate all students – whether deserving or not, but in adopting a paradigm shift in policy.
1. Shun Vote-bank politics: India’s politicians are so busy in catering to their vote banks that they can seldom lift their head and seriously implement development policies. The hunger to retain their seats compels them to dole out lollipops to their voters without thinking about the long term consequences of their myopic policies. I still recall the widespread anti-reservation protests by medical students some years ago wherein hunger strikes were held at Medical campuses in Delhi, but not a single MP gathered any courage to speak in their favour. They all had their vested interests in keeping the reservation policy afloat.
2. Strive for Social Equality and Equal Opportunity: Instead of demanding reservations, I appeal to all social organisations to demand equal opportunities for every citizen of India irrespective of his religion, caste, creed, gender, class or financial background. There would be no need for reservations if Social Justice is implemented in letter and spirit. These organisations should realise that denying the ‘open category’ student his rightly deserved seat and giving it to a dumb student is like Robbing Peter to Pay Paul. Just because he belongs to ‘your’ caste would not make him a better doctor. The objective should not be to compulsorily have professionals in every community whether by hook or by crook, but to produce capable and dedicated professionals who would accelerate our country’s progress.
3. Provide Financial Aid and Scholarships: Economically backward students should be assisted with scholarships and free or discounted education so that bright minds (of whichever community) are not left deprived of higher education. The Government and NGOs should open coaching classes for such students so that they might compete with students of affluent families, resulting in a more level-playing field. The Right to Education Act should be suitably modified to weed out potential obstacles from students’ paths pursuing higher education.
4. Ensure Development of the Downtrodden: The Government and the NGOs, in their respective capacities, should strive towards the holistic development of the downtrodden to pull them out of decades and centuries old suppression. They should be given economic aid so that they may also partake in the facilities of food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and basic education at par with the more privileged class of citizens. This would raise their standard of living, allowing them to compete shoulder-to-shoulder with their fellow countrymen, without causing any injustice to anyone.
5. Moral Education: The filthy ideologies of caste and class prejudice can only be uprooted if children are taught to respect each other and their innocent minds are not brainwashed into believing that they are better than others. The ‘Ana khairun min hu’ (I am better than him) attitude should be done away with. The contemporary reservation policy only serves to deepen this caste divide and develops a deep sense of hatred against the usurpers in the minds of the seat-deprived open category students.
CONDITION OF SLAVES BEFORE AND AFTER ISLAM
The solutions I have discussed here are not some utopian or impossible-to-achieve concepts. If we study the social status of slaves in pre-Islamic times, their condition was no better than the oppressed castes of India and indeed much worse than that of the present day Indian Muslims. They had no honour and were not even considered human. They were treated like animals, bonded in fetters and had no rights whatsoever.
But Islam changed all that. Slaves were no longer despised and were offered equal civil rights and liberties. People were encouraged to treat their slaves like their brothers and feed and clothe them at par with what they themselves eat and wear. History bears testimony to the fact that not only were they offered high posts in governance but they were even rulers of certain Muslim states. If we study the 13th century Sultanate of Delhi, we find that powerful kings like Sultan Qutubuddin Aibak (1206-1210 CE), Sultan Altamash (1211-1236 CE) and Sultan Gayasuddin Balban (1266-1286 CE) were all slaves who ruled vast swathes of India. Slave rulers were also dominant in Egypt from 1250 CE to 1517 CE. This was all a result of Social Equality and not in the least Reservations.
Those Indians who were suppressed for being of a ‘lower caste’ flocked towards Islam in large numbers because of these very policies of Islam which espoused Equality, Fraternity and Human Dignity in the truest sense of the terms.
I’m confident that the Golden Policy of Social Equality, which proved to be so effective in eradicating Social Prejudices in the Medieval Age, would be successful in eradicating this vice even today.
CONCLUSION
Dishing out Reservations is not the real solution to Social Backwardness. It has not achieved its desired objective and is, on the contrary, an ignominious and unjust system; unjust to both – the open category as well as the reserved students themselves.
I conclude by reiterating my appeal to all social and political wings to abandon their demand for reservations and instead demand Equal Opportunities and Social Justice for all Indians. This would indeed lead to the development of every community… theirs included.