The Logic Of
Affirmative Action
By Sarbeswar
Sahoo
17 February, 2005
Countercurrents.org
The
proposal of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Governments
Common Minimum Programme to introduce job reservations or affirmative
action for ensuring the betterment of underprivileged and deprived sections
of society in the private sector is being viewed with scepticism by
experts as well as ordinary people in the recent days. This has created
many debates whether dalits and disadvantaged should be given some preferences
in the employments and education sector. The initial question here is
what this preference (affirmative action) is and why is this to be given
to certain people based on their mere birth in a particular caste or
community (ascribed status)? An affirmative action is, to borrow the
words from Nicholas Smith, preferential access to social resources
for persons who are members of groups which have been previously disadvantaged
by adverse discrimination. It is not about charity. It is about
building workplace diversity and competitive advantage by using the
innate motivations of the disadvantaged to succeed in life. Those who
have been oppressed for too long deserve preferential treatment.
Two kinds of arguments
have been forwarded in this respect: one constituting the industrialists
and employers in the private sector argue against any form of reservation
in the private sector as it leads to compromise in quality and efficiency
which can be detrimental to the private sector where efficiency is a
prerequisite to meet competition and the other being argued by the beneficiaries
of reservation such as lower castes, dalit leaders, and some of the
social scientists that reservation or affirmative action breaks the
age-old discrimination and oppression of the higher and dominant castes
against the schedule castes, schedule tribes and other backward castes
in the social structure of Indian society.
From the above argument,
the later seems more valid and authentic as far as the issue is concerned.
The question of merit is raised whenever the issue of reservation
crops up. R. Jagannathan (2004) argues that the word merit
means different things to different people. For the person who is just
entering the job market, merit means academic excellence. For dalits
and others who can't wave a high-90s mark-sheet in a recruiter's face,
merit is an entry barrier erected by society to deny them a decent job.
For the corporate recruiter, merit should merely mean competence
the ability to do a job well. It is not ultimately about marks and academic
brilliance.
Going by the corporate
recruiter's definition, affirmative action immediately becomes a possibility.
The truth is you don't need 17-19 years of education to do most corporate
jobs competently. Competence and job success depend not so much on the
initial fund of knowledge one acquires in school but on the willingness
to learn and determination to succeed. Today, most companies prefer
to employ women in many areas not because they bring great new skills
(though there is some of that as well), but because they bring in better
attitudes and a will to succeed. As a general rule, the disadvantaged
always bring a greater determination to succeed than the rest. Applying
the same logic to dalits and minorities, I believe they will bring a
greater motivation to succeed against the odds. If we accept this assumption,
the job of preparing them for specific job competencies is easier and
hiring dalits may add to competitive advantage.
Another argument
is that however, there is no such thing as pure merit in
selecting or hiring people. In different situations, we look variously
for qualified or very qualified or even the
best qualified candidates, knowing that we are inevitably
basing our decision, in part, on convenience, familiarity and intuition.
In Indias history, merit based systems have not operated in the
best way. Infact, most of the systems rely on connections, patronage
and nepotism, which masquerade as merit based system. There is also
no guarantee of the fact that the lower castes and dalits students are
always inferior in their intellectual and cognitive capacity and background
in comparison with the higher castes. It consciously overlooks the fact
that among the dalits and the tribals there are candidates who are meritorious,
competitive and skilled. It is true that in all the cases they are not
able to compete with the students from the higher castes.
The main intention
behind the reservation policy was social justice, thereby the empowerment
of the dalits and tribals. It also tries to address the vast inequalities
that pervade Indian society inequalities which leave the low
castes deprived in everything from education to simple nutrition, not
to say the home atmosphere and socializing tradition that equip elite
communities with the confidence and articulation to perform better.
Meira Kumar called this the Dronacharya mindset the mindset which
systematically deprives groups of people of the very capacity to compete.
The policy of job reservations intends to bring about proportional equality
as it is a mode of distributing benefits based on the proportion of
population i.e. 16.5 percent for the dalits and 8 percent for tribals.
It is based on the principle of distributive justice and compensation
for past disadvantages. All in all, it has been a project of capacity
building among the weaker sections of Indian society. It clearly
mentions the fact that the schedule castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs)
and other backward classes (OBCs) in our society have hitherto been
neglected and discriminated not only educationally but also in all spheres
of socio-political life. They suffer multiple discriminations. Although
the national government spends a good amount of the GDP for the development
of education, still 35 percent of the population remains illiterate.
It is not the matter of education; here, it is the matter of quality
education, which the lower castes cannot afford because of their low
socio-economic condition. Due to the discriminatory beliefs in the caste
system, the lower castes were not even allowed to move outside lest
their shadow may pollute the people from the higher castes. Thus, under
the caste system, the Brahmnical upper castes have undue, unearned and
unjust privileges, where as the lower castes and untouchables suffer
from suppression, neglect, and discrimination. Because of the graded
inequality practised based on the mere incident of birth of a person
in a caste group, the lower castes were denied educational opportunities
and a share in the administration by the priestly and the ruling classes.
The system and its effects still continue to make them socially and
educationally backward. In this kind of situation how could we expect
that the dalits would have been able to participate and compete equally
in the educational sphere with the twice born Brahmins? So, K. Veeramani
(2004) argues that how could there be free, fair and equal competition
among unequals?
It is this discrimination
in the social life that has forced the people from the lower strata
to remain as they were. As I have said else where that all the higher
and clean occupations were occupied by the higher and dominant caste
people and the lower caste people were left with no options than serving
as slaves (bonded labour) and carrying the human waste by cleaning their
latrines. In this situation, could we expect that they should be able
to compete with the twice-borns in the socio-economic and educational
sphere? In the age of liberalization, privatization and globalization
where education is sold in high prices; how will they be able to buy
the education from the privatized educational institutions? These institutions
before testing the intellectual standard capacity of the students they
see how heavy the pocket of their parent is. Thus, the lower caste students
are not able to buy the standard education required for the competitive
job market and the so-called private sector.
So, the longstanding
exploitation and oppression of the SCs, STs and other backwards castes
people need to be given a fair chance through certain kinds of affirmative
action not only in the public sector but also should be extended to
the private enterprises. Reservation explicitly acknowledges the fact
that the State needs to affirm and uphold the economic and political
rights of minorities and disadvantaged groups who have been historically
discriminated against or are generally in an economically and socially
disadvantaged position. This is an arrangement to make up for the handicap
or disability from which the lower classes suffer due to the caste system.
Reservation in education and job opportunities is one of the various
means that could act as a corrective to the historical disadvantages
based on caste discriminations. This argues that those who have been
victimized in history have to be compensated through assured educational
opportunities and income; so that the social injustice and inequality
imposed by the caste system could someway be reduced. This would enable
the weaker sections to participate in the public sphere i.e. job market
as well as employment and ultimately in the process of decision making
at a higher level. This will enable the people who have been historically
disprivileged to get the same chance as the privileged to demonstrate
their capacity for hardwork, their entrepreneurship and their skills.
Thus, the culture of affirmative action should not be seen in terms
of a favour that is bestowed upon the minorities and socio-economically
disadvantaged sections but as a social need.
Sarbeswar Sahoo is
Doctoral Fellow, Dept. of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
National University of Singapore, 11 Arts Link, Singapore, 117570