Who Should Be Allowed To Become a Doctor, an Engineer, or a Business Executive?

by Janak Ramachandran

A debate is currently raging in India regarding ‘caste-based’ reservations or quotas. Certain castes have historically been unable to receive the needed education to advance into higher paying professions and so, the government has proposed a system of affirmative action to remedy the situation. The debate has an obvious analog in the United States in the issue of affirmative action for women, African Americans, Latinos, and others of color who have historically been unable to receive the same university education as their white counterparts.

I decided to investigate the Indian issue to determine what commonalities it might have with the US debate; and whether the arguments have a cross-cultural ability to inform each country’s struggle with the issue. One argument, from Bay Area Indians for Equality (a local organization), responds to the Indian government proposal to reserve places in India’s universities for the less privileged castes. Protesting with signs that read “Respect merit, not caste” and other similar pleas for equal treatment, they voiced their opposition to the affirmative action proposal. At a similar protest in the US, we might have seen “Respect merit, not race.” I found myself agreeing with the basic premise of the slogan and so, I planned to research why the other side of the debate insisted on these caste-based reservations or what we might consider quotas here in the US. What I found was groundwork for the quota system was laid in the Indian constitution to address the inequality created by centuries of caste-based oppression. In actuality, those who claimed a ‘higher’ caste status had actively deprived those they perceived as ‘lower’ caste from obtaining education and jobs that paid well. In effect, the so-called higher castes had, for centuries, ‘reserved’ that privilege for themselves at the expense of the poorer castes—castes made poor by caste-based favoritism and not as a result of merit. So the slogan “Respect merit, not caste” now seemed to me a disingenuous call for equality by those who now benefit from a system previously created to oppress others.

In the United States and other western societies, a similar claim can be substantiated whereby slavery, Jim Crow, ghettoization, and the assassination of leaders who make a difference (e.g. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy, etc.) has created a legacy of depriving education and opportunity to those in the ‘lower’ classes. Those who have gathered more money at others’ expense can buy more education and more opportunity; the opportunity to display merit is a privilege given to ‘higher’ classes as a result of generations of oppressing others whether they be seen as lower caste, lower class, or inferior race.

When faced with this worldwide historical record, I wondered how those opposed to reservations and quotas might respond. A protester with Bay Area Indians for Equality provided the following comment: “What the country (India) needs is a lot more engineers, a lot more doctors—reservations aren’t solving that.” He pressed for the idea that government should focus on improving elementary education for all children. Though not a response to the historical record of oppression, the stated goal of equal treatment seemed laudable. Perhaps, I thought, a society bent on progress could allow the ill-gotten gains of the privileged to remain in place—rather than seeking social justice through the reapportionment of unmerited wealth—while currently setting in motion a system of equal opportunity for rich and poor alike. Further reading and reflection revealed that, though the privileged opposed to affirmative action quotas (both in the US and around the world) endorsed equal education for all children, they were unwilling with tax dollars and otherwise to actually fund all children’s schools equally. Those who now had wealth and privilege largely created by generations of oppression wanted to spend that money disproportionately on their children’s schools—more for Beverly Hills, less for inner city LA…more for Palo Alto, less for East Palo Alto…more for the Marina and Pacific Heights, less for Bayview and Hunter’s Point and so on. So the privileged, through the government disbursement of tax revenue and services, still seem to favor depriving one group to benefit another, namely themselves. With the combination of the circumstance of this present reality with the historical record of oppression, the disingenuous “Respect merit, not caste (or race)” had seemingly turned into “Now that half the game has been played in our unmerited favor, we, the privileged, are neither interested nor willing to right the wrong through affirmative action or even level the playing field via equal treatment into the future for all.”

But, another possible objection of those opposed to affirmative action programs, I thought, might be the seeming injustice and adverse societal impact of depriving the more educated, regardless of how they historically obtained their status, of completing that education and winning the higher paying jobs. So I decided to inspect the Indian government proposal to see if the affirmative action the government was planning would disproportionately favor the so-called lower castes at the expense of the privileged castes. In concept (that is, without reference to the historical record of oppression or the present reality of inequality), it seemed reasonable that the government not reserve more for the historically oppressed castes than the percentage of the population they represented, even though historical justice might allow for disproportionately depriving the privileged of access to education and opportunity. It turns out the proposal provides for an increase in the number of seats reserved in Indian universities for the underprivileged castes from its current 22.5% to 49.5%. The population of the combined castes includes working class people, farmers, and aboriginal groups as well as those previously labeled untouchables (because the work traditionally performed by them involved sanitation and the like and was thus considered ‘polluting’). So-called untouchables refer to themselves as Dalits (meaning “depressed”). In total, these various castes comprise nearly 80% of the population. So 49.5% of the seats in universities would be reserved for 80% of the population. In effect, this also indicates that prior to this proposal, 77.5% of university spots were reserved for the approximate 20% that are already the most privileged and that now, 50.5% would still be reserved for this 20% privileged group.

Despite this disproportionate favoritism shown to the privileged concerning educational opportunity, opponents of affirmative action might still counter that, regardless of the individual and class-wide injustice, society benefits from those best qualified performing these jobs and being rewarded with the higher pay that cements their elite status, unmerited as it might be. In other words, the question becomes, “Who should be allowed to become a doctor, an engineer, or a business executive?” Not only does this question and its supporting argument fail to grapple effectively with the moral issue of historically and currently oppressing the ability of people to equally benefit from education and opportunity, it assumes that the narrow hurdle of academic excellence in a system rigged in favor of the privileged is the proper criterion with which to answer the question. The test and grade results that are a function of a privileged education are inadequate in measuring a potential doctor’s, engineer’s, or business executive’s attentiveness to bigger picture implications, ethics concerning the treatment of others and the environment, compassion in dealing with those who suffer and are oppressed, and pursuit of excellence by which an individual assumes responsibility for an ongoing learning and understanding of how his or her job is well done. I would argue that we would all rather be treated by a doctor who displayed these characteristics while earning a C average in medical school than the doctor who graduated at the top of the class in the hopes of making money. But these characteristics are not measured by school grades or standardized tests and are essentially eschewed by academic institutions as meritorious subjects to develop as part of a curriculum.

So who should be allowed to become a doctor, an engineer, or a business executive? In the final analysis, the question devolves to something even more basic: “Who should be allowed to join the ranks of the privileged?” In the background of any conversation regarding equality for all is a contradiction of capitalism revealed. Even the most conservative capitalist economists will acknowledge that, contrary to political rhetoric, everyone can’t be a millionaire; the system would crumble in an endlessly devaluing inflationary upward spiral. It is one of the principal reasons that the economic powers that be attempt to actuate fiscal and monetary policy that strives to keep some portion of the population out of work. The bottom line: in order for some people to be rich or even middle class, a much larger number of poor must be created and maintained. If these poor and working class groups are allowed to legitimately compete, they would be able to win back through the channels of capitalism, even as a rigged system, some education, opportunity, and economic benefit for their families and communities. As a result, the privileged would have less and so, a little more competition for a rigged system that has served them so well frightens them.

Looking hundreds and thousands of years into our human past, we see a legacy of enslaving and oppressing a large portion of humanity for the benefit of a relative few. Often the only criterion for this systemic abuse is that someone doesn’t look or act the same way as those who sought the power. In the case of India, the caste system has functioned for thousands of years from its inception to assign certain types of work to certain groups. Quickly, those with more privileged jobs became the more privileged classes. But the basis used by the original conquering Aryans of long ago to divide people into different occupations is lost in the word caste, which is a Portuguese translation. Tracing the etymology of the word back thousands of years reveals its original meaning: skin color.