The muddy waters of the public debate in favor of Caste and now maybe even Religion based Reservations have been given a new albeit intellectually respectable twist, namely Affirmative Action, a phrase lock, stock and barrell borrowed from the USA and applied completely in the wrong context.
The language in recent days has changed from Reservations to Affirmative Action, and it is important to clearly understand what Affirmative Action stands for and why it is not the same as Reservations and why this misplaced analogy is further muddying the debate while attempting to elevate it and not really helping.
What is Affirmative Action in the USA?
Affirmative Actions are actions taken to attain diversity whether in employment or in educational institution to overcome the effects of past discrimination by taking into account race and national origin and determining if such actions are necessary to overcome the effects of past discrimination.
How Affirmative Action been implemented in the USA – same source as above ?
Important to note that there is no statutory obligation on Employers or Educational Institutions to adopt Affirmative Action and the laws permit them to take Voluntary Measures. So the philosophy is not one of entitlement but one where it recognizes these actions as a deviation, an exception from the norm as they would be in violation of equal opportunity clauses and hence the language that says “permit voluntary”
Additionally the Government in its contracts to Private Entities requires “good faith“ commitments from those Private entities to hiring goals of minorities and women in their organization.
What has been the debate about Affirmative Action in the USA been like – same source as above ?
The debate in the USA has not been so much so about more Affirmative Action but in justifying that Affirmative Action was indeed required in cases where it was being applied. The courts have required proof of Remedial Justification i.e. why is this remedy required and that proof was to be made on the basis of the fact that an imbalance or under-representation exists, and that exists because of previous conditions of discrimination that limit current participation, and that these actions have not adversely affected the non-minority groups.
So it is important to recognize that in each case the Courts require you to show first that there is an imbalance, second to prove that the imbalance exists because past discrimination has led to factors that limit current participation and thirdly and more importantly the actions taken are not adversely affecting the others
So it is clear as black and white that Reservations in India are not the same as Affirmative Action in the USA. The attempts by a new class of social scientist to elevate the debate around Reservations by holding them on the same plane as Affirmative Action is not just blatantly wrong but Intellectual Dishonesty.
Dr. Yogendra Yadav who in recent times has emerged as leading Television and Media Social Scientist has published a 2 part proposal in The Hindu on a new formula for Reservations and in an open letter challenged Pratap Bhanu Mehta for his resignation from the Knowledge Commission. Offstumped will not get into all the details of the proposal, one can read them in The Hindu at http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/23/stories/2006052305841100.htm
Offstumped is highlighting a few flaws in Dr. Yadav’s hypothesis and proposal:
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.
Offstumped Comment: Dr. Yadav’s hypothesis begins with the cardinal mistake of equating Reservations with Affirmative Action. It also goes beyond that with a sweeping assertion about public life being dominated by upper castes outside of politics. So if we were to apply the general principles laid down previously on what is and what is not Affirmative Action, then this hypothesis fails because past discrimination does not limit current participation. There is nothing preventing anybody in India today from becoming a Doctor or an Engineer except of course competition and financial aid. Neither of which are part of his hypothesis
the overwhelming dominance of upper castes in higher and especially professional education. Although 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.
Offstumped Comment: This is where Dr. Yadav’s case is on weak grounds because it assumes that Caste Diversity is an important social objective drawing on the wrong analogy with Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is about correcting discrimination based on visibile identities. Race, Sex are visible identities. If one were to be unaware of X or Y caste and one were to continue employ or evaluate to admit based on performance, the fact that X or Y was previously discriminated based on caste is irrelevant because that has not limited X or Y from participating currently to be considered for the job or seat, and going by X or Ys identity it is impossible to tell which caste X or Y belongs hence there is no likelihood of Discrimination or Denial of Opportunity. So in effect Caste Identity for admission or Caste Diversity post admission is irrelevant.
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.
Offstumped Comment: Dr. Yadav’s case for Reservations hinges on the above premise that fault lies with social mechanisms by which merit in backward castes is not getting translated into tangible benefits either in terms of skills for jobs or competence for entry into IITs and IIMs. This is an important point to note because this is the foundation of his entire case. And he makes it by point to systemic exclusions and inequalities in background resources. Now once again note in the case of Affirmative Action the case had to be made that these imbalances or limitations exist because of Past Discrimination. Let us see if Dr. Yadav’s hypothesis holds upto that test.
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, the upper castes’ share in professional education would be roughly in proportion to their population share, that is, between one fourth and one third. This would not only be roughly one third of their present strength in higher education; it would also be much less than the 50 per cent share they are assured of even after implementation of OBC reservations!
Offstumped Comment: A completely irrelavant point by Dr. Yadav that goes contrary to his initial hypothesis. He has pretty much reduced a seat in a Higher Education Institution to entitlement by talking about a share of the spoils. How is this Affirmative Action ? In Affirmative Action the entire philosophy is anti-entitlement, where in you have to go out of your way to make the case that this is not entitlement and nobody has been adversely affected.
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.
Offstumped Comment: We agree and hence the irrelevance of this debate about IITs and IIMs. Anybody from any remote college in India can be as competent so why bother with IIts and IIMs they are irrelevant. Dr. Yadav is further fuelling the notion of Elitism by focusing his debate entirely around elite insitutions where in IIT and IIM are the Brahmins amongst the educational institutions and it is important that everyone get to go to the Brahmin school. Kind of runs contrary to the whole spirit behind this debate, which is these distinctions are irrelevant.
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
Offstumped Comment: Dr. Yadav goes back to Caste Composition and how it should be changed to ensure Diversity. Notice above underlined comment where we said Dr. Yadav’s case hinges on a premise, well we have reached the bottom of the first part of his proposal and he has forgotten the premise we started with. He has now jumped back to how to change the caste composition. Whatever happened to systemic exclusions and lack of background resources, he has not addressed it, let us see if he gets to it further down in his proposal.
Dr. Yadav Lays out his proposal
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.
Offstumped Comment: Remember Affirmative Action above was not based on any Stautory Obligation, so once again the reference to affirmative action is misplaced and wrong.
we recognise the moral imperative to extend affirmative action to educational opportunities, for a lack of these opportunities results in the inter-generational reproduction of inequalities and severely restricts the positive effects of job reservations
Offstumped Comment: Again as in Affirmative Action, you have to make the case that past discrimination is limiting current participation and not lack of past opportunities limiting current pariticipation. So once again this is not Affirmative Action and if were to continue to base the proposal on the lack of opportunities in a previous generation then this is a never-ending cycle because there will always be inequities in society which will limit opportunities.
The proposal involves computing scores for `academic merit’ and for `social disadvantage’ and then combining the two for admission to higher educational institutions.
Offstumped Comment: So now we get to the crux of his proposal which hinges on computing Social Disadvantage and making that the basis for admission. Once again this is not Affirmative Action unless it can be shown that such a metric will not further Disadvantage others. So let us see how he proposes to compute this metric.
suggest that the social disadvantage score should be divided into its group and individual components
suggest that these disadvantages should be calibrated on the basis of available statistics on representation in higher education of different castes/communities and regions
two robust indicators of individual disadvantage 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.
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.
Offstumped: It is important to go back and see how this squares with Dr. Yadav’s original premise. So how does this indicator determine if Systemic Exclusions have disadvantaged an individual. It doesnt all it does is look at how many of the same caste or community are present in these institutions and then concludes if this individual was disadvantaged or not by the system based on that. On the second question of inequity of background resources, again it draws a conclusion based on parental occupation alone and type of school and completely ignores wealth or access to wealth. How can this be a measure of disadvantage resulting from inequity of background resources. In this scheme a rich Unemployed Parent is more disadvantaged than a Poor Professor in a Government College. Dr. Yadav acknowledges this and tries to correct it by lowe weight to this and more weight to type of school. Again type of school can be misleading as well to indicate social disadvantage because it ignores Individual Choice, for there could be families which by choice send their children to a certain kind of school irrespective of social background.
In either case this formulation is not Affirmative Action because it does not go to prove that the disadvantage is a result of Past Discrimination and not a result of other circumstances or Individual Choice.
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.
Offstumped: This is where this whole premise is flawed. It is not Affirmative Action, it is purely about preserving a defunct stone age identity and then attempting to ensure diversity in representation of that Identity in every Institution, Profession etc…. and then using Diversity as the measure of Progress. This is the fundamental flaw behind this whole argument.
What is Progress ? Progress is every Individual irrespective of his Community having equal Access to Opportunities and Equal Access to Enablers to Compete Effectively for these Opportunities and Overall Able to Enjoy a Standard of Living that is Satisfactory to his/her life.
Affirmative Action is about actions to help overcome the limitations of past discrimination to provide such equal access to opportunities.
Caste based Reservation or the formulation by Dr. Yadav are not Affirmative Action as they are not about equal access to opportunities but they are about ensuring equal participation in opportunities. They are about the State Actively trying to Preserve a Certain Kind of Identity and then about Forcibly Ensuring that each such Identity is Proportionately Represented Everywhere.
WHAT DOES THIS REMIND YOU OF – MARXISM, COMMUNISM ?
It reminds us, in short, that caste or community matter not in themselves, but because they continue to be important indicators of tangible disadvantages in our unequal and unjust society.
WHAT ABOUT INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM, WHAT ABOUT CHOICE ?
THEY ARE COMPLETELY IGNORED IN THIS FORMULATION BECAUSE THE STATE IS WORKING OVERTIME AGAINST CHOICE TO NORMALIZE OUTCOME, SO IF A CERTAIN COMMUNITY BELIEVES TODDY TAPPING IS UNETHICAL, AND DECIDES NOT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH STATE SPONSORED TODDY TAPPING, THE STATE WILL GO OUT OF ITS WAY TO DISADVANTAGE THOSE GENUINELY MOTIVATED TOWARDS TODDY TAPPING IN FAVOR OF THOSE WHO DONT WANT TO DO IT, BY BOOSTING THEIR SOCIAL DISADVANTAGE INDICATORS.
WHERE IS THE CASE BEING MADE HERE THAT THE COMMUNITY NOT INTERESTED IN TODDY TAPPING IS UNDER-REPRESENTED NOT BECAUSE OF PAST DISCRIMINATION BUT BECAUSE OF A DISINCLINATION FOR TODDY TAPPING. WHERE IS THE CASE ALSO BEING MADE THAT BY DOING THIS THOSE GENUINELY INTERESTED IN TODDY TAPPING ARE NOT BEING DISADVANTAGED AT THE EXPENSE OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Offstumped Bottomline: What is being passed of Affirmative Action is not Affirmative Action. It is State Sponsored Normalization of Outcome, which is no different from what the USSR AND CHINA for a long time attempted to be.
WHAT KIND OF STATE DO WE WANT. One which is proactively working to preserve divisive identities and then forcibly ensure that those identities are present everywhere proportionately
OR
ONE WHICH PROMOTES INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM, MAXIMIZES CHOICE THROUGH EQUAL ACCESS TO OPPORTUNITIES AND EQUAL ACCESS TO ENABLERS TO COMPETE EFFECTIVELY FOR THOSE OPPORTUNITIES.
Filed under: Uncategorized
America has really lost it sense of law.
The many many couirt ruling show this to be true.
Today our court room have become full of Judges who think they have the legal right to
make law.What we have today is judges full of pride and quest for power,they think their words are mightier then the pen of our founding fathers.
lawsuits
[...] the question Offstumped is posing to Yogendra Yadav, who famously proposed a Social Disadvantage Index, [...]
[...] the question Offstumped is posing to Yogendra Yadav, who famously proposed a Social Disadvantage Index, [...]