From: ngrjn@milton.u.washington.edu (V Nagarajan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil
Subject: Re: Reservations: Caste, Gender and Money
Date: 20 Aug 92 02:30:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug20.023025.22709
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <2A92EAAE.20972@orion.oac.uci.edu> sundar@indigo1.hsis.uci.edu (M. Sundaramoorthy) writes:
>
>(1). RESERVATION FOR WOMEN:
>
>One of the first thing the DMK goverment did after winning elections in 1988
>was announcing 30% reservation for women. It was one of the promises in DMK's
>election manifesto. There was no criticism from the press and there was no
>agitation by students or menfolks. 
...
	Even tho you say at the end of the article that this is your `final
	word', I hope you will clarify some of the points you have made.
	For instance, is it 30% out of the overall number of seats or out
	of the "open" quota"? Is it still in effect? I can imagine why
	there would not have been much of an uproar - not many would have
	taken it seriously as women have to be allowed to go in for higher
	education in the first place. 


>
>Both gender and caste based discrimination has been in existence in our long
>history. Both should be eliminated by some means and reservation is considered 
>to be one of those. 

	I agree.

>
>(II). MANAGEMENT QUOTA 
>

	My arguments are theoretical, that is, they don't take into account
	the pervasive corruption in and politicization of our educational
	institutions. 
	Private colleges cater to the demands that cannot be met by state-owned
	colleges alone. So private colleges ought to be allowed to exist.
	There is a limit to how much control the government can exercise
	over these. While the government may strengthen the accreditation
	requirements, it cannot decide who can or cannot be admitted. There
	is a world of difference between private ownership and public
	ownership and our laws dictate how far the government can go in
	controlling private enterprise. (You made a similar erroneous
	comparison between temple affairs - an essentially nongovernmental
	concern - and village administration) The qualilty of a majority
	of colleges in Tamil Nadu (both private and public) is rather poor.
	The state colleges suffer from university level (party, caste)
	politics and the private (especially professional) colleges are 
	run with profit motives. Quotas in private colleges one can do
	nothing about.

....
>A student who got in the college through caste reservation can also get a job 
>by the same system. Similarly, a student who got in college with money can 
>also get a job with money.

	This is a good point. I have made essentially the same point before,
	on SCI - that caste-based reservations are a surrogate to influence-
	based reservations. But we are both operating under the same assumption,
	namely, that caste backwardness and influence (money, power) are
	mutually exclusive or that their overlap is minimal. Moreover almost 
	every caste (with the exception of dalits) has an association that 
	operates colleges to look after the interests of its community. 
	Therefore, some of our assumptions are quite shaky.
	
>While there are many other castes than brahmin, like veLLaaLar, chettiyaar (of
>all kinds), reddy, kamma, balija, christians etc. the opposition is mostly from
>brahmins.

	It probably has to do with which group was affected the most. I think
	you can guess the answer.

>A netter asked that unreserved seats should be reserved for the forward castes.
>What Periyar proposed in 'Kanchipuram Congress Conference' was a similar one:
>He called it 'vaguppuvaari pirathinithiththuvam'. That means each caste will
>be given representation according to the proportion of their strength. In such
>a situation, brahmins who are 3% in population will get 3% reservation. Will
>brahmins be happy with en exclusive 3% reservation for them?.
>
>I don't think they would. They want the reservations be totally abolished, 
>rather than having reservation for themselves. If it happens, the pattern will
>change to that exist in central government offices and institutions. 

	I would like to know what you think. Should there also be equal
	distribution of wealth? Pool what everyone owns and divide up the
	pot equally? Should there be caste and then jati-based reservation for
	every profession that falls under the government control? Propor-
	tional representation in politics and government? If not, why not?
	I truly think that the dalits will never become powerful. Again,
	the reasons are not difficult to guess.
 
>
>In central jobs, it is not just the merit that works, but also nepotism and 
>favouritism. Even the 'reserved' positions are eventually dereserved to be 
>filled with candidates of their choise. There is a loophole: if no 'suitable 
>candidate' is available for the postion in first three calls, fourth call will 
>include a line, 'general candidates can also apply'. Deciding the suitability 
>of the candidates is in the hands of those in high positions. Guess who?. Of 
>course, there will be a government representative, from Harijan wefare dept 
>(I am not sure about the exact name), who will be 'properly treated' to nod 
>his head for whatever decision the interview committee makes. This practice 
>is common in central institutions.

	I agree with this scenario except you have left out juicy part
	for us to guess. Every community is looking out for itself. Don't
	go as far as the Central government. It would be quite instructive
	to trace the caste dynamics of the various departments in Madras
	University. How different castes come to control different depart-
	ments at different times and how the caste complexion of the university
	Senate keeps changing. The relationship between the Senate and the
	VC is a symbiotic one and caste calculations play a large role in
	all this.
...
>To make the system fair and effective:
....
>	(2). There should be statistical survey periodically to decide how much
>	'backward' people became 'forward' and a corresponding  proportion of 
>	should be dereserved.

	There should also be a proper definition of who is backward. The
	OBC list has a quirky history with caste names added by the British
	in a very arbitrary manner (reference on request). Communities that
	once declared themselves to be "superior" and forward by sanskritizing
	and/or rewriting their history, now clamor to be included in the 
	OBC list. 

							- Nagarajan
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil