A ploy to lure votes
If the government is interested in poverty alleviation, it must adopt affirmative action and not caste-based reservation — Ramnath Narayanswamy
Few will deny the need for affirmative action. Close to sixty years after independence, we still have more than two hundred million people who are very poor. This is a matter of shame. The need for affirmative action is unquestionable. Caste-based reservations might have been valid in the fifties where there might have been an affinity between depressed castes and their economic status. Is it true today? Do we have supporting data? The UPA government's explicit intention to do away with any modicum of public debate and discussion fuels the suspicion that it is bent upon a political vote-catching agenda.
By reducing affirmative action exclusively to job-reservations and quotas in institutes of higher education, the Indian political class has abdicated its responsibility to make primary education system robust. It has promoted caste affiliation rather than economic indicators to intended recipients of reservation. It hasn't provided data on how reservations have worked or not worked in the past 56 years.
Nobody is against affirmative action; everybody is against the way we have chosen to implement it. Reservation in India means a free job, because no accountability mechanism ensures performance. Affirmative action means empowering people to stand on their own feet.
Caste-based reservations will only strengthen the free market for OBC certification. The ultimate beneficiaries of this policy will be universities in the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and Europe who will witness an influx of Indian students rejected by institutions in their own country!
Caste-based reservation must be replaced by income levels and be extended to the poorest of the poor. It should be limited to one generation and that should go to the most deserving of recipients. Because, anything given free in life loses its value. Caste-based oppression is a reality in contemporary India, especially in the countryside. It cannot and should not be sidestepped or wished away. The entire political class appears all set once again to make civil society pay for its failures.
Caste oppression must be severely dealt with and the solution clearly lies in strengthening law enforcement and widening the range of social and economic opportunities for the very poor. The real battleground is primary education where we are unquestionably faced with a classic case of state failure. Poor infrastructure, inefficient use of public funds, badly paid teachers, poor attendance and deplorable teaching materials contribute to create an explosive mix. India still has the largest number of illiterate people in the world.
The solution lies in making India take up the challenge of primary education by setting up "model" schools in every one of the 623 districts of the country. Public-private partnerships need to be set up in each district and the schools ought to be managed by professionally managed boards.
Politicians of every hue and colour need to be explicitly barred from these boards. Every business with a turnover of over a hundred crore will devote two per cent of its turnover (with tax benefits) to the establishment of these schools. The more schools the company adopts, the more tax exemptions it will enjoy. The company will provide for land, buildings and infrastructure as well as contribute fifty per cent of the wage bill. The government will contribute the remaining fifty. This will enable teachers to double their incomes; making teaching an attractive option in the job market (our youth don't even contemplate teaching as an option). The total expenditure on education currently stands at 3.52 per cent of GDP (Rs 99,993 crore) out of which Rs 40,587 crore goes into elementary education.
Ninety seven per cent of this is spent on salaries. Public funds must be channeled directly to professionally managed boards set up by companies. The remaining fifty per cent will be raised by corporate India and treated as its investment for social upliftment. All domestic and foreign companies with a turnover in excess of Rs 100 crore need to contribute and successfully manage these partnerships. A suitable legal and governance model will need to be drafted to help companies set up these partnerships with minimum paperwork.
Finally, credit system must be used to make funds available to the poorest of the poor to set up businesses and foster creativity and innovation. Class - and not caste - should be the criterion by which these funds will be deployed.
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