I am not sure what author is trying to convey. If some section of the people were persecuted based on their caste, what good is the society or the "civil system" where in the other section is persecuted today. Merit not necessarily means good grades, but combination of basic intelligence, common sense and capability to apply what is learned. When you have a social system where no one is accountable, you can put the whole society in the category of "backward" classes. instead of crying foul for dalits, why not society spend little more time understanding why the dalits could not merge into main stream society after 57 years of independence and over 40 years of reservations. and how many employed dalit families educate their fellow dalits? in the free world nothing is "free". you take initiative, you work, you learn, and you earn. the "backward" government provides free education upto whatever level you want to go. how many you think are using the "free" stuff today? why the govt has backlog fill drives in employment?how much lower you want the qualifying mark to be so that some "free stuff lover" can get into a "program" to misuse the govt money and increase nation's debt?
Sure Narayan Murthys, Ratan Tatas can take the initiative for affirmative action. The government should even lobby for it, maybe offer tax breaks. But the question is should it be mandated? I don't think so. A microcosm would be you own a small-scale industry with 20 workers and you don't get to choose 12 of them based on what you think is the best fit. The point I want to make is benevolent socialist gesture aside, it needs to make commercial sense as well. Also, while talent can be identified and nurtured among all stratas of society. How do you expect recruiting firms to spot it in a limited time frame? No wonder they base it on scholastic aptitude and petty IQ questions - it gives the best sense of talent in limited time. That said, the corporate bigwigs like infosys, wipro, Telco etc probably have the infrastructure to setup recruiting centers where apprentices from the lower stratum are observed over a period of time before hired. But they need to be goaded in some suitable way to do that.
Does the author know that most of these companies have a selection based on aptitude than on academic merit alone? Also a company expecting academic merit has done nothing wrong. There has to be some scale to judge candidates and academic merit does provide an initial screening process. Do we want to get steeped into politics and destroy the private sector and make it as unproductive as the public sector?
What the author says is politically correct and semantically meaningless.
His main thrust seems to be that he agrees that people should be selected on merit. However just because that person has done well in board, IIT or IIM examinations doesn't mean he is more meritorious than someone who hasn't. So far so good. I couldn't agree with him more.
The problem for Mr.Jaganathan is that he doesn't realize that we have moved to the era where people are no longer satisfied with idealistic philosophy which fails miserably in practice. We want real solutions. The board IIT and IIM examinations (both of which do have reservation) though not perfect is judging merit are well established institutions and can certainly have a lower probability of error than anything Mr Jaganathan can dream of.
And from my experience of working in the corporate world both in India and America, I can vouch that they are largely caste and race free. In this era of cutthroat competition only those companies will prosper who have the best people doing the job. Even if a Dalit who can't get into IIT and IIM (even though he has reservation at these two places) is really good, he will find his way to the top.
If you want a healthy economy, you need a A+ qualified economist to understand your economie woes. If you want a successful company, you need a skilled worker who can do a better job than other one. If you want to be competetive, you need the best in the lot. Thats how things work, and that how it should be. There is a saying 'being too good is bad', that's the same thing abt. reservation, you reserve the seat to the tune of 70%, you totally leave merit outside the door, the cream of the people who can do a real good job, are not doing the job for you, all you get is a mediocre result. if affirmative action is a combination of encouragement, subsidized education, noon meal scheme, and individual training and customized timings for education to account for underpriviledged life, and may be a couple of percentage points like 10 or 15% of reservation, it would have really helped them and also our economy. It would be really within the limits where we don't deprive the real talent and at the same time the underprivileged would be uplifted. In a political climate like india getting votes is the deciding factor.!
There is no need to blame pakis/terrorism when our elected politicians do more damage. Saying that Laloo yadav or Mayawati's kin should get preference in jobs over some so called "upper" caste person is ridiculous. Preference should be given based on economic status. Don't we all remember the damage mandal commission did to India?
Your views lack any definition whatsoever. Enough of this 'moral' responsibility argument that speaks of 'surely, they are all so rich, they can afford to spare a few crores'..
You speak sir, like you worked to earn those 'few crores'.
If I were an enterpreneur, had the vision to build an organization of substance, had it in me to increase my risk appetite to increase my returns, had the courage to decide and define the way my life were to be, and in the process, were creating employment for so many other people - just who are you in the picture to tell me who my company must hire?
Who are you to chant from the sidelines that moral responsibilty is the order of the day?
What gives you the right to use 'affirmative action' - what a lousy phrase - to disguise your pathetic propaganda of 'so what if he didn't work, feed him well too - and not just well, as well as the person who worked a hundred times harder'.
You complain that representation is not even. I can sympathise with you to an extent. There are several reservation systems in vogue at educational institutions. Try medical entrace examination. Try state engineering examinations. Try the SC/ST list of the IIT's JEE
