Oppression for a class of communities is real in India as well as in other places. But job reservation is not the solution because that affects the organization efficiency and bring down the morale of other employees as is happening in India. In my view it is the education that can bring them up as we have seen many in India. Provide better educational opportunities for them. Don’t isolate them and bring them into the mainstream slowly.

"Occult" castes may be found everywhere. For example, even in Italy it is more easy to work in University for the son of a full Professor or in a Bank for the son of a Bank Director. "All the world is a village", we say in Italy. However, I cannot give a strong support to your question, dear Debi, because I do not know the Indian social network and can image that it is very complex to understand for us.

I have heard of the caste system in India but do not feel I know enough to comment on whether it would be fair to reserve places for lower caste people.

There is alwasy debate on whether there should be positive discrimination. Some places are reserved for minority ethnic groups, weman, disabled people, etc. , in the UK.

There is now an unhealthy opposite tendencyin the UK --- the son of a professor will not get a place of a good university in favour of the son of an office worker if they have the same scores or the former has slightly better scores. I know applicants to Oxbridge hide the fact that their parents are Oxbridge graduates for fear of discrimination. One good university poublically declares that they favour local applicants and applicants from so-called disadvantaged faminlies.

We have a roughly analogous situation in the United States called "Affirmative Action."

The black and Hispanic minorities in some States receive a certain numerical advantage in admissions to universities as students and/or as faculty. The stated reason for such a policy is to "diversify" student body or faculty. Within the last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of individual States to abolish "Affirmative Action" in public universities of particular States. This means that the Court recognizes changing attitudes of U.S. citizens towards "Affirmative Action." While supporting "Affirmative Action" in principle, I also favor citizens' rights to modify it when the citizens find it no longer necessary or feasible in their particular geographic areas. Circumstances change, and I dare say that this change happens more often in the U.S. than in India.

It is called 'positive action' in the UK. It does not always have a positive effect and it is not equality.

Let me narrate an observation that I have seen. I had a senior colleague to me in IIT Delhi. He is from the reservation category and has utilized it for his education and got the best out of it. He joined IIT Delhi purely on his merit (since at that time we have no reservations in faculty), grew up and reached highest position and held a number of administrative position. But at his heart he is a pure academician and he remained. Also he made sure that his sons never utilized any reservations in education and competed in the normal market and went into private industries. They are all doing well and hopefully their progeny will continue that tradition. All this thanks to the best education he could receive.

Nageswara, your colleague is the exception, not the rule. If only there were more academicians like him!

Thanks Nelson. I know. I have other cases in the same place who were exploiting the system with these reservations. This is a Google site created by his former student for him.

https://sites.google.com/site/electricroadvehicles/home/inventor---prof-r-arockiasamy

It may be described as an affirmative step, undoing atrocities and discrimination in the past. In professional services where life is at stake, where security of the nation is at risk and where future of the nation (education) is at stake, in all these sectors merit and brilliant person are required. I am no against quota system in any sector, but in sectors I enumerated above only and only criterion should be merit, nothing else.

Dear Debi,

An attempt through certain examples is made below to answer your question:

The Census of India records indicate that the population of Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) have more or less remained constantly at 15-16 and 7-8% of the population respectively at any time during the period 1947-2011. We are aware that the Govt of India has a policy of 15 and 7.5% reservation in all government vacancies for SC and ST respectively. There cannot be better parity accorded to 'oppressed' populations anywhere else in the world, at least as a policy. Now, we will see ground reality.

In 2011, in answer to a question in parliament, the Minister concerned replied that even in Civil Services, they have never had the required number of officers from reserved categories filling the posts of Directors and above. This is after decades of reservation in educational institutions which even a casual inquiry in the neighbourhood will confirm. Millions of rupees are given as fee waivers for school and college education to the students of oppressed classes. As against candidates with higher marks, candidates belonging to the oppressed communities with lower marks get admissions and jobs. In a country with the largest employable youth force in the world, yet, the government is unable to fill vacancies of the reserved categories in its departments. This paradox has a paradoxical answer.

The enthusiasm to promote social justice without two fundamental requirements - Accessibility to quality education and quality in education - actually has resulted in this paradox.

Personally, I support reservation but will not vote for it when it is applied for admissions to higher education or jobs or promotions within an organisation. When we compromise quality in these issues, we actually fail the cause of social justice.

have a great day!

Dear Srinivasan

I was wondering how you are a supporter of reservation, as you say, without proving for it in jobs and education. I am personally of the view that one needs to be a dalit her/himself so as to understand their agony. I a from a Delhi village, and i know how they are treated even today. i just wonder what must be the scenario in the hinterland.

I was invited in 1999 to speak on "Law and Social Development in India," to a Parliamentary Committee of Mexico. There, i said in my address was: "I am proud to be an Indian as it the largest democracy in the world; but i am ashamed of being an Indian because the Indian society divides itself into castes. There are some who are untouchable by birth."

My younger son asked me one day: "Baba, we have an SC teacher; he does not know anything at all, nor does he know how to teach. How could he enter University of Delhi? What do you think about this reservation system?" I told him that you have oppressed them for thousands of years; you have treated them worse than animals; at least you touch your animals. Now you pay the price.

I believe that so long you do not uplift them economically, their social stigma will not go. I do not accept the efficiency argument in matters of reservation for at least the SC/STs. We will never be able to do anything for them if we do like that.

I think Nelson has a point. There are some exceptions; which do not prove the point. Affirmative action is provided even in USA.

I wish to thank you all for putting your point of views very frankly. Well, there are both sides to the argument. of course, we must respect dignity of discourse.

My point in asking this question was not just in relation to India. But other countries also provide for it in a different way, It would have been far better if we had heard how this issue is looked at in those societies.

This a very contentious issue. Either side of view has strong rationals. As long as a large numebr of people percieve social injustice, there would be no peace and in time there would social unrest, whcih could be much more costly than practice inclined in favour of a group of people.

Huajiang, you have said it so beautifully. If a large part of your population is treated in such manner, one can never expect lasting peace. I am glad that Indian constitution makers woke up early enough to foresee that. We do have strong laws in India--both for affirmative action as well as severe punishment for those who practice or provoke untouchability. But law is just one of the instruments of change, by itself it is poor instrument of change. It can definitely spread awareness among masses. We need people's mindset to change.

I support the law in such cases. However, the recruited individuals should have equal qualifications to their competitors.

@Prof Debi, I do support teaching/research job reservation in universities through law for oppressed communities. But despite such laws there's still so much brain drain. Without these laws in India, what can you predict concerning brain drain?

I completely support whar Miranda has said. I support teaching or researching job reservation in universities through law for oppressed communities

Dear Debi

Perhaps in the case of India this reservation may apply. In Brazil there is a reservation of places at universities for african descendants. Personally I do not agree with these reservations because each citizen has to seek its realization, regardless of the financial class. Indirectly the government is penalizing everyone else to create reserves

Dear Debi, the situation in India is extremely complicated, by some excluding and somewhat oppressive caste system. Therefore, I think that access to any education for excluded groups and reservation of employment positions or places for them at the universities is very slow but most reasonable and humanitarian way to change the situation of marginalized people in India.

Yes, as you said, it's very long process. I'm thinking also of those untouchables, most stigmatized too, and of their complicated lives. I can not even imagine the burden of social stigma, which they experience.

Dear Debi, I'm all for access to education for marginalized, for different reasons, groups of people.

My feeling is that any kind of job reservation discriminates, regardless of the cause.

People should be given the opportunity to better themselves, on equal basis, through education and skills development. People have the way to rise above their circumstance, get off their backside and work themselves to the top.

Like Alexandre mentioned above, inequality persists rather than disappear. A good example is the inequality in South Africa after 20 years of democracy. The racially based quotas for universities, employment, government contracts etc., guised as affirmative action, employment equity and black economic empowerment only worsened inequality (in my humble opinion) - except for the politically connected, of course.

I agree with Abdalla "Justice has to be applied retrospectively" but for a period. Some people were robbed of freedom and enslaved. They are not on an equal footing as otehr people.

As for "employment equity and black economic empowerment only worsened inequality (in my humble opinion) - except for the politically connected" pointed out by David, it is a sad fact. But that is due to corrption and poor governance.

hi

this could lead to  repression of the disenfranchised, disempowerment of the disadvantaged, the suppression of the marginalized , against the tenets of fairness in education. critical pedagogy offers some insight.

also see attached please.