http://in.news.yahoo.com/columnist/ashok_malik/12/a-question-of-caste
Corner Plot Ashok Malik on that great Indian obsession - politics BY
ASHOK MALIK Mail A
Question of Caste
September 21, 2010
It is now official that the 2011 Census of India will include a
question on caste. For the first time since 1931, every Indian citizen
will be asked to self-identify his or her caste or sub-caste.
The option of saying "No caste" or "My caste is Indian" will perhaps
be available to conscientious objectors, but in the larger reckoning
this will serve little purpose. It is more likely that several people
from socially privileged backgrounds will try and present themselves
as belonging to one or the other of the Other Backward Castes (OBCs)
and attempt to get a slice of the reservation cake. A degree of
confusion and plain misrepresentation is imminent.
The reintroduction of the caste parameter into the Census process has
serious implications. Till 1931, the caste headcount was undertaken by
an imperial government that sought to categorise, sub-categorise and
thereby divide a subject people. This is not the intention of the
sovereign government of a free country. Rather, the India of 2011
wants to use caste data to fine-tune quotas and settle debates on
whether or not, say, the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in federal
government jobs and educational institutions is too low or adequate or
excessive.
It follows that the caste count - and the new legitimacy to the caste
system - will become self-perpetuating.
Several groups of Indians - sections of the Left, free market
advocates, naive idealists, the urban elite - have often argued that
caste quotas become such a hot issue and such an arena of dispute
because of an essential supply shortage. For instance, if there were
enough quality medical colleges in India, offering requisite seats for
would-be doctors, demand would be addressed and candidates -
irrespective of their caste background - would be satisfied. This
would make caste quotas irrelevant. The answer therefore lay in
promoting policies that would create more jobs and redress India's
shortage economy in higher education.
By accepting the validity of a caste Census - and make no mistake,
this is not a one-off; it with us for all times (and Censuses) to come
- the Indian political establishment is in a sense conceding that it
finds it more convenient to keep the caste-based quota system going
than to deal with any broader supply-side policy distortions.
Indeed, even when the government introduces legislation promising a
universal entitlement - that is, a facility available to every single
citizen - in practice it writes in caste and identity parameters as
well.
Take the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act -
better known as the Right to Education or RTE Act - which came into
effect on April 1, 2010. It guarantees free education to all Indian
children from the ages of six to 14 and eligible to study in classes I
to VIII.
Those who can afford it are at liberty to send their children to
private and semi-private schools. Those who cannot have been promised
by the government, as per the RTE Act, that their children will study
free of cost in government run or supported schools. In case of some
of these children, they can be admitted to private schools and the
government will reimburse the school management.
It sounds simple enough in theory. All it requires is for the
government to set up or facilitate the setting up of new schools. In
reality, the RTE Act is riddled with confusion and ambiguities. What's
more, education is a concurrent subject under the Indian Constitution,
which means both the federal government and individual state
governments have jurisdiction over it.
Each state government has to frame rules on how it plans to implement
the RTE Act and provide school access to every child in the six-14
years category. Since every child is being promised eight years of
school education, one would imagine that caste differentiation and
identity markers would not be necessary or kept to a bare minimum.
How has it turned out? While formulating the RTE Act, the Union Human
Resource Development (HRD) Ministry framed template rules that the
state governments could adopt or borrow from. One of the controversial
clauses it suggested was the setting up of a School Management
Committee (SMC) in government and government-aided schools.
At one level, an SMC that brings together all stakeholders in a school
- parents, teachers, administrators and so on - and works for the good
of the institution is a noble idea. However, there are concerns that
the presence and composition of such an oversight committee will lead
to non-specialists dictating how the school should be run and how
teaching should take place.
In the case of government-aided schools - which are likely to be
governed by independent trusts that have contributed capital to the
setting up of the institution - it could impinge on the autonomy of
the management.
Who will be part of these committees? Consider the draft rules
released by the Andhra Pradesh government. They say: "The committee in
case of a primary school shall be a 27 member committee. Of them 24
members shall be from the mother/father or guardian of the children
enrolled in the school. One member shall be the elected
representative; one member may be the nominee of the mahila smakhyas
of the village concerned. The head teacher or the in-charge head
teacher of the school shall be ex-officio member/convener of the
committee."
Such a lopsided committee is fraught with risk. It gives 24 parents -
who may know nothing about pedagogy or the running of a school - the
right to bully the headmaster and, through him, the teachers. That
apart, it politicises the management of neighbourhood schools by
giving the "elected representative" - who could be the local member of
the municipal corporation or of the gram panchayat, as the case may be
- a place in the SMC of every single government and government-aided
school in his constituency.
An "elected representative" is a euphemism for a politician. A
politician's primary interest is to win elections. Twenty-four parents
make up more voters than one headmaster. No wonder educationists fear
the politician will back the parents and convert the SMC into a
populist or, worse, political, body.
Yet, that is not the entirety of the story. How will the 24 parents be
selected? This is what the good Education Department bureaucrats in
Andhra Pradesh say:
Mother/father or guardian of each of such child who has secured
highest percentage of marks in the annual examination of the preceding
academic session in class I, II, III, and IV
Mother/father or guardian of each of such child who has secured lowest
percentage of marks in the annual examination of the preceding
academic session in class I, II, III, and IV
Mother/father or guardian of children one each belonging to Scheduled
Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, and Muslim
minority categories who have secured highest percentage of marks in
their respective category in the annual examination of the preceding
academic session in classes I to IV taken together, thus taking four
parents of the categories noted above from each class
It is easy to guess that the School Management Committee will become a
community power centre in many villages and small towns of Andhra
Pradesh (and India) where there is scarcity of private or in fact any
schools. It will dictate terms, recommend candidates for admission,
suggest names of friends and relatives for teaching and non-teaching
jobs. It would be a nice gravy train to ride on.
As such, if a parent wants to become a member of this SMC, he has to
ensure one of three things:
His child comes first in class
His child comes last in class
In case he is a Muslim (or a Dalit or ST or OBC), his child has to
beat all other Muslim (or Dalit or ST or OBC) children in class, never
mind what his overall rank is
In Afrikaans, the word "apartheid" means "separateness". As a
philosophy, it calls for segregation of various categories of
citizens, arguing white should only compete with white and black
should only compete with black.
In Malaysia, ethnic minorities such as the Chinese and Indians have
had an uneasy relationship with the Malay majority who make up 60 per
cent of the population. Analysts have often pointed to the built-in
biases of the Malaysian government school system. The roll number on
an answer sheet tells the examiner which race the candidate belongs
to. In effect, Indian only competes with Indian, and Malay only
competes with Malay.
Is Andhra Pradesh - and is India - headed that way? The angularities
brought into the roll out of the otherwise well-intentioned RTE law
must leave us wondering.
Ashok Malik is a journalist writing on, primarily, Indian politics and
foreign policy, and inflicting his opinion on readers of several
newspapers for close to 20 years. He lives in Delhi, is always game
for an Americano and can be contacted at malikashok@gmail.com.
INFORMATION OVERLOAD?
Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to ZESTMedia-digest@yahoogroups.com, OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/
PARTICIPATE:-
On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com
TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:-
If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to ZESTCaste-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/
Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/
No comments:
Post a Comment