Both the “Affirmative Action” in the United States and the “Reservation Policy” in India are looked upon by the votaries and opponents of these policies in both the countries to redesign them by borrowing the positives from each model. If the debate over the Affirmative Action is growing rancorous in the U.S., then, in India, it is the declared intent of the Indian ruling federal government to extend the existing reservation policy, hitherto applied only to education and government jobs, to private sector as well has turned the undercurrent of resentment into tidal waves of heated debates. The debates hinge around the very efficacy of the reservation system in bringing about true social mobility and implications of extending the quota system to private sector.
The affirmative action program in the United States and the reservation policy in India are both established to redress the effects of past discrimination, and both seek to promote access to education and employment among disadvantaged groups. However, in my opinion, the comparison ends there because the ground realities and complexities of the social structure and infrastructure are different in both the countries. Since it was established in 1961 through Executive Order by President John F. Kennedy, the affirmative action program has evolved over a period of time to primarily promote access to education, particularly to universities and other forms of higher education, while continuing to emphasize on hiring policy that should be devoid of any bias based on race, color, nationality of origin and/or gender. What we must compare is public education systems in both the countries. There are several lessons to learn from the United States as far as public education infrastructure is concerned. The United States has, just like India, both public and private schools and universities. The public education infrastructure, even though not as good as one would like it to be, is still commendable. Access to quality primary and secondary schools is not as much a problem in the United States as it is here in India. The affirmative action program has not worked there in isolation, but along with continuous efforts at federal and state levels to improve standards of public schools and public universities. In spite of this progress, many in the United States, including educationists, scholars, academics, believe that the objective of the affirmative program is far from fulfilled, even though it is witnessing history being made in having, for the first time, an African American in Senator Obama as presumptive Democratic presidential candidate for the upcoming presidential election.
In India, we have yet to go millions of miles as far as our public primary and secondary education is concerned. India has the largest education system. There are 1.2 million schools in primary and secondary categories but over 170 million potential students are left out. India’s illiterate population is almost equal to the entire population of the United States. Abject poverty (about 300 millions still live under dollar a day), deep-rooted caste divide and social traditions have made it difficult for women, and children of schedule castes and tribes to get access to education opportunities. How can we talk about doing away with the quota system when out of 1.2 millions public schools we have, the significant number are without roof or proper building, or basic furniture, or toilets, or drinking water, or teachers.
The need of the hour, therefore, is not a debate or protests against the quota system but to direct the same energy towards pressurizing the central and state governments to improve our public education infrastructure on a war footing. Unless we do that, access to quality education would remain a difficulty for a significant portion of population which must be addressed by measures like “quota.” The need of the hour is to think creative and find ways to link many of India wonderful welfare schemes, such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Integrated Child Development Scheme. Unless we are able to give access to quality education to every child of India, unless the Right to Education Bill becomes a reality, and unless we are able to create public schools like Kendriya Vidyalaya and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, the two shining and laudable examples of public primary and higher learning schools, in every 600-odd districts in India, protesting against the quota or reservation policy is not just unfair, but criminal. If India wants to meet one of the UN Millennium Development Goals of reducing extreme poverty by half by 2015, education is the key and guaranteeing access to education is, therefore, state’s prime responsibility. Let us get above the din of pro and anti-quota debates and work together to create a system of education where we will no longer feel the need to have the quota system and it will die its natural death.
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