People tend to accept traditions blindly. Examine a commonly accepted tradition you think needs updating or changing. Why should it be changed and how would you change it?

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.

- Voltaire

India has long been a country of startling socio-economic imbalances. On August 15th, 1947, India ceased to be a jewel in the British crown and became a nation in its own right. India’s leaders then swore that they would remove the wide imbalances in different sections of society and provide equal opportunities to the downtrodden; the women, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (the lowest of castes). Thus, the reservation policy or “quota” in public education and government jobs was born. It was to be a temporary measure to level the differences in education between different societal strata.

Sixty years on, the “quota” still persists, transformed from a remedial policy to an unshakeable tradition. Despite widespread protests and demonstrations, the federal government is now working on a bill requiring all National Universities to reserve close to fifty percent of their seats for people from scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other designated backward classes, regardless of their financial or economic status. In India, admission into a reputed university depends on one’s rank in nation-wide entrance tests conducted for that university. The competition is stiff and selection cut-offs are extremely high. A fifty percent reservation means that the cut-off for candidates in the general (non-reserved) quota will become steeper, and the chances of a meritorious student receiving admission that he or she deserves will decrease significantly. Indeed, by implication, half of the nation’s best universities will be filled with “lesser-qualified” students, who gained entrance by virtue of their birth.

I am all for the upliftment of the backward classes. However, I don’t think that reservation at the university level, particularly a fifty percent reservation, is the way to achieve it. The reality is that most of the candidates who qualify as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, are under-prepared for a university education due to a lack of a solid foundation at the primary school level. Even if reservation helped them gain admission, they often find themselves struggling in the classroom. To me, it would make more sense to implement the same reservation in the best schools, at the primary and secondary school level. That way, by the age of eighteen, they would be as competent as their general counterparts.

Moreover, the reservation quota has led to the formation of a scheduled elite; mainly rich politicians, whose children already have access to the best facilities India has to offer. Thus, its effect is neutralized as its benefits are availed by those who don’t need it. If the quota were to be modified so it was applicable only to those families whose yearly earnings lay below a certain income-level, it would, perhaps, serve its purpose.

India is a developing country, and at present, it needs a large pool of highly-qualified college graduates to help it along the road to development. Reservation in its best universities would simply push the nation into an era of reverse Darwinism.