June 2006 
Year 12    No.116

Special Report


Meeting the challenge of Mandal II

A way forward where both merit and social justice receive their due

BY SATISH DESHPANDE & YOGENDRA YADAV

The proposal for introducing OBC reservations in elite institutions of higher and professional education –
popularly known as Mandal II – seems to be heading towards a stalemate. In this article we propose a possible solution that might take us beyond the debilitating stand-off between merit and social justice.

This is clearly an ambitious and optimistic agenda, especially since Mandal II proves that some mistakes are destined to be repeated. Once again the government appears set to do the right thing in the wrong way, without the prior preparation, careful study and opinion priming that such an important move obviously demands. It is even more shocking that students from our very best institutions are willing to re-enact the horribly inappropriate forms of protest from the original anti-Mandal agitation of 1990-91. As symbolic acts, street-sweeping or shoe-shining send the callous and arrogant message that some people – castes? – are indeed fit only for menial jobs while others are ‘naturally’ suited to respectable professions like engineering and medicine. However, the media does seem to have learnt something from its dishonourable role in Mandal I. By and large, both print and electronic media have not been incendiary in their coverage and some have even presented alternate views. Nevertheless, far too much remains unchanged across 16 years.

Perhaps the most crucial constant is the absence of a favourable climate of opinion. Outside the robust contestations of politics proper, our public life continues to be disproportionately dominated by the upper castes. It is therefore unsurprising but still a matter of concern that the dominant view denies the very validity of affirmative action. Indeed the antipathy towards reservations may have grown in recent years. The main problem is that the dominant view sees quotas and the like as benefits being handed out to particular caste groups. This leads logically to the conclusion that power-hungry politicians and vote bank politics are the root causes of this problem. But to think thus is to put the cart before the horse.

A rational and dispassionate analysis of this issue must begin with the one crucial fact that is undisputed by either side – the overwhelming dominance of the upper castes in higher and, especially, professional education. Though undisputed, this fact is not easy to establish, especially in the case of our elite institutions, which have always been adamant about refusing to reveal information on the caste composition of their students and faculty. But the more general information that is available through the National Sample Survey Organisation clearly shows the caste-patterning of educational inequality. Some of this data is shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1 shows the percentage of graduates in the population aged 20 years or above in different castes and communities in rural and urban India. Only a little more than one per cent of STs, SCs and Muslims are graduates in rural India while the figure for Hindu upper castes is four to five times higher at over five per cent. The real inequalities are in urban India where the SCs in particular but also Muslims, OBCs and STs are way behind the forward communities and castes with a quarter or more of their population being graduates. Another way of looking at it is that STs, SCs, Muslims and OBCs are always below the national average while the other communities and especially Hindu upper castes are well above this average in both rural and urban India.

Table 2 shows the share of different castes and communities in the national pool of graduates as compared to their share of the total population aged 20 years or more. In other words, the table tells us which groups have a higher than proportionate (or lower than proportionate) share of graduates. Once again, with the exception of rural Hindu OBCs and urban STs, the same groups are severely under-represented while the Hindu upper castes, Other Religions (Jains, Parsis, Buddhists, etc.) and Christians are significantly over-represented among graduates. Thus, the Hindu upper castes’ share of graduates is twice and one-and-a-half times their share in the above 20 population of rural and urban India respectively. Compare this, for example, to the urban SCs and Muslims, whose share of graduates is only 30 per cent and 39 per cent (respectively) of their share in the above 20 population. It should be emphasised that these data refer to all graduates from all kinds of institutions nationwide – if we were to look at the elite professional institutions the relative dominance of the upper castes and forward communities is likely to be much stronger, though such institutions refuse to publish the data that could prove or disprove such claims.

1: Group inequalities in higher education:

STs, SCs, Muslims and OBCs lag behind Sikhs, Christians, Upper Caste Hindus & Others far ahead

Castes/Communities                   Rural India                   Urban India

ST                                                    1.1                                10.9

SC                                                    1.2                                 4.7

Muslim                                              1.3                                 6.1

Hindu–OBC                                        2.1                                 8.6


Sikh                                                 2.8                                  25.0

Christian                                           4.7                                  23.7

Hindu–Upper Caste                            5.3                                 25.3

Other Religions                                  5.4                                 31.5

ALL INDIA AVERAGE 2.6 15.5

Cells show percentage of graduates in population aged 20 years and above. Source: Computed from NSSO 55th Round Survey, 1999-2000

2: Over- and Under-Represented Groups:

STs, SCs, Muslims & urban OBCs severely under-represented Sikhs, Christians, Hindu Upper Castes & Others over-represented

Caste and Community                       Rural India                      Urban India
Groups

ST                                                            43                                      71

SC                                                            47                                     30

Muslim                                                      52                                     39

Hindu–OBC                                                82                                     56


Sikh                                                         107                                    164

Christian                                                   200                                    154

Hindu–UC                                                 205                                     164

Other Religions                                         200                                      200

Cells show group share of all graduates as a percentage of group share of 20+ population. Numbers below 100 indicate under-representation, above 100 indicate over-representation. Source: Computed from NSSO 55th Round Survey, 1999-2000

Although it is implicitly conceded by both sides, upper caste dominance is explained in opposite ways. The upper castes claim that their preponderance is due solely to their superior merit and that there is nothing to be done about this situation since merit should indeed be the sole criterion in determining access to higher education. In fact, they may go further to assert that any attempt to change the status quo can only result in "the murder of merit". Those who are for affirmative action argue that the traditional route to caste dominance – namely, an upper caste monopoly over higher education – still remains effective despite the apparent abolition of caste. From this perspective, the status quo is an unjust one requiring state intervention on behalf of disadvantaged sections that are unable to force entry under the current rules of the game. More extreme views of this kind may go on to assert that merit is merely an upper caste conjuring trick designed to keep out the lower castes.

What is wrong with this picture? Nothing, except that it is only part of a much larger frame. For if we understand merit as sheer innate ability then it is difficult to explain why it should seem to be an upper caste monopoly. Whatever people may believe privately, it is now beyond doubt that arguments for the genetic or natural inferiority of social groups are unacceptable. If so, how is it that, roughly speaking, one quarter of our population supplies three quarters of our elite professionals? The explanation has to lie in the social mechanisms through which innate ability is translated into certifiable skill and encashable competence. This points to intended or unintended systemic exclusions in the educational system and to inequalities in the background resources that education presupposes.

It is their confidence in having monopolised the educational system and its prerequisites that sustains the upper caste demand to consider only merit and not caste. If educational opportunities were truly equalised then the upper caste share in professional education would be roughly in proportion to their population share or between one fourth and one third. This would not only be roughly one third of their present strength in higher education but also much less than the 50 per cent share they are assured of even after implementation of OBC reservations!

If the upper caste view needs an unexamined notion of merit that ignores the social mechanisms which bring it into existence, the lower caste or pro-reservation view appears to require that merit be emptied of all its content. While this is indeed true of some militant positions, the peculiar circumstances of Indian higher education also allow alternative interpretations. In a situation marked by absurd levels of "hyper-selectivity" – three lakh aspirants competing for 4,000 IIT seats, for example – merit gets reduced to rank in an examination. As educationists know only too well, the examination is a blunt instrument. It is good only for making broad distinctions in levels of ability; it cannot tell us whether a person scoring 85 per cent would definitely make a better engineer or doctor than somebody scoring 80 per cent or 75 per cent or even 70 per cent. In short, it is only a combination of social compulsion and pure myth that sustains the crazy world of cut-off points and second decimal place differences that dominate the admission season. Such fetishised notions of merit have nothing to do with any genuine differences in ability. The caste composition of higher education could well be changed without any sacrifice of merit simply by instituting a lottery among all candidates of broadly similar levels of ability – say, the top 15 or 25 per cent of a large applicant pool.

An explicit lottery would definitely improve things but the inequities of our educational system are so deeply entrenched that caste inequalities might persist despite some change. We would then be back where we started, namely with the apparent dichotomy between merit and social justice in higher education. How do we transcend this dilemma? Is there a way forward where both merit and social justice can be given their due?

Part II

The alternative proposed here is rooted in the recognition that we need to go beyond a simple-minded reduction of ‘merit’ and ‘social justice’ to singular and mutually exclusive categories. In reality, both merit and social justice are multi-dimensional and the pursuit of one does not require us to abandon the other. The proposal seeks to identify the viable common ground that permits simultaneous commitment to both social justice and excellence. It seeks to operationalise a policy that is morally justified, intellectually sound, politically defensible and administratively viable.

Let us first mention the basic principles that underlie this proposal before getting into operational details. First of all, this proposal is based on a firm commitment to policies of affirmative action flowing both from the constitutional obligation to realise social justice and also from the overall success of the experience of reservations in the last 50 years. Secondly, we recognise the moral imperative to extend affirmative action to educational opportunities, for a lack of these opportunities result in the inter-generational reproduction of inequalities and severely restrict the positive effects of job reservations. Thirdly, it needs to be remembered that the end of affirmative action can be served by various means including reservation. The state’s basic commitment is to the end, not any particular means. Finally, flowing from the experience of reservations for SEBCs, we need to recognise that there are multiple, cross-cutting and overlapping sources of inequality of educational opportunities, all of which need redressal. This is what our proposal seeks to do.

The proposal involves computing scores for ‘academic merit’ and for ‘social disadvantage’ and then combining the two for admission to higher educational institutions. Since the academic evaluation is less controversial, we concentrate here on the evaluation of comparative social disadvantage. We suggest that the social disadvantage score should be divided into group and individual components. For the group component, we consider disadvantages based on caste and community, gender and region. These scores need not be decided arbitrarily or merely on the basis of impressions. We suggest that these disadvantages should be calibrated on the basis of available statistics on representation in higher education of different castes/communities and regions, each of these being considered separately for males and females. The required data could come from the National Sample Survey or other available sources. It would be best, of course, if a special national survey were commissioned for this purpose.

Besides group disadvantages, this scheme also takes individual disadvantages into consideration. While a large number of factors determine individual disadvantages (family history, generational depth of literacy, sibling education, economic resources, etc.), we believe that there are two robust indicators of individual disadvantages that can be operationally used in the system of admission to public institutions: parental occupation and the type of school where a person passed the high school examination. These two variables allow us to capture the effect of most of the individual disadvantages, including the family’s educational history and economic circumstances.

In the following tables we illustrate how this scheme could be operationalised. It needs to be underlined that the weightages proposed here are tentative, based on our limited information, and meant only to illustrate the scheme. The exact weights could be decided after examining more evidence. We suggest that weightage for academic merit and social disadvantages be distributed in the ratio of 80:20. The academic score could be converted to a standardised score on a scale of 0=80 while the social disadvantage score would range from 0 to a maximum of 20.

Awarding social disadvantage points

Table A shows how the group disadvantage points can be awarded. There are three axes of group disadvantage considered here: the relative backwardness of the region one comes from; one’s caste and community (only non-SC-ST groups are considered here); and one’s gender. The Zones in the top row refer to a classification of regions – this can be at state or even sub-state region level – based on indicators of backwardness that are commonly used and which can be agreed upon. Thus Zone I is the most backward region while Zone IV is the most developed region. The disadvantage points would thus decrease from left to right for each caste group and gender. The castes and communities identified here are clubbed according to broadly similar levels of poverty and education indicators (once again, the details of this can be agreed upon). The Lower OBCs and Most Backward Castes along with OBC Muslims are considered most disadvantaged or least-represented among the educated, affluent, etc. while upper caste Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis, etc. are considered to be the most ‘forward’ communities. Disadvantage points thus decrease from top to bottom. Gender is built into this matrix, with women being given disadvantage points depending on their other attributes i.e. caste and region. Thus the hypothetical numbers in this table indicate different degrees of relative disadvantage based on all three criteria and most importantly, also on the interaction effects among the three. Thus, a woman from the most backward region who belongs to the lower OBC, MBC or Muslim OBC groups gets the maximum score of 12 while a male from the forward communities from the most developed region gets no disadvantage points at all.

Tables B and C work in a similar manner for determining individual disadvantage. For these tables, all group variables are excluded. Table B looks at the type of school the person passed his/her secondary examination from and the size of the village, town or city where this school was located. Anyone going to an ordinary government school in a village or small town gets the maximum of five points in this matrix. The gradation of schools is done according to observed quality of education and implied family resources, and this could also be refined. A student from an exclusive English medium public school in a large metro gets no disadvantage points.

Table C looks at parental occupation as a proxy for family resources (i.e. income, wealth, etc., which are notoriously difficult to ascertain directly). Since this variable is vulnerable to falsification and would need some efforts at verification, we have limited the maximum points awarded here to three. Children of parents who are outside the organised sector and do not pay income tax get the maximum points; the occupation of both parents is considered. Those with either parent in Class I or II jobs of the government or in managerial or professional jobs get no points at all. Intermediate jobs in the organised sector, including Class III and IV jobs in the government, are reckoned to be better placed than those in the unorganised, low-pay sector.

Combining the scores in the three matrices will give the total disadvantage score which can then be added to the standardised academic merit score to give each candidate’s final score. Admissions for all non-SC-ST candidates i.e. for 77.5 per cent of all seats can then be based on this total score.

Differences and advantages

While our proposal shares with the proposal mooted by the ministry of HRD the commitment to affirmative action and the desire to extend it to educational opportunities, the scheme we propose differs from the ministry’s proposal in many ways. The ministry’s proposal seeks to create a bloc of ‘reserved’ seats. Our proposal applies to all the seats not covered by the existing reservation for the SC/ST and other categories. The MHRD proposal recognises only group disadvantages and uses caste as the sole criterion of group disadvantage in educational inequalities. We too acknowledge the significance of group disadvantages and that of caste as the single most important predictor of educational inequalities. But our scheme seeks to fine-tune the identification by recognising other group disadvantages like region and gender. Moreover, our scheme is also able to address the interaction effects between different axes of disadvantage (such as region, caste and gender or type of school and type of location, etc.). While recognising group disadvantages, our scheme provides some weightage to individual disadvantages relating to family background and type of schooling. Our scheme also recognises that people of all castes may suffer from individual disadvantages and offers redressal for such disadvantages to the upper castes as well. While the MHRD proposal is based on an all-or-nothing approach to recognising disadvantages (either you are an OBC or you are not), our proposal allows for flexibility in dealing with variations in degrees of disadvantage.

The scheme we propose here is a modified version of one that was designed for the selection process of a well known international fellowship programme for higher education where it was successful for some years. Thousands of applications have already been screened using this scheme. The working of this scheme does not seem to offer any insurmountable operational difficulties despite the vast expansion in scale that some contexts might involve.

In the final analysis, the most critical advantage of a scheme such as the one we are proposing is that it helps to push thinking on academic merit and especially social justice along constructive and rational lines. One of the inescapable dilemmas of caste-based affirmative action policies is that they cannot help intensifying caste identities. The debate then gets vitiated because it concentrates on the identities rather than on the valid social reasons why those identities are used as indicators of disadvantage. Our scheme clearly links caste identities to measurable empirical indicators of disadvantage. It thus helps to de-essentialise caste and to focus attention on the relative progress made by these communities. It also offers the chance of calibrating policies according to changing relative positions of different groups. It reminds us, in short, that caste matters not because it is caste but because it is an important indicator of material disadvantage in our unequal and unjust society.

(Satish Deshpande is professor of Sociology at Delhi University; Yogendra Yadav is senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.)


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