Meritocracy, neo-casteism, perspiration in Reservation

I am trying to articulate arguments in response to various blogs and comments that have been posted on reservation issue and I will continue to pitch in till the Voice of the Meritorious is heard and understood.

Its remarked that selection of the best in entrance examination is a flawed system, for the "best" is relative, "crammers" select themselves, "richer" people who have access to better facilities and education hold the cards of advantage and the "highest" scorers are not necessarily the best engineers or doctors or businessmen or administrators. This argument, I believe, must be the very argument against reservation as well, for among them too, it is these "richer, cramming bests" who enter the colleges.

We must however never forget that brilliance is not the only criterion for selection in these exams, crude cramming gets you nowhere, "rich" parents can provide better preparation, but outcome is a result of PERSPIRATION, a hard work spread over months, a determination that helps you to do your best and this personal best needs to be GOOD ENOUGH to get you somewhere.

Reservation is my idea of NEO-CASTEISM. Divide and rule. The hypnotic mantra of equality can been beaten to death by communists and socialists. It does not matter if human beings are born with equal physical and mental capabilities, for four thousand years of humanity has seen that it requires perspiration, inspiration, talent, capability and training to become anything better than average. I will not expect people to rise to same level even if they have same facilities available to them. If you don't trust my argument, look at any family and you will see how different the children turn out to be. Mere facilities ensure nothing.

As someone remarked, IITs have a minimal cut-off and there is no reservation for people when they take internal examinations. Brilliant argument. So lets locate statistics and see how these students have fared over last fifty years, for they were "smart" enough to graduate from class. Do the same for people in every medical, engineering and other college, for some people harp on how reservation is just required to get these sections through the door. Do quota people ever do as well as their other counterparts? Those who do, the select few, would do so well without the need of quota. The majority fares badly. Go check the statistics. But it does not matter, for reservation allows these guys to get jobs more easily again. The quality is compromised at admission stage at first, then again at the hiring stage, and then again during the time of promotion. If education can rescue the SC/ST/OBC from their lack of opportunity, reservation at every subsequent stage is redundant. Isn't it? A doctor who gets in by virtue of caste, graduate by virtue of caste, and in spite of taking extra years to graduate, and having the worst scores in class can become a good doctor in the end, but pray if that is so, why must the others from more "priviliged" classes be not given the same "equal" opportunity. Isn't this neo-casteism?

The argument about what the so called cream of the nation has offered to the country is a just argument, and in stead of my harping on how many billions of dollars and how many jobs have been created by this cream, I will ask the skeptics to check it themselves. Also I will ask them to make a caste wise comparison to understand how valuable reservation has been.

I firmly believe the most meritorious will beat the odds irrespective of how many seats they are supposed to fight for. But I also think that lesser number of seats will produce lesser number of competitive people. In the world of competition, of free market, in the global village we can rise through education that provides skill and capability, and those who cannot walk without the crutches of reservation will only hamper the country's progress.

I simply cannot comprehend how many generations are needed before the reservations can be removed. For in last fifty years, some families have benefitted from reservations for atleast two to three generations, and mind you, they form the "cream" in the reservation class, for they select themselves.

Those who talk about how poor the people from some of the reserved classes are, need to understand that poverty cannot be uprooted through reservation in professional degrees and jobs, but by creation of better opportunities as well as the capacity in these people to make most of these opportunities.

Most have argued here that families must not be allowed to benefit from reservation in more than one generation. I think if there has to be reservation, my logic of selecting best prepared candidates demands that if the second generation people are better, I'd much rather have them occupy those seats than undercooked candidates. But of course, this logic defeats the whole argument about using reservation for improving socio-economic condition of several classes, and by virtue of this seemingly convulated argument, I wish to suggest that NO RESERVATIONS is only end to this conundrum.

A word about meritocracy: merit is subjective, true, but thanks to system of merit, millions like me are able to get the returns, the value we deserve for having worked much harder than my other classmates. There are too many smart and intelligent people in India, there are too many hard working people too, there are rich and poor people, but the ingredient that tied me to my other classmates was I knew that we all have had toiled our way through, and we all had some level of intellect. This training and confidence is the reason why students selected through hardest competitions command respect in all spheres of life, get fat pay checks and have a deserved good life. It did not matter how rich or poor their parent were, we got through for we knew things at that age that required something greater than talent or intellect or facilities can ensure. It required mixed blessing of perspiration, inspiration, intellect and dedication. It is these values we need to enshrine in everyone to become better.

Equality of opportunity is the ideal we need to achieve.
Other equalities are intrinisically impossible due to human nature.

Let it be a level playing field. Like animal kingdom, let it be survival of the fittest.