Quota Raj...

The PM finally gave in to the pressure and issued a thinly veiled threat that the IT industry better fall in line or face a new law.

Big Brother is alive and kicking in India. Just because the govt. has the right to introduce ANY law does not mean that it is right to do so.

If you look at the economic growth of India over the past decade or so, it has largely been fuelled by the dollars, yens, and other foreign exchange flowing into India as a result of the huge out-sourcing potential that businesses all over the world saw in India. The key requirement was the availability of skilled and intelligent knowledge workers at a fraction of the cost. India fit the bill perfectly mainly due to the comparitively lesser living expenses here.

As the years have progressed Indians have begun to move up the outsourcing Value chain and metamorphosed from lowly coders to design experts to consultants whose judgements the client trusts implicitly. The competition in the industry has gone from hectic to cut-throat. The Turn-around-time from problem surfacing to solution release hase been shrinking exponentially. At the same time the salaries and the expenses to the client have been increasing (We are still significantly below US and European levels). The client's expectations from Indian companies have never been higher. The added threat of China, Malaysia, and other smaller economies have also started looming on the horizon. China especailly have had a concentrated program to enhance their "knowledge and skill" levels. The Chinese a tleast have their heart (and their brain) in the right place.

At this juncture, What seems logical for the Indian Government is :-

1. The govt. announces specialized courses in higher education to increase the avaialability of suitable candidates for the industry.

2. The Govt. provides facilities to encourage setting up of IT and realted industries throughout the country.

3. It provide subsidises to bigger companies to set up shop across the length and breadth of India therby encouraging all-round development of the whole country.

This would lead to the modernization of the whole of India. The benefits would not be limited to the "knowledge" workers alone as the secondary industries needed to sustain the growth of IT would provide employment and a chance for a better life to skilled as well as unskilled people.

Result: India actually starts "Shining". "Bharat Uday" is a well publicised Govt. campaign.

OK. Let's stop dreaming and come back to earth, because we "unfortunately" live in a country called India. I'm usually very proud of the fact that I was born in India, the land of myriad cultures, where peace and brotherhood reign supreme. I take pride in the giant strides that the economy is taking. But Indian politics is something that always manages to get my blood boiling. Forget all the ideal things that it should do, but the govt. manages to bring in minorities and reservations and such non-issues into the IT cauldron.

Introducing caste-based reservation into this industry is absolutely unimaginable, impractical and infeasible. The industry thrives on impossible deadlines and better than average skill. I don't mean to imply that lower-caste people are not (less) intelligent, but the kids that come up on the basis of reservation tend to take things easy. Thay tend to depend on that fact that the reservations will bail them through. How can you expect a person who has been brought-up with this mindset to be able to respond to the IT industry which works solely on commitment and responsibilty. There may be a few exceptions, but the majority will end up burned-out and with a very low progress rate.

The politicians who cry out all the time about Dalit and other caste based reservations continuosly try to remind us about the persecution that the "so-called" weaker castes have faced at the hands of Brahmins and other higher castes for centuries. They selfishly raise the slogan of repatriation and revenge, with the sole aim of cheaply garnering political support and votes while turning a blind eye to the real issue.

Yes, there is no way that the brahmins were justified in what they did long ago. Even today, in parts of UP and Bihar upper-caste people continue to subjugate and ill-treat the lower castes. But reservation is not the answer to this problem. At best it can be considered a workaround or a patch release. It is meant to hide the problem rather than solve it. Last week there was this highly emotional article in the TOI (I forgot the author's name) which talked about how the higher castes should be made to suffer for 10s of years to make them atone for the sins of their fore-fathers.

What we all should realise (Here I mean both the lower and the upper castes) is that reservation will just result in amplifying the caste-divide further. The solution lies in trying to phase out the reservation system in the shortest time possible. Here I do not mean abolishment of the existing reservations and benefits immediately. What I mean to say is that the plan should be to bring the lower classes into the mainstream by focusing on the next generation. The only stable and long-lasting solution possible is to educate the children of all classes in the language of love and equality, and this is not possible as long as normal fun-loving average kids, who don't care about the castes of their schoolmates, start cursing the "special" status given to "lower caste" students. They study in the same class, have a similar financial background, and live pretty much similar lives. Then comes the 10th/12th standard results and they see their "lower-caste" classmates get admission into dream colleges, even though those kids have secured much lower marks in the qualifying exams. How can you expect that child to grow up into a tolerant human-being who does not believe in the caste system and treats everyone as equal?

Throughtout their career, the "lower-caste" person also has to bear the stigma of his caste, the hate of his once-friends, and whispers behind his back. How can he lead a happy and better life? Isn't the reservation system "mis-guidedly" promoting the worst aspects of the old caste system (subjecting the lower castes to demarcation and segregation) rather than trying to abolish caste differences and promote equality?

Later when this person's children grow up and seek admission into college he/she still applies for the "lower-caste" benefits for the kid. Isn't the person abusing his "lower-caste" status? Is he any better than the "upper-castes" who abused their power long ago?

The reservation system is an archaic and ill-conceived attempt at solving the caste issue. What is needed instead is sensitization of the masses to the real problem. Subsidized education and special attention to "lower-caste" children would go a long way to giving them a strong foundation. They should be made to realize the importance of standing on their own feet. The necessity of being independent should be drilled into them at an early age. They should be guided to build a flawless character, not taught to take advantage of the system. A system similar to the US system in which a social-worker is assigned to any family that is backward could be tried. Only then will India turn into a true democracy.

Politicians just use "lower-caste" politics as a stepping stone to launch their political carrers and fortunes. The British ruled over us for 200 years based on divide and Rule. They used Caste Politics to their advantage to pit Indians against one another and made merry while we ruined ourselves. Is there any point in going back to those medeival times of the Quota Raj...