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> 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) Of course Reservation IS the problem if you're unfortunate to be an upper caste. The problem is that a cast

by yumraj 6y ago

> 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) Of course Reservation IS the problem if you're unfortunate to be an upper caste. The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it. More and more castes, outside the original designation, demanded it in exchange for votes, and more and more upper caste Indians felt cheated as they lost limited opportunities that should have been purely been given on merit basis. NOTE: I support reservation if it is on the basis of economic criteria, wherein a student genuinely did not get the opportunities as they were growing up. The problem is, India is full of lower-caste affluent families where generations have taken advantage of the reservation, while the poor lower-caste, and upper-caste, people have languished. And due to the reservation, these affluent lower-caste students, in general do now have to work as hard as the students competing in the general category. Tamil Nadu has 69% reservation, there is similar data for other states. In IIT, while there was cutthroat competition for general category seats, SC/ST (reserved category) seats went unfilled since in the IITs there was (not sure if it still is there) a min standard was required. Every, baring maybe 1-2 exceptions, of SC/STs were in slow paced category, which meant they graduated in 5 years as opposed to everyone else graduating in 4 years. What this meant is that by default the general category students who made through the system, were on average, better educated and trained, than the lower-caste equivalents. This is just the unfortunate truth.

op03 6y ago
Maybe true, but if you use that as a reason to harass an underlying, you will get fired if you work for me.
- yumraj 6y ago
  Agree. Discrimination of any kind: color, race, language, caste, class, gender, sexual orientation, anything else I missed, has no place in today’s society.
vendroo 6y ago
I have seen this sentiment being reflected by many people (in one extreme case someone called that they were being persecuted by the government). Indian caste system is an unfair oppressive system put together to maintain the hierarchical advantage. Reparations/interventions were needed to bridge the gap, if not the unfairness would be much more rampant. Not sure about IITs, I went to one of the top NITs and thats definitely not the case with people not being able graduate in 4 years. I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation. Disclaimer: I am neither upper caste nor lower, somewhere in the middle, I guess and have not been positively or adversely impacted because of my caste.
- furyroad 6y ago
  >> I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation. I am one of the examples. I am from Tamil Nadu, which has 69% reservation and I benefited from reservation and other social polices of my state. Re-posting below, a part of my comment from an earlier discussion on the same topic, as it is relevant here. Caste system is deeply rooted in the culture for thousand of years. It will take a very long time and massive efforts to eradicate it. Self-respect movement was one of the early efforts in the right direction and it had found great success in my opinion. I attribute my life progress to the effects of Self-respect movement. I was born in a poor low-caste family, raised by a single mother. I completed a STEM masters degree in India, migrated to the US and now work at one of the FAANG companies. I benefited from the educational and social policies of my state govt. and was able to push myself up despite financial and social disadvantages. The major turning point in my life was when I was able to secure a seat at the top technical college of the state through single-window counseling which was introduced by the state govt. the year before. Without that system, I would have applied to individual colleges separately (costs lot of money) and had been at the mercy of racially biased selection committees, dominated by the so called upper castes. I neither had the light skin, nor the deep pockets to pay for a "management seat". I made use of the best resources at the institution presented by the opportunity I wouldn't have got otherwise. It changed my life forever.
furyroad 6y ago
>> The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias. It is not the goal of the reservation system to eliminate caste-based bias. The goal is to eliminate unfair competition by ensuring candidates of equal backgrounds compete with each other. A low caste candidate who was historically denied education can not compete with a higher caste student from an educated family. Hence the candidates are categorized based on their caste background such as BC, SC/ST etc and they compete within those categories. A BC candidate competes with other BC candidates, a SC with other SCs and so on. Drawing from the analogy posted elsewhere in this thread. This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter. Without weight divisions, the competition is favorable to the heavyweights, which was the case before the reservation system. Saying reservation should be based on economic status rather than caste is akin to saying boxers should be categorized based on height instead of weight. Economic status is less relevant here because it does not directly affect the chances of success. In a math competition, the candidate born in a family of upper class math teachers has an advantage over a candidate born to rich but uneducated parents who were denied education for generations. The idea of reservation is to provide opportunity to people who were denied opportunity in the name of caste. They were not denied opportunity because they were poor, but because they were from a low caste. When discrimination was based on caste the remedy should also based on caste. Moreover, economic status is transient, where as the caste is rigid. A poor family can become rich but a low caste person can never become a upper caste as the caste is decided on birth. It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.
- kushan2020 6y ago
  > This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter. In your example if the son of a lightweight boxer happens to be a heavy weight boxer he will not be made to fight with a lightweight boxer right? The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term. You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem and you have cemented the caste based division even further in the minds of your population. > It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation. You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years. If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem? That seat which their privileged grandkid will take could be better taken by someone else in need.
lvbu 6y ago
> In IIT, while there was cutthroat competition for general category seats, SC/ST (reserved category) seats went unfilled since in the IITs there was (not sure if it still is there) a min standard was required. Even with this low bar SC&ST are unable to get in. It shows how disadvantaged they are as a population.
- ascat 6y ago
  How the empty seats of SC/ST in the IITS reflect that they are disadvantaged? They have much less cut off, many SC/ST give the exam, their fees is much much less than the general category, they get scholarships. How are they disadvantaged ?
  - thewhitetulip 6y ago
    My brother living in his hamlet has no electricity after 8pm, has 0 access to coaching and has little to no access to books or anything related. This is circa 2000s though. The village has affluent upper caste people while the lower caste people still do menial jobs Reservations are meant for them. But the city folk who have the most knowledge and access to money abuse this system while real poor lower class people aren't able to access. I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes. Moral of the stort: city folk abuse reservation system caste or economic terms because it takes a 5k bribe to a local govt to fake your income certificate, lot of people I know have done it. My dad worked in a govt firm, his colleague who earned the same money was lower class so his daughter who got marks exactly as same as mine got a stellar college and ANY branch she wanted, but I wasn't a girl & backward on paper so I had to settle for what I got
    - kamaal 6y ago
      >>I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes. Woodland shoes last years, in most cases the only reason you thrown them away because you are bored, they refuse to wear out no matter what you do with them. I come from a fairly lower-middle class, poor background(Dad was a truck/bus/cab driver over years). I was donated used woodland shoes by a relative during my engineering days. I wore them for years, like even years after I had a job. And I used to walk kilometers during my college days every day. If you are poor/lower mid income class student. Woodlands is some thing you should consider buying. Its really buy and forget. Also wear jeans, even if you buy cheap ones. I had a pair, I wore them so much the pockets started tearing out. Do this and you can go expense-less for years. This is my version of ramen profitability. If you are thinking frugality invest in quality. Lower mid class students must invest in woodlands.
mleonhard 6y ago
This comment reminds me of "All Lives Matter".
- yumraj 6y ago
  I respectfully resent the above comment. This situation, and my comment, is nothing like equating BLM with ALM. I understand that you may not have firsthand knowledge of the issues, but at least be open to the fact that there may be more depths to a situation than what is superficially evident.
srean 6y ago
> The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it. Would love a believable citation (which means not from standard rightwing mouthpieces). I can believe that it did not eliminate it. That's a tall task that will take time.
pkphilip 6y ago
This article by Yashica Dutt is very relevant in this conversation: Does upper caste society acknowledge the private reservations it has had for years? https://scroll.in/article/951818/does-upper-caste-society-acknowledge-the-private-reservations-it-has-had-for-years-yashica-dutt https://scroll.in/article/951818/does-upper-caste-society-ac... As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste? I know multiple friends of mine who have suffered innumerable abuse and indignities because of their caste and irrespective of their educational qualifications. Ambedkar - the chap who wrote the constitution, was ill treated even after his Columbia degree and his PhD. Customers refused to sign him on and colleagues refused to even share the same room with him when he taught as a professor. It is sad that even in this time and day when we see so much caste oppression the upper castes still continue to refuse to admit it. By the way, I have never benefited from any reservation of any kind.
- oarla 6y ago
  "As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste?" Quote from the article you have provided: "With money. Somebody who does not have access to money does not have access to “merit”." And I agree with Yashica Dutt's analysis. It is true that irrespective of caste, if you have enough financial power, you can change your circumstances, particularly in India. Hence, it makes sense to have an affirmative action that benefits those who are economically underprivileged, than on basis of birth.

by yumraj 6y ago

op03 6y ago

Maybe true, but if you use that as a reason to harass an underlying, you will get fired if you work for me.

yumraj 6y ago
Agree. Discrimination of any kind: color, race, language, caste, class, gender, sexual orientation, anything else I missed, has no place in today’s society.

vendroo 6y ago

I have seen this sentiment being reflected by many people (in one extreme case someone called that they were being persecuted by the government). Indian caste system is an unfair oppressive system put together to maintain the hierarchical advantage. Reparations/interventions were needed to bridge the gap, if not the unfairness would be much more rampant. Not sure about IITs, I went to one of the top NITs and thats definitely not the case with people not being able graduate in 4 years. I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation. Disclaimer: I am neither upper caste nor lower, somewhere in the middle, I guess and have not been positively or adversely impacted because of my caste.

furyroad 6y ago
>> I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation. I am one of the examples. I am from Tamil Nadu, which has 69% reservation and I benefited from reservation and other social polices of my state. Re-posting below, a part of my comment from an earlier discussion on the same topic, as it is relevant here. Caste system is deeply rooted in the culture for thousand of years. It will take a very long time and massive efforts to eradicate it. Self-respect movement was one of the early efforts in the right direction and it had found great success in my opinion. I attribute my life progress to the effects of Self-respect movement. I was born in a poor low-caste family, raised by a single mother. I completed a STEM masters degree in India, migrated to the US and now work at one of the FAANG companies. I benefited from the educational and social policies of my state govt. and was able to push myself up despite financial and social disadvantages. The major turning point in my life was when I was able to secure a seat at the top technical college of the state through single-window counseling which was introduced by the state govt. the year before. Without that system, I would have applied to individual colleges separately (costs lot of money) and had been at the mercy of racially biased selection committees, dominated by the so called upper castes. I neither had the light skin, nor the deep pockets to pay for a "management seat". I made use of the best resources at the institution presented by the opportunity I wouldn't have got otherwise. It changed my life forever.

furyroad 6y ago

>> The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias. It is not the goal of the reservation system to eliminate caste-based bias. The goal is to eliminate unfair competition by ensuring candidates of equal backgrounds compete with each other. A low caste candidate who was historically denied education can not compete with a higher caste student from an educated family. Hence the candidates are categorized based on their caste background such as BC, SC/ST etc and they compete within those categories. A BC candidate competes with other BC candidates, a SC with other SCs and so on. Drawing from the analogy posted elsewhere in this thread. This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter. Without weight divisions, the competition is favorable to the heavyweights, which was the case before the reservation system. Saying reservation should be based on economic status rather than caste is akin to saying boxers should be categorized based on height instead of weight. Economic status is less relevant here because it does not directly affect the chances of success. In a math competition, the candidate born in a family of upper class math teachers has an advantage over a candidate born to rich but uneducated parents who were denied education for generations. The idea of reservation is to provide opportunity to people who were denied opportunity in the name of caste. They were not denied opportunity because they were poor, but because they were from a low caste. When discrimination was based on caste the remedy should also based on caste. Moreover, economic status is transient, where as the caste is rigid. A poor family can become rich but a low caste person can never become a upper caste as the caste is decided on birth. It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.

kushan2020 6y ago
> This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter. In your example if the son of a lightweight boxer happens to be a heavy weight boxer he will not be made to fight with a lightweight boxer right? The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term. You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem and you have cemented the caste based division even further in the minds of your population. > It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation. You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years. If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem? That seat which their privileged grandkid will take could be better taken by someone else in need.

lvbu 6y ago

> In IIT, while there was cutthroat competition for general category seats, SC/ST (reserved category) seats went unfilled since in the IITs there was (not sure if it still is there) a min standard was required. Even with this low bar SC&ST are unable to get in. It shows how disadvantaged they are as a population.

ascat 6y ago
How the empty seats of SC/ST in the IITS reflect that they are disadvantaged? They have much less cut off, many SC/ST give the exam, their fees is much much less than the general category, they get scholarships. How are they disadvantaged ?
- thewhitetulip 6y ago
  My brother living in his hamlet has no electricity after 8pm, has 0 access to coaching and has little to no access to books or anything related. This is circa 2000s though. The village has affluent upper caste people while the lower caste people still do menial jobs Reservations are meant for them. But the city folk who have the most knowledge and access to money abuse this system while real poor lower class people aren't able to access. I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes. Moral of the stort: city folk abuse reservation system caste or economic terms because it takes a 5k bribe to a local govt to fake your income certificate, lot of people I know have done it. My dad worked in a govt firm, his colleague who earned the same money was lower class so his daughter who got marks exactly as same as mine got a stellar college and ANY branch she wanted, but I wasn't a girl & backward on paper so I had to settle for what I got
  - kamaal 6y ago
    >>I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes. Woodland shoes last years, in most cases the only reason you thrown them away because you are bored, they refuse to wear out no matter what you do with them. I come from a fairly lower-middle class, poor background(Dad was a truck/bus/cab driver over years). I was donated used woodland shoes by a relative during my engineering days. I wore them for years, like even years after I had a job. And I used to walk kilometers during my college days every day. If you are poor/lower mid income class student. Woodlands is some thing you should consider buying. Its really buy and forget. Also wear jeans, even if you buy cheap ones. I had a pair, I wore them so much the pockets started tearing out. Do this and you can go expense-less for years. This is my version of ramen profitability. If you are thinking frugality invest in quality. Lower mid class students must invest in woodlands.

mleonhard 6y ago

This comment reminds me of "All Lives Matter".

yumraj 6y ago
I respectfully resent the above comment. This situation, and my comment, is nothing like equating BLM with ALM. I understand that you may not have firsthand knowledge of the issues, but at least be open to the fact that there may be more depths to a situation than what is superficially evident.

srean 6y ago

> The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it. Would love a believable citation (which means not from standard rightwing mouthpieces). I can believe that it did not eliminate it. That's a tall task that will take time.

pkphilip 6y ago

This article by Yashica Dutt is very relevant in this conversation: Does upper caste society acknowledge the private reservations it has had for years? https://scroll.in/article/951818/does-upper-caste-society-acknowledge-the-private-reservations-it-has-had-for-years-yashica-dutt https://scroll.in/article/951818/does-upper-caste-society-ac... As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste? I know multiple friends of mine who have suffered innumerable abuse and indignities because of their caste and irrespective of their educational qualifications. Ambedkar - the chap who wrote the constitution, was ill treated even after his Columbia degree and his PhD. Customers refused to sign him on and colleagues refused to even share the same room with him when he taught as a professor. It is sad that even in this time and day when we see so much caste oppression the upper castes still continue to refuse to admit it. By the way, I have never benefited from any reservation of any kind.

oarla 6y ago
"As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste?" Quote from the article you have provided: "With money. Somebody who does not have access to money does not have access to “merit”." And I agree with Yashica Dutt's analysis. It is true that irrespective of caste, if you have enough financial power, you can change your circumstances, particularly in India. Hence, it makes sense to have an affirmative action that benefits those who are economically underprivileged, than on basis of birth.