Network Past Issues

THE MERIT OF "MERIT"
Poverty of Logic And Reason In The Discourse On Dalits And Reservations
M D Gadekar

Introduction
In the past few years the debate and discourse on the issue of empowerment of dalits by providing them equal opportunities for their development; and the government’s policy to provide them opportunity and access by means of the instrument of reservations has been under sustained criticism in the mainstream media by the intelligentsia, educationists, industry and other elite who are the major opinion makers in society, in India. Their prime argument against the policy of reservations is that merit is compromised. Implying that in the absence of reservations, society is governed based only on rational, objective, optimal, merit-based decisions, which are devoid of nepotism, corruption and ulterior motives. Implied also (though not so obviously stated) is the hypothesis that merit rests with the so-called forward castes and communities. Is there any data/logic to support either of these two hypotheses? That is the central theme of this paper.
What is Merit?
According to the Random House Dictionary, merit is “claim to commendation; excellence; worth”. It is also “something that entitles a reward or commendation; a commendable quality, act, etc”. In addition “it is the state or fact of deserving”. It is also “that which is well deserved; to be worthy of; deserve”. The word is generally used in a favourable sense and signifies inherent value or goodness.
Why do dalits lag behind?
The dalits lag behind other “forward” sections of society for the following reasons:
1. They were deprived of opportunities for development for centuries, as they lacked opportunities and access to education, employment, etc since they faced discrimination, segregation & untouchability, and were looked down upon by all the 4 varnas of Hindu society.
2. Many dalit communities were/are artisans in their occupations and hence never put a premium on getting a formal education.
3. Tribal people had (the past tense is used here, since both the tribal people and their rich culture are fast facing extinction) a culture, which was governed by principles of reciprocity and redistribution. They did not believe in creating a surplus but rather lived from day-to-day. What they collected, hunted or gathered from nature was always within limits. Hence it was sustainable (from a resource utilization point of view) and did not burden nature. They did not have a concept of privately owning land or water bodies or generating profits. They believed in co-existence rather than “ownership” or “control” of nature/natural resources.
4. Many dalit castes were engaged in occupations (if you can call it that!) like scavenging, flaying skins off dead carcasses, making shoes, carrying nigh soil (on their head!) and such other activities which are considered to be demeaning, impure and polluting in Indian society and culture. Obviously getting an education would not help them to further their career prospects! Now most of these communities have given up (or are in the process of giving up these professions, which hitherto were “reserved” for them), pursuing these vocations for obvious reasons (no career prospects!).
5. An important reason why dalits under-perform is due to poorer/lower cultural capital. Cultural capital means the attitude of a social group towards education, knowing what to study, where to study, how to study, how to use education for self-advancement, and how to use the group’s existing network to gain more power and prestige. We need to understand that the upper castes possess a certain kind of cultural capital that the dalits do not have. Cultural capital has been monopolized by the upper castes in India for thousands of years by systematically excluding the lower castes through the legitimizing ideology of varnashrama dharma (T Kumar).
6. In contemporary India, while untouchability is not overtly practised, it has taken newer and more sophisticated forms. Thus housing societies, cooperative banks, many cooperatives, clubs and other membership-based organizations dissuade dalits from gaining membership. Occasionally exceptional dalits do manage to get membership in these organizations, but they are exceptions to the norm. In rural areas, the efforts to dominate and discriminate dalits are carried out more vigorously and systematically. They are denied minimum wages, their lands are encroached upon, and if they try to assert their rights, they may face boycott and segregation. Often they are threatened and even beaten up. They are hit where it hurts, meaning that their women-folk are threatened, abused, molested and even raped. So what if there is an Act (Prevention of Atrocities on SCs and STs Act, enacted by the GoI) to prevent atrocities on dalits! This Act has not been a major deterrent to the more powerful forces of domination, orthodoxy and feudalism in rural and semi-urban areas. The recent incident at Khairlanji (in Maharashtra, where a dalit family was burnt alive because the head of the family wanted to assert his rights) is one of the latest in a long list of such incidents, which regularly take place all over India. It can be surmised from this that India’s record vis-à-vis human rights of dalits is not one to be proud of!
7. One way to get ahead of the pack and make progress in today’s world is to work hard over sustained periods of time, do quality work, and remain motivated over the long run. The dominant (or forward communities) have found a smarter way to avoid this difficult path, for a much simpler alternative. Baptize large sections of society as being “dalit” and thus being devoid of merit and talent. Segregate, discriminate, subjugate, exploit and tread over them over a long period of time (centuries!). This breaks their spirit, their self-respect and self-esteem. Push, beat them down on to their knees and then climb onto their bent backs to emerge taller and stronger. Perpetuate the myth that merit is intrinsic in a few communities (due to the accident of birth in them) and thus create a society, which while grossly violating the human rights of dalits, paves the way for a smooth, hassle-free ride on the expressway of growth, development and wealth for the elite of India, the so called “forward castes”. India can never hope to be a meritocracy as long as “ascribed status” dominates “achieved status” in Indian Culture, Society, mind-space and public life.
What policy options are available to the State and what is it doing?
The State has the following policy options for developing and empowering dalits:
• Provide reservations in education, jobs, etc (as is the practice today).
• Provide opportunities to dalits through scholarships, free-ships, etc.
• Provide through legislation that a certain percentage of all contracts and tenders, whether government or private, be allotted to dalits.
• Work on changing the mindset of society at large towards dalits, so that they treat dalit as equals, with dignity and fairness and do not subject them to discrimination, segregation and untouchability.
The State has by and large only exercised the first two options, but the next two important options have not been addressed at all. In the absence of addressing the last option, one finds that the implementation of the first two options create a tremendous amount of animosity and hatred in the minds of Society at large, who feel that the State pampers dalits and provides them with opportunities which they (dalits) do not deserve. Hence dalits face further repression, discrimination, ridicule, etc, and thus the vicious cycle continues.
Comparison with The Situation Of Blacks In The U.S.A.(And Other Places)
Many scholars have compared the situation of dalits in India with the situation of the blacks in the US (and other places). While there are many similarities in the situations of these two marginalised, vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, one fundamental fact needs to be mentioned and noted. Unlike the blacks, the dalit community in India is by and large indistinguishable from Society at large. There are no ways in which dalits can he identified or distinguished. In other words, dalits are as tall, short, dark, fair, stout, thin (or even intelligent or unintelligent!) as other sections of Indian Society. They are not a separate race or people. Anyway, anthropologists now debunk the concept of race as being unscientific and incomplete. Some tribal people have certain prominent physical features, but these are largely location and geography specific. The local populations by and large know and recognize these features. With large-scale migration and travel in search of livelihoods, dalit (and to a lesser extent, tribal) communities are indistinguishable on the basis of outward physical characteristics.
To the best of one’s knowledge there are no studies that prove that there are any genetic differences between the “forward” castes and dalits. Neither are there research studies, which show that the “forward castes” have higher IQ than dalits.
Steps taken by the government, industry, the intelligentsia, educationists, elites and other opinion makers in Indian Society for the development of the dalits and for creating a just and inclusive society respects diversity.
The steps being taken by the government are well known to us (being constantly criticised by opinion-makers in mainstream media, and at all platforms!) and have been mentioned in an earlier section. Other than the government, none of the other stakeholders, viz. Industry, the Intelligentsia, Educationists, Elites and other opinion-makers, has done anything worth being mentioned. On the other hand there is a constant buzz in the mainstream media about how merit gets compromised due to reservations, how reservations are bad for achieving world-class quality, how India is falling behind because of such regressive State policy. Most of these comments are muted, implied and often not implicitly stated. Of late there is a stridency to these voices with the latest being Industry’s categorical and unequivocal “NO” to the government’s request/polite suggestion, to initiate reservations in the private sector. By and large, Industry has not “walked its talk” and been faithful to the JJ Irani Committee Report in letter and spirit (pl. refer CII website to access the Irani Committee Report).
The fact that affirmative is practised vigorously in the US for many years (decades?) is conveniently not mentioned, rather ignored by the Industry mandarins, who otherwise look up to all things western in origin with a slavish, colonial mindset. An important pillar of affirmative action in the US is the role and efforts of Industry in providing opportunities to blacks for self-development and empowerment, through preferential allotment of tenders and contracts. A canard spread by the elites and opinion-makers is how reservations were only for an initial period of 10 years. The fact is that this applies to political reservations, i.e. reservations in governance. These reservations are ratified and extended by Parliament every 10 years, in its collective wisdom. Those who wish to oppose this decision of the Parliament need to adopt parliamentary means (pun intended!) and approaches, rather than criticizing the collective wisdom of Parliament in un-parliamentary ways. There was no time limit set to reservations with regard to education, employment, promotions, etc for dalits. Systematic efforts are made to confuse these two types of reservations, which need be countered and ended once and for all.
Achievements and Potential of Dalits
The achievements of dalits in all spheres of public and private endeavour in India are quite remarkable. This is especially so, when one considers the limited opportunities available to them and the prevalent hostile mindset in which they have been achieved. Listed below are a few of them:
• Dalits have performed excellently in sports like hockey, archery, etc. Anybody who has the slightest doubt should any-day have a race with the numerous “Tirkeys” who are a regular and permanent feature in Indian hockey! If dalits and tribals are systematically selected and groomed for endurance events and for the middle distance events in athletics, in archery (communities like the Bhils are traditionally excellent archers), in javelin, in hockey, in wrestling, for marathons, in swimming, and so on, they would make world champions.
• Many dalit communities have an innate sense and understanding of music and rhythm. If they are selected at a young age, groomed and trained for a career in these vocations/professions in world-class institutions, they would prove to be world-class performers and artists.
• Most of the roads, bridges, railway-networks and tunnels in post-independence India (and even in earlier times), have been built by the sweat, blood and tears of dalit people. The forward communities have been too soft and well to do to participate in such exhausting and non-remunerative, but nevertheless vital Nation-Building activities. This does not detract the “forward communities” from driving/travelling on them, while constantly criticizing the fall in “quality” and “merit” due to the government’s efforts to empower dalits by providing them with a few opportunities through a sub-optimal policy option like reservations.
• In Maharashtra, dalit students have topped SSC and HSC Board Exams. For many years now, the difference in the performance of the top “open” category student and the top dalit student has been in decimal terms. To give an illustration, while the topper from the “open” category may get 96.73%, the topper from the dalit category may get 96.45%! This may have happened because the “open” category student got 2-3 marks (a few decimal points) more than the dalit student! Surely that does not justify the view that students from open categories have “merit”, while students from dalit categories are devoid of merit. Is the only yardstick to measure merit, the number of marks scored in exams, or is it a rule of the thumb, to be used as a proxy indicator with due humility, judiciousness and sensitivity?!
• Achievements of giants like Dr. B R Ambedkar, Babu Jagjivan Ram & Dr K R Narayanan (and many others) are a testimony to the inherent merit and talent in dalits. It is important to note that in the growth and development of Ambedkar to become what he became, the support he received in the form of patronage of two kings viz. Sayajirao Gaekwad of Baroda State and Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur State cannot be under-estimated. It is largely because of this that the otherwise poor Ambedkar could pursue his higher education, develop his inherent talent, get to interact with world leaders, get to study at world-class institutions and hence attain self-empowerment. Even his newspapers and journals were patronized and supported by Shahu Maharaj. Most dalits can never hope for access to such outstanding opportunities. Hence their latent talent and merit withers away, without achieving fruition. Besides, many of these outstanding dalits reached their positions of eminence before Independence and hence did not receive the benefits of reservations. Thus proving that some dalits have been able to flower, develop and prosper without State support in the form of reservations. Society at large does not know about the lives, work and worth of achievements by dalits, because mainstream media has not bothered to cover them, being obsessed with page 3 events and personalities. If mainstream media makes the effort, it can recount the fascinating stories of dalits who have battled insurmountable odds to achieve success in their vocations and professions.
• There is an active section amongst the dalits who occupy the highest positions in Industry, Education, Government, Politics, and Research Institutions and so on in India. There is also a vibrant dalit Diaspora, which is active all over the world. This dalit Diaspora thrives without reservations, since most are free once-for-all in other nations, and can develop and bloom to the full extent that their talent, merit, hard-work and education allows them to. Many of these members of the dalit intelligentsia, elite and leaders have reached positions where they do not need the support of reservations. Most of them are in a position to compete with the best, globally. The reason why they do not advocate abolition of reservations, though they themselves do not need it or use it is not to deprive their brethren who still need support of reservations for their growth and development. Unfortunately, most of these outstanding dalits distance themselves from their extended families, caste and community, once they are developed
• Artisan dalits like potters, weavers, shoemakers, etc are known all over India (and even globally) for their outstanding talent, craftsmanship and fine skill in manufacturing artefacts of the highest quality and beauty. Khurja pottery (from Bengal), Kolhapuri chappals, Paithani sarees (of Maharashtra), Patola sarees of Patan (from Gujarat), bell-metal work of Bastar and Orissa, the exquisite embroidery of Kachchh, etc are a few examples of this rich and bountiful tradition.
Summary
From the above, it is obvious that the entire discourse and dialogue on the issue of development and empowerment of dalits and the ever popular and incessant criticism of reservations as undermining merit and quality in an otherwise meritocracy that is India (sarcasm intended!) is devoid of logic, reason and substance. The earlier it is discontinued by the opinion-makers (and stopped being reported by mainstream media, which in any way supports the status-quo and acts as a hand-maiden to dominant castes, communities and mindsets in contemporary India), the earlier would opportunities be available to dalits for their growth and development. This would lead to an empowered and egalitarian India with growth and development being both inclusive and respecting the diversity present in Indian society. India would then be accepted with the respect it deserves by the Comity of Nations as a nation where human rights are not routinely violated for a section of society, which is categorized as “dalits”. This can only happen when India rids itself of the deadly and crippling disease, viz. ”touch-me-not-ism", which is endemic to India, according to Swami Vivekananda.
References
Kumar, T. 2008.”Caste-Based Reservation and the Sociology of ‘Merit’” in Network, Quarterly Publication of IRMA, volume 11, no.4, page 18-22.

The author can be contacted: meher.gadekar@gmail.com