RESERVATION ISSUE IN INDIA
by
R.S.Ramaswamy
--------------------------------------------
The reservation issue is relevant to students and budding developers in Software Industry,in India. As is well known, Indian software Industry is growing at a fast pace and many International majors are out-sourcing to Indian companies. Before we as Indians become euphoric about becoming the topmost software nation of the world,it is better to heed the fact that only such jobs which are labour-intensive are being allotted to India and real R&D jobs are still retained in US and the share of India in International software market is a mere 3 per cent.
The US is a real software-based community where most of the industrial, administrative and even knowledge activities are computer-oriented. It is estimated that about 70% of American population is in one way or another involved in Information Technology, either as end-user or developer. India is nowhere near such a level of activity. Though a number of Indian engineers have contributed significantly to the developments in the computer field in US,it is well to remember that it was the US environment that triggered their creativity and gave them the opportunity. Vinodh Kosla of Delhi IIT was one of the founders of SUN Microsystems. He is known as the man with Midas touch. Vinodh Dham was the man behind Pentium in Intel. Mrs.Mala Chandra of SUN is credited with expert management of the EJB committee and EJB still continues to be Java's key strength(despite the 'spring-loaded' punch by Rod Johnson). Sometimes , one wonders if SUN is an Indian company, going by the frequent occurence of Indian names in its activities. SUN's International R&D center is now in Bangalore(INDIA). Google is attributed to his Indian Professor by its American inventor, though the professor declines the honour and gives all credit to his student! Hotmail is another instance of Indian contribution.There may be many more, without much publicity.However, Indian software industry is growing not by catering to Internal demand but due to outsourcing by US majors.
Indian Industrial development needs a lot of foreign exchange and Indian software Industry plays a crucial role in this aspect. Engineers who are fortunate to get into software field have a unique opportunity to serve the nation and serving themselves too, with a fat salary ,without 'sacrificing' anything except their leisure time! Let us wish them well.Outsiders just look at the pay-packet enviously , hardly knowing how grueling the workload of software professionals is. Hence, let us offer our sympathies too , to Indian software professionals.
Does the Indian Software Industry need
innovative genius or disciplined skill-workers?
Both.
But, which is more important in the long run?
Decidedly, innovative genius.
Much of the computer-drudgery work itself can be computerized.
Model-driven architecture and automation may make the coder of today, irrelevant tomorrow. Has not such change occured in the field of textiles? match-works?Dairy work? Even agriculture?
Is it not the very essence of Industrial Revolution?
If computerization with SAP can re-engineer an industry ,can the same SAP not replace the major chunk of such SAP workers tomorrow?
This is the inexorable law of Industrial development.Technology creates goods but in the process, robs jobs. We get a situation of 'poverty amidst plenty'. The solution cannot be simply arresting technology. The dilectics of development would one day resolve this contradiction by a political solution.This is the lesson of history.
In many of the present service-oriented companies, the job of the project manager who gets the orders and supervises the project execution with quality and efficiency has assumed more importance than the job of coders, the argument being that without an order where is the work for coders? Let us consider the Auto industry. Unless a brand name is made successful by the marketing department, how can the factory get orders and where is the need for workers?
That perhaps explains the role of Management experts.The software growth in India is due to their success in getting orders from US.
The industry is entering the second phase now. Instead of getting outsourcing jobs purely because of cost-saving, Indian software companies are now gradually winning the confidence of International majors that we can execute mission-critical jobs also which require high level of technological expertise ,competence and creativity. Any dilution of quality of manpower at this crucial stage of our country's development will be a highly shortsighted move. In no time, we can lose our market and all our dreams can vanish in just one year. Software field is so volatile and demands ability to cope up with fast-paced techology changes.
There are two aspects in software work. The first aspect is vast knowledge and R&D ability which requires innovative genius. It can be safely stated that students from IIT and Institutions like BITS and IISc and also some Regional Engineering colleges are a class by themselves and they fulfill this role admirably.The cream of Indian students are in such institutions. These Institutions have been able to maintain their high standards thus far, mainly due to freedom from political pressures.
The second aspect is skills-based.
Innovative ability of R&D caliber is clearly different from skills.But, skills are hardly less important to the Industry.Most of the State-level Engineering colleges and some colleges and Universities offering Computer-Science related courses belong to this category.Many of the mushrooming deemed-Universities may claim to be on par with IIT.But the quality of an Institution is decided more by the quality of the students than by the infra-structure, whatever be the glitter of these money-making capitation-fee education factories which cater to the richer sections.
Let us not belittle our little geniuses in IITs.
Without their innovative leadership, the routine jobs also will vanish and everyone,including the routine programmers, skilled workers and ultimately the entire nation will be adversely affected.
The central issue now is whether there should be caste-based reservation in Institutions of Higher Learning like IIT.
Should not 'pure merit' be the only criterion of admission?
We are now entering very sensitive area .We should tread softly as even angels fear to tread here. Whatever be the yardstick of pure merit, it should be conceded that environment does play a part. There are three types of handicaps.
1) caste and family background
2) economic background
3) rural vs. urban divide.
Let us consider the case of a poor Dalit boy , whose parents are landless agrarian laborers in a far off village. Being a Harijan, he suffers from social oppression. He is too poor to spend much on education. He lacks the proper school and college environment.Most of the elementary and middle schools in such Dalit areas are not functioning at all. Many of these teachers there draw their salary regularly and spend their time in nearby town attending to their own business. ( The situation in many colleges and universities may be no different perhaps?). With all these handicaps, can we compare his performance with a boy or girl from an upper class household , whose parents are high officials in Delhi, and who have been educated in the best of schools and colleges? Or with a Doon School product with his cronies in top echelons of power centers?If the student is a Dalit girl, one more handicap is added , that of gender bias.
If , despite all these problems , there are Dalit students who have made it to higher level education,let us salute them ,for, they are extremely special and valuable species, with tremendous fighting qualities.
The problem of children from non-Dalit backward communities (OBC) is slightly different. If Dalits are oppressed community, OBC can be classified as Backward class only. This backwardness is due to their rural occupation as agriculturists. Traditionally, these agricultural families had not given much importance to education in pre-independence days. Education in those days was meant to get a job as a teacher or a government clerk and the rural gentry looked down upon these jobs as unbecoming of them when they had their own land and farm, house and cattle.Who would go to town and suffer as a glorified paid servant? Even today, merchant class families do not like salaried jobs.The IT revolution has made a change in that attitude because the pay is so attractive even to them.
There is no social handicap for OBC. There definitely is the problem due to rural residence. In the case of poor peasants, they also suffer from poverty .
Rich paeasants and landlords of OBC communities admit their children in costly public schools and otherwise provide everything that money can purchase(including seats..by capitation fees).Given that environment, the students may end up scoring high percentage.
But not all OBC people are living in rural areas. Many have shifted to business and reside in town and are affluent. They too provide the best amenities to their wards.
Considering all these factors, for the sake of providing level playing field, which our 'desi' business houses are always clamoring in the face of foreign competition, some sort of 'Positive Discrimination' is essential for the uplift of the weakest sections of our society.This is what led to the framers of Indian Constitution to provide for Reservation in education and government jobs for Dalits.It should be remembered that there was absolutely no objection to this from anyone.
Though, there was no social oppression of OBC , it cannot be denied that the poor peasant households of OBC , were only very slightly better than the landless Dalits. The fact that reservation for Dalits enabled a few to become educated and become govt servants, engineers and even doctors , made the OBC sections restive and soon there was a demand for similar reservation for OBC also.
Nor can it be denied that the poor among the rural OBC deserve such positive discrimination. But, the OBC are not all rural, nor all poor. In fact there are fabulously rich OBC households both in rural and urban areas. But the benefits of reservation for OBC in southern states of India have gone to the'creamy layer' of OBC mostly. It is to prevent this that the Supreme Court enjoined the government to carefully remove the creamy layer of OBC from the beneficiaries of Mandal commission recommendations.
What do we conclude then?
1) Reservation in Education and government jobs is a must for Dalits.Social Justice demands it.
2) Similar reservation to very poor OBC families also should be provided.But it should be ensured that the richer among the OBC are excluded from such benefits.
Naturally, the richer among the OBC raise the question, why the creamy layer among the Dalits also should not be excluded. Fair question....Even among the dalit families, reservation should be available for the first generation only.
3) As stipulated by the Supreme Court, the total of reservation should not exceed 50%.The unreserved section should be purely on merit.
4) Extremely poor students from forward communities may be given some reservation.
---
These are general principles.
It is not desirable to apply these rules in Institutes of Higher Learning.
Selection in such prestigious institutions should be purely on merit. Otherwise, the country suffers in the long run. The correct remedy is to recruit only graduates ( either BA/BSC or B.E)in Institutes of Higher Learning and R&D establishments.. Upto graduate level, reservation should be strictly implemented, with due care to exclude richer sections cornering the benefits. After graduation, there should be no trace of reservation anywhere, in education.
By the time a Dalit or OBC student completes graduation, he is hopefully mature enough to understand the openings available to him and attempt them. Forcing such a difficult decision on a ten year old boy in a rural household is most unjust. Only parents in prosperous and educated families are at present able to guide their children accordingly.
If the quality of our leaders in software field falls, the entire field will collapse. It is in the interest of the skillworkers to leave the field clear to the scientists instead of usurping a role that they cannot fulfill, by unfair means quota.
======================================