Making right an obligation
SANJAY PULIPAKA
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Given an appropriate space, every student has a distinct possibility of becoming a `meritorious student'
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IN THE recent past, the Centre's decision to implement reservation for Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in various institutes of `excellence' prompted many to reflect on the necessity of having reservation to address the problems associated with caste discrimination. Some scholars have pointed out that reservation has become the only paradigm of social justice in India. And they have argued that such one-dimensional approach to social justice might in the long run hamper the cause of social justice.
However, the question we need to ask is how come one-dimensional approach dominates the discourse on social justice in India? Is the political class solely responsible for this? If the politicians are able to determine and define the discourse on social justice for their partisan political ends, it is precisely because the space was vacated by other segments of society. The failure in implementing multiple approaches to ensure social equality was largely a consequence of indifference displayed by the privileged towards the prevailing inequalities and discrimination in society. Let me illustrate this with an example.
Support centre
Currently, I am studying at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Eastern Mennonite University, in the U.S. Many students with diverse backgrounds come to the university to pursue their degrees. Given their diverse backgrounds there is disparity in the communication skills of the students. Instead of indulging in deprecatory statements about the alleged low standards of in-coming students, the university runs an academic support centre where the students are provided with various services such as proof-reading and editing of their term-papers.
Students visiting the academic support centre tend to build healthy relationships with the professionals providing such services, and over a span of time their communication skills tend to register a remarkable improvement. All the students have access to employment counsellors who help them in drafting their resumes apart from providing employment counselling.
Persistent efforts are made to make the classroom space democratic. The faculty and the students sit in a circle in the classroom to negate the notion of hierarchy. Acknowledging the fact that there are multiple levels of intelligence, students are given the option to submit their assignments by using various methods such as role-plays and other audio-visual mediums. All these measures are based on the premise that given an appropriate space every student has a distinct possibility of becoming a `meritorious student.'
This prompts me to raise a few important questions. How many universities in India can claim that they are running academic support centres that foster `excellence' among all students? How many universities have made sincere efforts to make their classroom space more democratic? Does all this require constitutional amendments by Parliament? Can't a group of professionals committed to "fostering merit" ensure that such changes are ushered in?
Language improvement sessions, employment counselling, and diverse evaluation procedures might appear mundane for some. But such small measures go a long way in building camaraderie among the members of the campus community. And more importantly such an approach recognises that merit is a consequence of interplay of social factors and has many forms.
Greater malaise
The absence of such mechanisms in many Indian universities is symptomatic of a greater malaise afflicting Indian society — a persistent reluctance to think innovatively to address the problems associated with social inequality and discrimination. There is very little desire to foster merit in our institutions. The word `merit' is thrown around flippantly only when there is a move to ensure legitimate representation of disadvantaged sections.
I am not singing paeans of an American university. Rather, I am only pointing out that there are various ways by which social equality can be ensured and if there is yearning in society, even we can come up with our own approaches/mechanisms for ensuring social equality. In this context it is pertinent to note that many international educational foundations in India, supported by big businesses from outside, are making conscious efforts to ensure that the socially disadvantaged are adequately represented in the fellowships they are offering.
The anti-reservationists apart from their "nay-saying" do not have a clearly defined agenda for a positive social change. Given the apathy towards social inequality and discrimination, giving up reservation would be the last thing to do. We should move away from this "nay-saying" and explore the various measures that we need to take, along with reservation, for ushering in social equality at a rapid pace.
(The writer is a Fulbright Fellow in Conflict Transformation Programme, Eastern Mennonite University. He can be reached at pulipaka.sanjay@emu.edu)
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