Some thoughts on the Quota Issue

A lot of us are probably aware of the demographic dividend of India. India has 60% of its population under the age of 25. India's population is going to grow till 2040-45 around which time it will stabilise at 1.3 billion mark and start declining. Till this period we will have the largest number of people in 'working/ employable' age group of 20-60. After this period, the ratio of elderly people will start increasing. There are important ramifications of the above statistics.

Around 2020-2030, we will have over 400 million people in 'prime working age'. If we do not provide these many job opportunities we will have a huge group of unemployed youth and that is not good news. There will be social unrest. Imagine, say, 2 million unemployed youth in one city like Bombay. The kind of social tension that would create could be and would be detrimental to society in particular and the nation at large. We truly truly need to make these 400 million people employable. Today number of people in this country with a college degree is less that 5% and with the current(and planned) capacity it is not going to jump to double digits by 2025. Also, post 2043, increasing number of people will be dependent on the state for money from pension (post retirement) So if we do not create the corpus(which would need 400 million odd contributing to pension funds), the state could suffer financially as suddenly one would have increasing number of people dependent on social security and withdrawing their savings.

China had its demographic divident from 1980 and it is going to last till 2025. For India, its 2002- 2043. China is making the best possible use of its demographic dividend. The political leaders (I call them Political leaders and not leaders!) in India have recognised that we need to do it now and it is literally NOW OR NEVER.

Is quota the right way of doing it? I dont know. Somehow in the quota issue I feel that we are thinking like George W Bush. 'Either you are with us or you are against us'. There is no room for an intellectual debate any more. People are emotional. Not willing to listen to rational reasoning and give rational responses to them.

If someone raises a question which might be or sound to be pro reservation then he becomes 'oh! you are one of them!'. The same is true for the reverse case too. In this entire battle of us vs them, what we are losing out is an excellent opportunity to put all the problems pertaining to education (infrastructure and access among others) on the table, have a healthy and fruitful discussion and then take decisions on the same. We are losing a chance which allows us to take corrective action and change the things that have not worked in the past to better the chances for successes in the future. It is here that we need leaders and intellectuals to step in, take charge and show direction. It is here that we need leaders and statesmen who would rise about vote bank politics and jingoistic talk to do what is right.

Right now, I am neither for reservation, nor against it. I simply do not know if this is the best way. The anti reservation camp is going to fight with me and tell me that reservation is going to kill meritocracy and hence efficiency and hence our chance to progress as a nation. (Or something to this effect, if not this drastic!). While the pro reservation is going to tell me, that 15% of the upper segment of the society does not need to have 75 % of the seats. (Numbers are only suggestive) Leave some more for us. Give us access to opportunities and help the nation by helping us.

And right now, I agree to both the arguements and each has its merit (and demerits). My only submission to all is that lets create a system which looks into the future and tries to bring out solution. There are a few options which I can think of like industry partnership to create employable candidates, heavy focus on vocational training and creating vocational courses among others. The solution could lie somewhere among such ideas, or it may lie in quota or it may lie somewhere in between quota and these ideas. But hey, if we do not think, how will we know.

May be I am being wishful, may be I am being impractical and utopian. May be, I am hoping against hope itself. But then again, may be, just may be, we will do the right thing.

ps: But let me make my stance clear. I am totally against quota being implemented in the current manner. OBCs by definition are other backward communities and not other backward castes. I don't know if too many people are aware, that, OBC definition was brought in to remove the caste picture and define backwardness as a combination of caste, economic factors among others. However undue weightage was given to caste in that definition by certain elements who looked for short term political and vote bank gains. As Supreme court noted, that in 1931 when caste based census was conducted , many castes refused to be counted as backward and fought against that terminology. Today however, people fight to get a backward status. Strange are the ways of men! :(

*Lucky is disgusted with the system. He is despondent and is getting more and more cynical. But he hasn't lost hope or the will to fight for what he feels right*