The Lonesome Road

In the old, old days of Indian history, there were four classes into which almost all the people were compartmentalized into. From highest to lowest - status wise, they were

1) Brahmins (Priests)
2) Kshatriyas (Warriors)
3) Vaishyas (Traders)
4) Shudras (Cleaners)

These four divisions, in the earlier days at least, acted more as a marker. They defined the type of work that a person did. When the Aryan civilization came to India, the caste system became a far more rigid entity. There remained no scope for a person from one of the “lower classes” to become a member of the “upper class”. Of course - the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas had no problem with the more inflexible caste system.

The Shudras were then reduced to the status of untouchables. Literally. They had separate wells, dwellings, food. It was considered a sin for even the shadow of these people to touch an upper caste person. This along with the increasing ritualization of Hinduism alienated the Shudras from the religion. Many of them left hinduism to follow the message of equality proposed by Buddhism and Jainism.

Even after India won her independence, the lot of the shudras hadn’t changed much across India. Old habits seem to die hard. Even today, in many parts of India (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh) the old ways are followed. While framing the new constutution, De.Babasaheb Ambedkar put in a clause to allow reservation for the scheduled castes and tribes (SC/ST) in all government institutions. This implied that all government/government aided schools and offices had to hire a certain number of SC/ST.

In his wisdom, Dr.Ambedkar also noted that the reservation system should continue for a period of ten years, after which it should be discontinued. In their wisdom, the politicians of the country realized that they had a vote bank in their hands. Every year, the amount of reservation was increased. There was no government that wanted to be the one to remove reservation. It came to a head in the days of P.V.Narhasimha Rao, the then Prime Minister of India. His proposal was to make reservation official to a figure of 70%. Students all over India rose in protest and the movement was quietly dropped.

However, as all things go in India, the reservation policy failed to help the very people it was supposed to. The poor are still denied low cost education and the system ultimately benefits the SC/STs who have actually come up in life and no longer need the reservation system. In all this there is a bustling system of fake caste certificate systems. The risks are high - but so are the rewards. What frustrates most open category students is that even after slogging for two years and obtaining a high percentage in Grade 12 (which is, by far the most important exam in this country), they see a reservation student take a seat in a prestigious government college after securing a measly 50%.

Why all this background? Last night there was a major national interest story on the news that the government is pushing for reservation in private/unaided colleges as well. Fortunately, the Supreme court seems to think it’s not required and has ruled against the decision.

In the same news report, they covered the MBBS entrance exam in Rajhastan and Punjab. The results were declared, and in the interest of transparency and openness, the answers to the paper were published in the local papers. That’s when the storm broke. Quite a few answers that were published were found to be wrong. This was verified by authors and doctors who were called to investigate the matter. In a similar vein, it was found that 16 questions in the MBBS entrance exam were ambiguous or plain wrong.

In both cases, the respective High Courts have ordered investigations into the matter. I’ll tell you what will happen the next time - the results will not be published and everything will go back to square one. I just feel bad for the students who slogged for three years to do well on this paper - and then not make the merit list due to no fault of their own. Also just imagine that the next “doctor” you go to may have passed a wrong paper. Scared yet?

I wonder where this country is headed sometimes. Until next time….