Not sure about IITs, I went to one of the top NITs and thats definitely not the case with people not being able graduate in 4 years. I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation.
Disclaimer: I am neither upper caste nor lower, somewhere in the middle, I guess and have not been positively or adversely impacted because of my caste.
I am one of the examples. I am from Tamil Nadu, which has 69% reservation and I benefited from reservation and other social polices of my state. Re-posting below, a part of my comment from an earlier discussion on the same topic, as it is relevant here.
Caste system is deeply rooted in the culture for thousand of years. It will take a very long time and massive efforts to eradicate it. Self-respect movement was one of the early efforts in the right direction and it had found great success in my opinion. I attribute my life progress to the effects of Self-respect movement. I was born in a poor low-caste family, raised by a single mother. I completed a STEM masters degree in India, migrated to the US and now work at one of the FAANG companies. I benefited from the educational and social policies of my state govt. and was able to push myself up despite financial and social disadvantages.
The major turning point in my life was when I was able to secure a seat at the top technical college of the state through single-window counseling which was introduced by the state govt. the year before. Without that system, I would have applied to individual colleges separately (costs lot of money) and had been at the mercy of racially biased selection committees, dominated by the so called upper castes. I neither had the light skin, nor the deep pockets to pay for a "management seat".
I made use of the best resources at the institution presented by the opportunity I wouldn't have got otherwise. It changed my life forever.
It is not the goal of the reservation system to eliminate caste-based bias. The goal is to eliminate unfair competition by ensuring candidates of equal backgrounds compete with each other. A low caste candidate who was historically denied education can not compete with a higher caste student from an educated family. Hence the candidates are categorized based on their caste background such as BC, SC/ST etc and they compete within those categories. A BC candidate competes with other BC candidates, a SC with other SCs and so on.
Drawing from the analogy posted elsewhere in this thread. This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter. Without weight divisions, the competition is favorable to the heavyweights, which was the case before the reservation system.
Saying reservation should be based on economic status rather than caste is akin to saying boxers should be categorized based on height instead of weight. Economic status is less relevant here because it does not directly affect the chances of success. In a math competition, the candidate born in a family of upper class math teachers has an advantage over a candidate born to rich but uneducated parents who were denied education for generations.
The idea of reservation is to provide opportunity to people who were denied opportunity in the name of caste. They were not denied opportunity because they were poor, but because they were from a low caste. When discrimination was based on caste the remedy should also based on caste. Moreover, economic status is transient, where as the caste is rigid. A poor family can become rich but a low caste person can never become a upper caste as the caste is decided on birth. It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.
I appreciate your comment and you do make some very interesting points. But the above quote seems to contradict the gist of your earlier points.
Once a lower-caste family has become affluent and is educated, they should be competing with people, per your own earlier statement, with those of equal backgrounds. The background of a lower-caste but educated and affluent family is no longer the same as that of a poorer lower-caste person from relatively uneducated family. So, how in any way can an argument be made that the affluent family should be allowed to reap rewards from reservation for ever, while the same is not available to poor lower-caste family. If makes no logical, nor socially justifiable sense.
Also, there is an implied assumption that every upper-caste, richer or poorer has a strong educational background. I believe that economic conditions dictate educational and other background a lot too.
Of course, I will accept that solely going by economical criteria may not be sufficient, but it has to be a major factor.
That assumption is valid, owing to the traditional jobs that were assigned to each group. Out of the five classes Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras and Dalits, the last to were physical laborers doing menial jobs.[1] The first three traditionally had access to knowledge and power due to their professions. Brahmin's duty was to read, memorize, recite and teach religious scriptures. Kshatriyas were rulers and administrators and thus powerful. Vaishyas were merchants, business people and large land owners who had access to both knowledge and power. Shudras and Dalits never had the opportunity to get educated and were also systematically denied status and opportunity by repressive religious laws and social norms. Caste being assigned on birth, there was no way for upward mobility.
Before the reservation system, jobs such as bureaucrats, judges, teachers, academics, knowledge workers etc were all occupied by the top three groups, and it is easy to understand why. Whereas Shudras and Dalits were left behind, uneducated and doing low level jobs.
> The background of a lower-caste but educated and affluent family is no longer the same as that of a poorer lower-caste person from relatively uneducated family.
The existing creamy layer rules ensures that the wealthy individuals do not get reservation, even though they are from low caste. This is not a reason to suggest the entire reservation criteria should be based on economic status instead of caste.
This being the case the individual and the peer groups maximize for their gains at all costs. Its a race condition like scenario, where you have to acquire resources before others do, or others will prevent you from acquiring resources.
This is basically the root of all the problems facing in the Indian system. This system plays out at the level of a language, state, religion, even caste. Once a group acquires power they will ensure even systematically, other groups don't.
Its not just about economically uplifting 1 individual person anymore. If a particular groups holds power they will starve the under privileged person off resources at the first chance. This is why you need a reserved set of opportunities in a pool to avoid resource starvation through bias.
The easy way out of this problem is brutal equality. But even the upper castes, forwards states, progressive linguistic groups, majority religions will refuse to comply to this because it now means vacating a superior social position and being dragged to the level of the under privileged position.
Any scene where we discuss absolute freedom of lifestyle choices, equality and liberty is a net negative to the groups that currently hold power.
In your example if the son of a lightweight boxer happens to be a heavy weight boxer he will not be made to fight with a lightweight boxer right?
The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term. You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem and you have cemented the caste based division even further in the minds of your population.
> It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.
You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years. If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem? That seat which their privileged grandkid will take could be better taken by someone else in need.
I used that example to emphasize on the importance of having categories in the competition to ensure fairness. I do not wish to extend the analogy in a way it was not intended. Keeping the analogy aside, let me address the essence of your question.
The problem of caste discrimination is deep rooted and it existed for a very long period of time. Expecting a family to come out fully from the effects of the discrimination in a single generation is not reasonable.
>> You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem.
As I said earlier, the goal of the reservation system is not to solve the caste system. The creators of the system very well understood that a deep rooted social problem that existed for thousands of years can not be eradicated by a mere statute. The system was intended to serve as a crutch; not as a treatment for the broken leg. I am against using the crutch forever. I am also against removing the crutch without treating and healing the broken leg first.
>> You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years.
The oppression still exists so as the effects of the oppression that they did not witness for thousands of years. 99% of the Hindus cannot become a priest in Tirupati Tirumala and most other temples. Inter caste marriage is still not widely accepted. Honor killings are still happening. The social and psychological effects of a thousand year old oppression is as powerful as the oppression itself.
>> If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem?
You are equating economic status to social status. I have explained the distinction in my previous comment. Again, the system is not intended to solve the root problem.
As some who opposes the typical right-wing opposition to caste based reservations (aka left wing nut), I agree with your point of view.
For example, I would be fine with constituting a one time generous fund that qualified people can withdraw from (and invest), if care is taken to cover all those who should benefit from such a scheme. Its then up to the families to use the funds as they wish. There is also the notion of giving someone a fish and teaching someone how to fish. A financial fund targets the former and will not be enough, more lenient admissions but something that does not persist forever, seems a reasonable balance.
An eternally persistent reservation is tilted the other way. One can definitely argue about the details of how persistent the terms of the benefits should be, but all I will say lack of consensus on what the decay factor should look like should not come in the way of implementing something that is better than nothing, or terminating something that is better than nothing.
A common argument I see often is caste is not the problem, that poverty is the problem and reservations should target poverty alone and ignore caste. I disagree with this sentiment and consider poverty uplifting an important but orthogonal problem.
Caste reservation is about reparations/compensation for historical damages that has(d) that had been inflicted over centuries.
Kashmiri pandit's losses will not get addressed/compensated by social schemes for the poor. It has to address the issue the forceful, unlawful eviction from their home.
Does upper caste society acknowledge the private reservations it has had for years?
https://scroll.in/article/951818/does-upper-caste-society-ac...
As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste?
I know multiple friends of mine who have suffered innumerable abuse and indignities because of their caste and irrespective of their educational qualifications.
Ambedkar - the chap who wrote the constitution, was ill treated even after his Columbia degree and his PhD. Customers refused to sign him on and colleagues refused to even share the same room with him when he taught as a professor.
It is sad that even in this time and day when we see so much caste oppression the upper castes still continue to refuse to admit it.
By the way, I have never benefited from any reservation of any kind.
Quote from the article you have provided: "With money. Somebody who does not have access to money does not have access to “merit”."
And I agree with Yashica Dutt's analysis. It is true that irrespective of caste, if you have enough financial power, you can change your circumstances, particularly in India. Hence, it makes sense to have an affirmative action that benefits those who are economically underprivileged, than on basis of birth.
Discrimination of any kind: color, race, language, caste, class, gender, sexual orientation, anything else I missed, has no place in today’s society.
I understand that you may not have firsthand knowledge of the issues, but at least be open to the fact that there may be more depths to a situation than what is superficially evident.
Even with this low bar SC&ST are unable to get in. It shows how disadvantaged they are as a population.
This is circa 2000s though.
The village has affluent upper caste people while the lower caste people still do menial jobs
Reservations are meant for them. But the city folk who have the most knowledge and access to money abuse this system while real poor lower class people aren't able to access.
I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes.
Moral of the stort: city folk abuse reservation system caste or economic terms because it takes a 5k bribe to a local govt to fake your income certificate, lot of people I know have done it.
My dad worked in a govt firm, his colleague who earned the same money was lower class so his daughter who got marks exactly as same as mine got a stellar college and ANY branch she wanted, but I wasn't a girl & backward on paper so I had to settle for what I got
It's infuriating that reservations have become so abused, but any step by any party to change it would be met with such a fierce opposition that it's literally impossible to change.
Most backward cast candidates will be unable to forge deeper connection with powerful ellite caste people and they'll suffer in networking/connection game.
Education is just one of the many factor, if you don't have connections - you can't get people to believe you or invest in your business, your paper degree isn't going to do much.
Historically, new connections (both social and business) were forged based on marriage which was limited to marrying within specific cast. As a result power accumulated through network effect in hands of a few.
No matter how much education you put in backward cast candidates they are not able to get inside "ellite" network of upper caste people.
I'll give you a counter example, one of my friend dropped out after highschool and another one (backward cast) got degree from IIT university.
Today highschool upper caste person has more wealth and married to a local celebrity while the backward one is at government office and he hates his job, only people he party with are people of his own communities. Many times he's not invited to the private parties by his bosses. On paper tho, you might envy his job but socially tho he's an outcast - it's not changing soon either. He himself acknowledged, he's only boss at work but outside work, no one gives him much respect.
Woodland shoes last years, in most cases the only reason you thrown them away because you are bored, they refuse to wear out no matter what you do with them.
I come from a fairly lower-middle class, poor background(Dad was a truck/bus/cab driver over years). I was donated used woodland shoes by a relative during my engineering days. I wore them for years, like even years after I had a job. And I used to walk kilometers during my college days every day.
If you are poor/lower mid income class student. Woodlands is some thing you should consider buying. Its really buy and forget. Also wear jeans, even if you buy cheap ones. I had a pair, I wore them so much the pockets started tearing out. Do this and you can go expense-less for years. This is my version of ramen profitability.
If you are thinking frugality invest in quality. Lower mid class students must invest in woodlands.
Alao for that matter, Sparkx sandals and shoes too last years, much cheaper option..
None of my family knew what IIT was and for some reason they chose not to send me to a big city for a decent coaching class
Would love a believable citation (which means not from standard rightwing mouthpieces).
I can believe that it did not eliminate it. That's a tall task that will take time.
Of course Reservation IS the problem if you're unfortunate to be an upper caste.
The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it. More and more castes, outside the original designation, demanded it in exchange for votes, and more and more upper caste Indians felt cheated as they lost limited opportunities that should have been purely been given on merit basis.
NOTE: I support reservation if it is on the basis of economic criteria, wherein a student genuinely did not get the opportunities as they were growing up. The problem is, India is full of lower-caste affluent families where generations have taken advantage of the reservation, while the poor lower-caste, and upper-caste, people have languished. And due to the reservation, these affluent lower-caste students, in general do now have to work as hard as the students competing in the general category.
Tamil Nadu has 69% reservation, there is similar data for other states.
In IIT, while there was cutthroat competition for general category seats, SC/ST (reserved category) seats went unfilled since in the IITs there was (not sure if it still is there) a min standard was required.
Every, baring maybe 1-2 exceptions, of SC/STs were in slow paced category, which meant they graduated in 5 years as opposed to everyone else graduating in 4 years.
What this meant is that by default the general category students who made through the system, were on average, better educated and trained, than the lower-caste equivalents.
This is just the unfortunate truth.