Skip to main content

Reservation in the age of Meritocracy

Note: This was written for a 3 minutes speech which was to be given as a part of my Management Communication class here in IIM-Clacutta. Well, that didn't go too well but I thought it might deserve a place here, so there you go.


Meritocracy is the foundation upon which modern human civilization is built. Countries and societies which have nurtured and promoted meritocracy have prospered, and the United States of America is a prime example of this. Meritocracy is a philosophy which holds that power should be vested in individuals exclusively according to merit. Reap what you sow! And who can argue against that?

And yet we as a nation not only argue against meritocracy but spend considerable effort in undermining, sabotaging and suppressing it in every way possible. We as a nation have replaced meritocracy with mediocrity. 68 years after Nehru celebrated India’s tryst with destiny at the Lal Qila, we continue to pander to the masses, to play to the galleries and to woo the vote bank.
Half of you, who are sitting here, ask yourself if you deserve to be here. Half of you, sitting here, ask yourself if you have not robbed a more worthy student of a place in this hallowed institute. Ask yourself, if deep down in your hearts you do not know that this is not right.

Reservation is a curse inflicted upon this country. After all meritocracy is king. Is it not?
What is meritocracy? How do you define it? Who defines it? I got 99.78 percentile and I did not make it to IIM-A but he got only 97.89 and he made it to IIM-A. How unfair? How very unfair? Of course it is not unfair that you were born to the privileged, while he was discriminated against all his life. Of course, it is not unfair that you got the best education possible, while he studied in a dismal government school. Of course, it is not unfair that you even dream in English while for him English is a nightmare.

I know how I am here. I am not here because I am the most intelligent. Far from it. I am not here because I have the most passion; even farther from it, and if you think I am here because I am the most hard working, you couldn’t be more wrong even if you tried. I am here because I was lucky. Lucky to be born to the right parents, lucky to be born in the right place and most importantly lucky to be born in the right caste.

Privilege makes one go blind. It makes a hypocrite of all of us. How easy it is to watch ‘How I met your mother’ and become Americanized, the great United States of America, and forget and ignore the village 100 km away from you. How very easy. Do you realize the extent to which a tribal faces discrimination? 65% of tribal girls drop out of school before turning 14. A backward class girl has to walk miles to fetch water because all the wells are in the upper caste localities and there goes her chance at education. A Muslim is denied housing in a posh locality and all of you know that the best schools are in those localities. Did you know that 95% of the students in Delhi Public School are from the upper castes?

Why do you think there is under representation of minorities in every walk of life? You all understand that the law of Normal Distribution is real and should hold. Discrimination is real. And before you say that reservation should be based on economic parameters and not caste, understand that its primary aim is to eradicate social discrimination. Tackling economic disparity is only incidental. Caste based discrimination is a disease. Caste based reservation is the medicine. And as long as the disease persists, so should the medicine.

So next time you crib saying about lack of meritocracy saying that you got XYZ marks and he got only ABC but still he made it to PQR institute, remember that meritocracy does not exist. Meritocracy is like the Himalayan Yeti, it is like the Lochness Monster of Scotland. Meritocracy is an illusion; it is a myth, a lie, sheer utopia, mere wishful thinking. It is only a chimera.

Sure, life ain’t fair. In fact, life is a bitch! Learn to deal with it!   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Just how much did Sachin mean to us?

Aspiration for success is the single most natural thing in the world. It is not a trait unique to human beings alone; it is the very fundament upon which nature exists. It is what gives rise to evolution and results in life as we know it. And yet there are times, when even before you begin, you not just suspect that you will not succeed, but know that you are doomed to, and, will fail. Nonetheless, you go ahead and do it anyway. Because it is not a choice, but a call to duty; like a mountaineer attempting to scale that one last impossible peak, a surgeon trying to perform the miracle that will not happen or even a letter of infatuation that you know will never be reciprocated. Failure is merely a meaningless by-product. And so I attempt to put in words, the emotion that cannot be explained but only be felt, the phenomenon that cannot be understood but only be experienced and a love that cannot be rationalized but can only be succumbed and surrendered to. I attempt to both understa
Post a Comment
Read more

Of Federer and Nadal; of Sport and Us

There were 13 players on the field. But one stood out. And he knew it. There was a swagger to his walk, poise in his posture and his entire demeanour was of a man who knew there were a million eyes on him; who not merely was aware of and acknowledged it, but also courted the attention, craved for it and feeded of it. As the ball soared off his bat, 50,000 rose off their chairs in unison; but even before the triumphal act was concluded, the smiles were wiped off their faces and there was tension in their eyes. The fielder settled under the ball; it was to be a regulation catch. But, was it to be? The floodlights shone down upon him, almost sinister in their intensity, but that did not matter; he has done this a thousand times before. What mattered though was the thousands of eyes boring into him, the unnatural silence, the searing hostility of strangers, the expectations of teammates and most of all the stature of the man of whose bat the ball has soared from and was now hurtling
Post a Comment
Read more

57 Tabs: The Joys of Wiki-Hopping

It is 10 minutes past midnight. To my left, I have a box of refrigerated chicken popcorn from KFC, and to my right, I have my phone. In my phone, I have 57 tabs open; Wikipedia pages, they are.  The missus has abandoned me gone for a sleepover to a friend’s place and I have the house to myself. I snuggle under the blanket and reach for a book; ‘My name is red’. The data is switched off and the phone is a safe distance away, or so I think. Alas, no. I come across an intriguing word, reach for my phone and switch on the data. Google recommends Wikipedia; good friends they are. I read intently, for all of 3 minutes. Then, I long press and click on ‘open in a new tab’. Thus, begins the hopping; perpetual in scope and orgasmic in pay-off. Soon, I have 57 tabs open.  When I was growing up, during my primary school, there was a library in the neighbourhood. It was big, it was free and it was welcoming. Many a childhood hour was spent there; lost to the world and yet, at the same tim
Post a Comment
Read more