Tuesday 11 April 2006

Merit

A lot of posts supporting reservations have cropped up, and most of them rail against these two arguments in particular:
  • the "brand equity" of the IITs/IIMs
  • merit

Basically these posts say that all talk of the "brand equity" of these institutions is a load of hogwash. Okay, I'm not going there.

Let's take on the argument about merit. Most of the pro-reservation bloggers have said that saying merit will be sacrificed due to increasing reservations is a bunch of crap, because scant regard is given to merit anyway. Evidence being the huge capitation fees and rampant bribery and nepotism.

Hokay. So now it's okay to continue devaluing merit just because it's always been devalued?

1: "Hey, there's a rickety old building. Lets break it down!"

2: "Uh, why? Why not make it stronger?"

1: "It's weak anyway. Who cares if it were to crumble into bits?"

By the same argument, we could keep extending bad treatment to whatever we've been treating badly for all this time. Hey, we were doing it anyway, right?

2 comments:

Gaurav Shukla said...

Although Financial/Intellectual/Cultural WEALTH/Success of a person depends upon his/her own efforts but most of us will agree that this success can not be achieved without using 'Resources' of his/her 'Country'.
.....Now,as per Govt-approved-Reports nearly 79-85% population of India comprises of 'OBC+SC+ST'. whereas Only 15-21% of Indians come under 'Open-Category'.
....so we the 15-21% of the Indians are using most of the Country's Resources and when the Majority(79-85%) of Indians are asking for their 'Proportionate-Share' in the Country's resources ..we are protesting/yelling..why ppl why? haven't we heard of "Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam-all the world is but one" culture or are we chasing Jungle's Law-'Survival of fittest'?

Be Warned & allow 80% of the ppl to get 50% of the 'Resources'....otherwise they will no more tolerate us 20%-Kicking India at first opportunity-'Open-Category' ppl!!!

Thanking you for bearing by comment,

an 'Open Category' pre-final year undergraduate student @ IIT kharagpur

Unknown said...

Redel IITian,

A premier institute is no mere 'resource'. One should be made to struggle to get into it. The backgrounds of the people getting into such premier institutions need not reflect society, because these seats are not like a large pie that need to be divided equally.

Reservations in higher education will only start us down the slippery slope of reservations practically everywhere.

One has to accept that, beyond a certain point, if a person doesn't do well, factors other than his/her caste are at play.