Reservation Counter for IITs and IIMs : Open Every Academic Session (By Order)

Four months from now, this country,priding itself as the ‘South Asian Tiger’, will celebrate five decades and nine years of its independent existence. The next year, the same date will mark the diamond jubilee of this occasion. Surely, reason enough to celebrate. But, a merely symbolic celebration nonetheless. But why? Well, the answer may not be straightforward. The explanation comes from the issue which is doing the rounds of the education policy making circles as well as the corridors of the Election Commission (for the wrong reasons).

The hallmark of quality, in a field like education, is ideally above any sort of compromise. In India, this obviously translates as a reality that the minimum you tamper with the IITs and IIMs, the better. But now, the makers of our fate seem to think otherwise. They are determined to erase the badge of quality from these institutions. Earlier, the issues of the IIMs’ fees and their plans of setting up campuses abroad came under the ‘neta-babu’ scanner. Now, it is the turn of the admission process itself, an all time- favourite with policymakers. Not content with the earlier quotas, the neta-babu concubine is hungry for more. So, it has decided that, not just the IITs and IIMs, but niche institutions like NIFT will not be spared either. Thus, the future scenario could well resemble a scene where ‘reservation counters’ will cater to the ‘disadvantaged’ sections who want a ticket to the big league of education. Nothing wrong in that. But , it is really necessary to answer this question first: who are the ‘disadvantaged’ actually. In this context, two instances immediately come to my mind as explanations. The first one concerns a batchmate in school , who joined us in the senior secondary class, about three years ago. She came from a family of six and her father makes a living as a cab driver. As her family could barely make ends meet, the girl had to give tuitions to pay her own school fees. She could not afford anything else – private tuitions, expensive reference books etc. When the time of reckoning came, she topped the school leaving exams, beating the next best student by miles. Not only that, she secured admission to BITS, Pilani and made her way there, thanks to numerous scholarships that came her way. The other story is about the son of an idli-vendor who recently graduated from IIM, Ahmedabad and rejected plum job offers to become an entrepreneur. The details of this are known to most of us. Points to be noted here : both the stories received national media coverage, none of the individuals needed any reservation to reach where they are now. Yet, both were disadvantaged, in the actual sense of the term.

In a country which prides itself as a huge reservoir of human capital, the ‘human’ factor , ironically, has a skewed meaning. Inequality among individuals based on aspects like caste is truly unfortunate. But, this can never be justification for throwing open the floodgates of premier institutions. Since when did these institutions stop encouraging talented but disadvantaged individuals, if the two examples above are anything to go by? Shenanigans like drastic fee reduction or admission quotas are an insult to the decision-making capabilities of such institutions (which deserve full autonomy anyway) as well as a negation of the very purpose of their existence : quality above anything else. Thus, to answer the question asked at the beginning of this discussion, independence is complete only when the expression of merit and success become a natural process, sans reservations. If some people in New Delhi could realize this, they can surely be a little bit wise.