The New Mahabharata

We need a solution that takes into account the concerns of both contending parties – the Court’s concern for merit on the one hand, and the politicians’ true aim, which is to build vote banks. The solution should also answer the criticisms made by either side – the politicians’ argument that aided colleges favour the rich and the Court’s contention that reservation is opposed to merit. Suppose fees are charged according to capacity to pay. Then, the argument that unaided colleges favour the rich will not hold. Unfortunately, both because of tax evasion and the non-levy of taxes on agricultural income, it is not easy to estimate correctly anybody’s capacity to pay. Fortunately, there is a surrogate indicator: the fees paid for the student at the school level is a fairly reasonable measure of what the family can afford to pay. Then, if unaided colleges charge fees in proportion to what the student had been paying at school, poor students will not be blocked.

Some rich students who go to low-fee government schools will get unwarranted benefit but no poor child will suffer. The Court too should find this idea acceptable as merit is not sacrificed either to favour particular castes or because someone is poor. This solution will not be acceptable to the politicians because their interest is not in aiding the poor but in building vote banks. (Ninety-nine per cent of the poor never go anywhere near a college; only the children of the rich will, but that is enough to keep the vote bank intact). All parties, without exception, are convinced that they cannot survive unless they prove they favour some castes over others. They want to go before the electorate and boast that they will get admission to backward caste children even if they do not qualify.

Let us consider a solution for this problem too. There are two kinds of memory: recollection memory and recognition memory. All of us have a mix of both. We can recognise some faces or some facts even though we may not be able to recollect them offhand. Then, let us have a system by which we test upper caste students for their recollection memory, and backward caste students for their recognition memory. Only when they cannot even recognise the answer, will backward students be disqualified.

This principle may be put into practice by asking backward caste students to take the entrance examination one week after the upper caste students do, but answer the same questions. Then, they have one week to learn the answers. If even after knowing the questions beforehand, and having one week to prepare, they cannot compete, they are not admitted. There is no reservation, but it is enough if the candidate is merely able to learn answers to known questions. For SC/ST students, the learning period can be extended to two weeks.

The US Supreme Court has said that under- represented minorities may be given preference over forward community students – provided they demonstrate they can learn from the course. By checking the ability to repeat an answer learnt already, this form of test will satisfy somewhat the criterion set by the US Supreme Court. Hence, our own Court may accept this idea. The politicians too can boast that, in spite of the “insensitive” Supreme Court, they have been able to secure for the backward castes an invaluable privilege.

These two suggestions about fees to be charged, and the manner entrance tests should be held, are indicative; there could be other, better solutions. The important point is that we should start looking for solutions and not let the two pillars of the Constitution get locked into an intemperate quarrel. It is time the politicians realised that the Law of Diminishing Returns is universal, and that it has started applying to reservation policy too.

Protagonists of reservation have divided and sub-divided among themselves. As even Ms Mayawati has realised, the upper caste is no longer the enemy; the enemy is your own kin. Reservation is no longer a weapon to fight upper castes but a bone of contention that has already precipitated a Mahabharata kind of war.

Reservation is a drug. Like all drugs, it can be fatal. If Sri Lankan Buddhists had not taken reservation policy to an extreme, they would not have the LTTE on their heads today. Destroying the freedom of upper castes to spend even their post-tax income to educate their children is taking reservation policy to an extreme. It is not wise to destroy every hope. Unfortunately, many of our politicians have more power than wisdom. No power is as dangerous, even suicidal, as the one that resides in a mind without foresight.

The writer is former professor and director IIT, Madras