Preparing for the Slaughter

03.28.06 | 148 Comments | Filed Under Commentary, Indian Politics

It is official.

Arjun Singh has announced that he’s moving ahead with the Grand Project to Slaughter the IITs and IIMs.

Competition to secure admission to the IITs and IIMs is set to hot up, as reservation in these institutions is likely to increase from the current level of 22.5% to a maximum of 49.5%. The reservation cap in central government jobs stands at 49.5% in the post-Mandal era and this could act as a ceiling for reservations in these educational institutions as well.

Arjun Singh had earlier tried to spoke the IIM (Bangalore) brand but abandoned it for God knows what reason. But he has now fallen back to the 70s’-style of Congress politics: appease, divide and rule, and kick the Constitution around to perpetuate power. State-meddling with the IIM seems to be a recent phenomenon especially notable in the post-liberalization era.

Now, allow me to digress awhile to trace the historical roots of this issue.

The Indian establishment was essentially Statist for most of the post-Independence period. Which meant that acts of (personal) Will were imposed by the dispensation current then (read: the Congress party). These acts of Will were in turn, ostensibly based on what is a vulgar cliche now: Social Justice aka Reservations.

The Indian State used this rhetoric initially in the universities (and elsewhere but that’s not the subject of this entry). No doubt Reservations were meant well but in practice, they transmogrified into mere excuses for crass cronyism. One look at the state of our universities today provides living proof of this. And now, because there’s nothing left of the universities to destroy, the political class has turned to dip its dirty nose into what are perhaps the very few institutions of merit in India. The excuse is the same again: Social Justice.

I don’t need to spell out what this means. From the Economic Times article I linked:

…this would mean that while students of the reserved categories can look forward to a higher number of seats, others may need to burn the proverbial midnight oil longer to secure admission.

This is not an argument to discriminate against deserving but un/underprivileged students. Rather, the thrust is against fostering the same tendencies which has caused much ruin to the country as a whole: a system not based on merit. How underprivileged or backward is a Mayawati or Lalu and all their family/relatives? These are people who got elected on the ostensible promise of uplifting their truly unfortunate bretheren. I struck up a chat with one UP guy who owns a paan shop. He told me he was a Brahmin and that his brother is an MLA back home, elected from (surprise?!) Mayawati’s party. He added that Brahmins are slowly voting for her abandoning the “elite/brahmin” BJP. She who routinely bashes the Manuvaadis. What this brand of Social Justice should be called is anybody’s guess.

Returning to the post-liberalization thread, Murli Manohar Joshi had set in motion a similar meddling exercise but Arjun Singh’s move will prove far more damaging than Joshi’s. The reason for messing around with institutions like the IITs and IIMs is not far to seek: everybody wants a cut in the suddenly-prosperous India and what better places to put political cronies than these institutes of excellence (we might soon be talking of “excellence” in the past tense)? With just the right setting and political pressure, the IIMs/IITs will soon turn out Like the Public Sector White Elephants which continue to suck up taxpayer money.

Well, I might be exaggerating but the gory scenario I worded out has every chance of becoming reality: the manner in which this is done is entirely consistent with yet another filthy legacy of the Congress party: subverting the Constitution to achieve personal/political gains:

The constitutional amendment route was taken following the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Inamdar case, where the apex court ruled that the government could not set quotas in private institutions.

And at what speed!

Sources said the minister has requested the states to formulate the laws at the earliest, presumably ahead of admissions for the ‘06-07 academic session.

Such haste err.. efficiency is unheard of given the way the government functions in India. One wonders why this efficiency is not applied to other areas, for example, the Golden Quadrilateral project which lies in anguish. Obviously, projects like GQ are meant for the evil rich who want better roads for their high-speed swanky cars and the current dispensation’s manifest poll manifesto was… what was the thing about aam aadmi?

Quotas, not merit helps the nation achieve Social Justice.

Instead of all this nonsense of subversion etc, I propose a simple solution which will enable everybody to study at the IITs and IIMs: convert/declare yourself backward. Better still, obtain a certificate from the government that declares you so. It’s available for a price.

Cross-posted in Desicritics.

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