A venal political class, unable so far to destroy India's spirit of entrepreneurship, just might succeed by introducing caste-based job quotas in the private sector, warns ARAVIND SITARAMAN 


India has the world’s largest democracy and except for a brief period, this democracy has been well preserved and functioning. Challenging conventional wisdom, the nation has several reasons to be proud of its achievements in the last several decades. At the time of independence it was an economic, social, and structural basket case. It has since grown steadily to become the world’s fastest growing economy, the third largest economy in PPP terms, a computer software giant, and many more. This is despite continued deterioration in the political class, law and order, and deficient infrastructure. A careful analysis will show that all these achievements (barring agriculture) has really taken place only after the economy opened up in the 1990s under the current Prime Minister serving as the Finance Minister.

In a short span of 15 years, the country’s private sector has graduated from a protected oligarchy to a global competitor. Auto parts are manufactured in Chennai and Delhi for auto manufacturers in Detriot, Germany, and Japan. Software is being developed in Bangalore for companies in the Silicon Valley. Business Process outsourcing is now a major revenue earner and its shops are in many major cities for companies all over the developed world. Indian steel is now being exported and is competing on quality and value; not just price. Indian car manufacturers are spreading their wings in Europe. Indian companies are buying other foreign companies in Singapore, Europe, and the United States to gain market share, market foothold, expertise, technology, or people. Indian companies have units in other parts of the world including the United States, Europe, China, Korea, and Singapore. This is a true tribute to Indian industry, ingenuity, management style, competence, and efficiency.

All this could have been possible only because the Indian companies were free to pursue their economic goals, friendly economic policies, favorable investment opportunities, and a rapid globalization of the Indian industry.

Unfortunately, these historical achievements are under threat because of the political convenience of a few. A modern crop of politicians seeking exponential personal growth have adopted strategies of dividing populations to overcome their lack of skill, education, or other conventional means. Dalits, minorities, language, religion, state, region, labor, etc. are only some modes by which they have divided people promising the innocent masses a windfall. Surely, the windfall is just one way to these politicians.

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government, a ragtag marriage of convenience, has an honorable Prime Minister (PM) who is held hostage by these political villains. They have forced him into setting up a Group of Ministers (GoM) to look into the possibility of getting reservation for the socially backward in the private companies. Reservation in India is a political vote affecting issue. The more someone supports it, the more votes they get. This is because the whole concept of reservation is based on one parameter — caste. The economic situation of the candidate, the education level of an individual’s parents, performance of the individual, place of origin and domicile of the individual, etc. are irrelevant.

Hence, a Brahmin born to uneducated parents living in a backward area who scores 99% will not stand a chance in prestigious engineering or medical colleges. While a person born to well educated, rich, higher-caste non-Brahmin parents will get such education even if he were to score less than 50%. For a scheduled class or tribe (SC or ST) candiate — whatever his economic, social, and environment status, a pass score is essentially enough to get a seat in these colleges.

At this point, I must point out there are several brilliant candidates from poor, disenfranchised, and marginal families who need the attention and support of the state. Why should it matter what their caste is? Admittedly, candidates from the SC or ST communities are largely socially challenged and would have a harder time catching up with mainstream society. Does that mean that we should compromise on quality of our engineers, doctors, and scientists? Surely, there are other means by which they can be assisted; economic assistance, mentoring, special coaching classes, recognition, infrastructure, etc. are some tools that are within the control of the nation to help these communities.