Mandal Questions That Merit Answers
Jayati Ghosh, the omnipresent apologist of the quota regime, raised a few interesting questions last night, in a verbal slugfest on CNN-IBN, hosted by the Badshah of Big Fights - Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai.
The telegenic professor from JNU chose to pose her searching queries to two hapless doctors who clearly knew more malaria than mandal. Being unequal combatants, these two medicos parried the issue with some deft tap dancing. Thankfully, Rajdeep ended their agony quickly by wrapping up the program, rather curtly.
Why I am recounting this here is, knowing the mandal lobby, they’ll parrot these questions again and again at all available fora in the near future. As the de facto assistant associate sub-spokesperson of the pro-merit group, I thought I should nip these arguments in the bud, before they can cause any further damage.
Argument-1: Tamil Nadu has had a 69% quota regime for years. How come there’s been no of whimper of protest there? How come people have accepted it?
Well, what do you do when all the political parties gang up against you and pass a law that makes a mockery of meritocracy? You approach the courts. What do you do when the court verdict is treated with contempt by the same political parties? You realise protesting is futile and you focus on joining institutions that give you an equal chance. That’s what happened in Tamil Nadu. The so-called Forward Castes stopped applying to government colleges and started getting into self-financed colleges and meritorious institutions like the IITs, IIMs, AIIMs, NIFT, etc. So it was more a case of resigned acceptance. The moment you extend this quota regime to self-financed colleges and premier institutions, you break the last straw of hope for the remaining 31% of Tamil Nadu.
Argument-2: To say that the quota regime produces mediocrity is ridiculous. Look at South India where mandal is in operation. It has some of the finest hospitals and doctors in India.
Oh yeah? That’s like the rooster taking credit for the dawn. Nothing could be farther from the truth. South India has a very fine medical reputation only because of its private hospitals. None of these hospitals hire doctors using the quota principle. On the contrary, they go purely by merit. I wonder if that’s the reason why people who mouth such arguments choose private hospitals over the mandalised government hospitals.
Argument-3: What makes you think that the OBC students are of inferior quality? How dare you assume that they can’t cope with courses in premier institutions?
Who said the OBCs are inferior? Research shows that they fare quite well in entrance examinations. So now that we have conclusive evidence that they are as good as the Forward Castes why not choose students by merit? Why give more weightage to birth certificates? Why not let the examination certificates do the talking?
The telegenic professor from JNU chose to pose her searching queries to two hapless doctors who clearly knew more malaria than mandal. Being unequal combatants, these two medicos parried the issue with some deft tap dancing. Thankfully, Rajdeep ended their agony quickly by wrapping up the program, rather curtly.
Why I am recounting this here is, knowing the mandal lobby, they’ll parrot these questions again and again at all available fora in the near future. As the de facto assistant associate sub-spokesperson of the pro-merit group, I thought I should nip these arguments in the bud, before they can cause any further damage.
Argument-1: Tamil Nadu has had a 69% quota regime for years. How come there’s been no of whimper of protest there? How come people have accepted it?
Well, what do you do when all the political parties gang up against you and pass a law that makes a mockery of meritocracy? You approach the courts. What do you do when the court verdict is treated with contempt by the same political parties? You realise protesting is futile and you focus on joining institutions that give you an equal chance. That’s what happened in Tamil Nadu. The so-called Forward Castes stopped applying to government colleges and started getting into self-financed colleges and meritorious institutions like the IITs, IIMs, AIIMs, NIFT, etc. So it was more a case of resigned acceptance. The moment you extend this quota regime to self-financed colleges and premier institutions, you break the last straw of hope for the remaining 31% of Tamil Nadu.
Argument-2: To say that the quota regime produces mediocrity is ridiculous. Look at South India where mandal is in operation. It has some of the finest hospitals and doctors in India.
Oh yeah? That’s like the rooster taking credit for the dawn. Nothing could be farther from the truth. South India has a very fine medical reputation only because of its private hospitals. None of these hospitals hire doctors using the quota principle. On the contrary, they go purely by merit. I wonder if that’s the reason why people who mouth such arguments choose private hospitals over the mandalised government hospitals.
Argument-3: What makes you think that the OBC students are of inferior quality? How dare you assume that they can’t cope with courses in premier institutions?
Who said the OBCs are inferior? Research shows that they fare quite well in entrance examinations. So now that we have conclusive evidence that they are as good as the Forward Castes why not choose students by merit? Why give more weightage to birth certificates? Why not let the examination certificates do the talking?
posted by anantha at 3:03 pm
4 Comments:
Reference your comments on Jayati in cnn-ibn interview, her arguments were pure nonsense. Only the Government can be taken in by such childish arguments.
At one point she said that if the OBcs do not understand English, develop translations like they do in Chinese.
You are ready to do that but you would rather NOT allow to develop a good education system for them in the first place so they have merit when they come for admissions for the higher course?
see also: www.india-awake.blogspot.com
Excellent counterpoints. The pro-mandal group is simply twisting the stats to its liking.
I have analysed some of their propaganda.
Communist Math
Hi Mr.Narayan...I was happy after reading your blogs...It is a sad truth that elite has lost their hope doing well in TN and they prefer to move out of TN where merit counts...and now that DMK has come to power...they are going to press hard on the side of Pro-Mandal group...this is the bane of TN...Only when young men realize the truth and bring out good leaders this will change.
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