Ram-da,
Socialism does not rule out caste or race based discrimination. Economic status is not the only determining factor in deciding a person's background. As per research in Comparative & International education -- it is the SES (Socio-Economic Status) which determines 66% of how a student would fare in his academics and career. school and teachers determine only 33% how the scholar would fare in academics.
Even within the same school those from richer and higher social status families tend to fare better in their studies and after school careers compared to those from lower SES families.
Thus, "Socio" is the defining word --even in Socialism which as you said is one of India's criteria. If social status is down (as for so-called lower caste youth) you can figure out how much they tend to loose compared to someone from upper caste from similar economic
background.
Noone seems to have done research about this aspect in Indian case but lots of research has been done in US why blacks would fare badly in studies compared to whites from same income levels.
Now, first compensate the so-called lower castes for their lower social status --then we can talk about economic equality.
Regards.
Umesh
Ram Sarangapani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ram Sarangapani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Even if they have excellent faculty and seats - they still need the students. Who can pay >for the costlier private education --- the more privelaged upper caste students!! Simple.Are you sure ALL upper castes are rich and priveleged? or at least rich? Which private institutions are looking for students to fill? So, your solution is to fill all the Govt. Institutions funded by the tax-payers (which I presume are the rich, spoilt, upper castes) with the lower castes whether they deserve (thru merit) or not and at the expense of the rich upper caste?Is India a socilalist economy or are we trying to make it one when only for certain things.BTW: Umesh, I know of many poor, under priveleged upper castes (and lower castes).This whole equation has to ignore the caste factor.It is surprising, that many of these netters clamouring for a caste based quota system are the very ones who will blue murder if they perceived the GOI "recognizing" castes.--Ram da
On 5/31/06, umesh sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:There are hundreds of private engg and medical schools all over the country which are still waiting to fill their seats. Even if they have excellent faculty and seats - they still need the students. Who can pay for the costlier private education --- the more privelaged upper caste students!! Simple.Take admission and join.C'da>> Merit is important too. Those who are not, regardless of their >>caste have no business in getting into the "Ivy League schools".>*** This is a poorly deliberated statement. It gives the appearance >that MERIT is a genetic attribute, born in the image of the caste >system.Could have been a poor statement, but not delibrate.Given all the reasons you give, tell me something.Should a someone who is barely passing in math and science be allowed admissions to an IIT or to any of the engineering colleges?I am NOT saying Brahmins who are poor ought to be allowed BUT NOT OBCs in similar circumstances.>It so happens that so called 'merit' ( read an ability to write exams well, do good >math etc.) is developed, with the help of a host of special advantages:> ** Able and educated parents> ** Schools that do their job of educating> ** An environment of learning and where the pupils are challenged.> ** Availability of schools where ALL students get a fair shot at> being taught, including those 'gadha' ones.C'da, while I sincerely empathize with your cause, all these you list are symptoms of a poor country and yes there are problems. But the first casualty cannot be quality education. A country cannot and should not sideline brilliant students just because they are rich or poor or because some may have brilliant parents and have all the goodies in life.The system can charge an equitable higher fees for these "rich brats" and charge none whatsoever for the poor (but brilliant).College admissions can also take into account if a poor student has done "very well" given the circumstances of their background of poverty and because of the resources that were not available to them.>*** This is a poorly deliberated statement. It gives the appearance >that MERIT is a genetic attribute, born in the image of the caste >system.I did no such thing. I know enough upper and lower caste people who dot all the points in the economic and intelligence graph.If there are some states or regions, then those could be allocated some "quota" under strict guidelines. I knew a number of my friends who availed the Assam Quota. One of them got into a big name school. I did not think he was the most deserving. But then his dad was a hoo haa in the Board of Education, Assam.--RamOn 5/30/06, Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:So many things to attend to, but so little time to do it :-).
But:
> Merit is important too. Those who are not, regardless of their caste have no business in getting into the "Ivy League schools".
*** This is a poorly deliberated statement. It gives the appearance that MERIT is a genetic attribute, born in the image of the caste system.
It so happens that so called 'merit' ( read an ability to write exams well, do good math etc.) is developed, with the help of a host of special advantages:
** Able and educated parents** Schools that do their job of educating** An environment of learning and where the pupils are challenged.** Availability of schools where ALL students get a fair shot atbeing taught, including those 'gadha' ones.
There are many more. But I hope one gets the point.
Therefore, where public resources are used to establish those 'elite' institutions, graduating from which ensures a comfortable life ( never mind what they produce thereafter), entry to them must be made equitable.
And that generator of 'MERIT',the institutions supported with public resources, must too be made available equitably, before MERIT could be held up as a fair and equitable measure with which to judge who is eligible to attend those 'elite' institutions.
Therefore the impression all these sanctimonious devotees of desi-meritocracy attempt to create; that MERIT is earned by SPECIAL people all on their own, is, yet another myth, a blatant falsehood!
This weekend I had the opportunity to chat about this with a highly regarded desi professor, retired dean of Washington U. Social Work program ( Dilip knows him too). A very polite and soft spoken man, he may not say so in my words, but he agreed as much.
At 1:22 PM -0500 5/30/06, Ram Sarangapani wrote:That was an interesting article.But would like to add my 2 cents to the following:"Doubtless, there are many infirmities in the proposal to allot 27 per cent seats to OBCs. The percentage may be too high, some wrong people may avail of the benefit, a few genuinely deserving might be unfairly penalised, implementation could throw up anomalies. It will not be painless. But you have to live in a state of permanent denial, you have to keep your eyes, ears and mind closed to avoid the fact that poverty and extreme poverty in India are closely linked to caste, closely linked to historical discrimination"I don't think people would be opposed to the quota system if it is forwarded right.If the system were based on economic need (and combined with academic merit) it would work. A points system could be designed for being poor and meritorious. If the backward castes are poor as many undoubtly are, they too would make strides in such a system, and if the upper castes as many claim are rich (or middle class) then they would not be as eligible, specially with no merit. Merit is important too. Those who are not, regardless of their caste have no business in getting into the "Ivy League schools". But those who show merit, but are not able to get into prestigeous schools ought to be inducted regardless of caste or religion (as in Andhra Pradesh - which has intituted quotas for Muslims).This whole thing spearheaded by the UPA is nothing but trying to appease to a voting block with entitlements.Incidently, the Supreme Court has asked the GOI to give valid reasons as to how the GOI came up with the 27% number for OBCs.Prediction: The GOI will win the battle of the 27% quota, and the country will loose its best minds.--Ram
On 5/30/06, Dilip/Dil Deka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
When I visited Outlook India today, I walked around some and saw the following article. Isn't this the same fear of Maoism that India's prime minister was talking about just a few weeks ago?It will make an interesting study to see how many of the poor 900 million are ready to benefit from the quota system and what plays in the minds of the 899 million when 1 million of the 900 make it to the middle class rank.Dilip===========================================================Eyes, Ears And Minds Closed Why is India's middle class so hostile to the empowerment of the poor? VINOD MEHTA| e-mail | one page format | feedback: send - read |This column is not being written to defend Arjun Singh, nor the new quota regime, nor any formula/mechanism to implement reservations. That debate has been so polarised and distorted that any intervention which does not take one or the other side is destined to fall on deaf ears. No. My purpose is to point out that the passion-charged street power and the virulent rhetoric against reservations should be seen as part of a larger, disturbing pattern. India's smug, selfish, self-centred, satiated middle class, fattened on the fruits of the booming economy, is positively hostile to any policy which sets out to empower the poor. Over 900 million of our citizens live on less than Rs 90 a day. Of this, 300 million live on less than Rs 45 a day. Meanwhile, 200 million privileged have decided that these citizens must remain roughly where they are-or wait till the enormous wealth the rich, the ultra rich and the nouveau rich are accumulating trickles down. This is an obscenity. No fancy economic formulation can hide this appalling reality of India 2006.
Take the employment guarantee scheme or selling cheap grain to BPL card-holders or the Right to Information Act (which allows the marginalised to check corruption in moneys spent in their name) or increasing subsidies for essential commodities used by the aam aadmi. You need to jog your memory only lightly to recollect the outrage of the haves at these schemes. They said India would be ruined, the finances of the nation would collapse if "utopian" proposals were implemented. The poor are poor because they are lazy, worthless, unenterprising, incapable of availing existing opportunities. Of course, I caricature the argument and the mentality. But only slightly.
One understands India is an economic superpower challenging China, it is experiencing unprecedented growth rates, its middle class can buy Danish bacon and Spanish olives at the neighbourhood store. Conspicuous consumption reigns. But nine hundred million people must wait for market forces to somehow touch their lives. Sheer callousness apart, these 900 million people have something called the vote. And they use it extremely craftily. In 2004, they threw out a government which considered itself invincible. Forget the ethics, forget conscience, any political party which panders to the prejudices of India's fickle middle class is committing electoral suicide.
Remember, the poor will not go away. You cannot tuck them away in Kalahandi or Bastar. They will haunt India's affluent in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai at traffic lights, in unregulated slums, in shopping malls, outside five-star hotels. They will join Maoists and threaten the Indian state while slitting the throats of rich farmers. The 'Red Corridor' is an ominous development. Any moderately sane middle-class person must ask himself why the wretched of the earth increasingly decide to take up arms against a vastly better-armed and organised force in a war they know they are bound to lose. Better to die fighting than to die of hunger.
Doubtless, there are many infirmities in the proposal to allot 27 per cent seats to OBCs. The percentage may be too high, some wrong people may avail of the benefit, a few genuinely deserving might be unfairly penalised, implementation could throw up anomalies. It will not be painless. But you have to live in a state of permanent denial, you have to keep your eyes, ears and mind closed to avoid the fact that poverty and extreme poverty in India are closely linked to caste, closely linked to historical discrimination.
Let us take the crux of the reservation rejectionist's thesis. We're told that quotas and academic excellence are fundamentally incompatible. You can't have both.Added to the above is the rider that corporate India's "global competitive edge" will vanish. In other words, there is the firm assumption that affirmative action (AA), which in India takes the form of quotas (voluntary or mandatory), will produce second-class students.
In the hysteria generated, with assistance from a conflict-hungry media, this assumption has become gospel truth with the honourable but publicity-smart members of the Knowledge Commission lending their weight to the flawed thesis. In Harvard, Princeton and Yale, institutions at whose altar the rejectionists worship, the experience of AA has been hugely positive with no dilution of academic standards (see Outlook cover story Two Faces of Reservation , May 29).
Consider the story of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala where mandatory quotas ranging from 69.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent have been in place since decades without social turbulence. Are we to assume that engineers, doctors, mbas from these southern states are substandard?
If notions of compassion and equity are alien to the rejectionists, perhaps the spectre of Maoists rampaging through pockets of urban India might help focus minds on the grotesquely unjust society superpower India is spawning. It could be the fire next time!
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http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.orgUmesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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