Man From Matunga

« Much Ado Over Khakhras | Main | Water, water everywhere, but not a tissue to dry »

May 19, 2006

Just Once is Enough

This essay appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.

We had the 20th class reunion of our medical college batch that joined LTMMC in 1982, about four years ago. Except for those few who didn’t want to be found, everyone who was still in India was there. Along with their spouses. It was great to see and meet everyone after such a long time. As the afternoon wore on, the one thing that hit home was that everyone without exception was doing well in life. Everyone! Including those who had come in through the reservation seats, which were around 35% in those days.

It was then that the power of affirmative action struck hit many of us and we talked about it at length during the reunion post-mortem a few weeks later. We could remember some of our colleagues who had come in with nothing else, but the dream, fire and ambition to be a doctor and who, despite initial failures and problems, had become doctors like of all us. Their lives, the lives of their parents and families and those around them, had completely changed along the way. To put it in a country-western kind of way – they now had the money and the gals. Without reservations, it is unlikely that any of this would have happened.

Some of them went on to do post-graduation as well, by fighting for the post-graduate (PG) seats like everyone else. Eighteen years ago, when we were taking up our PGs, there were no reservations. A post-graduate degree in medicine was considered a “high seat of learning” and it was unthinkable that you could have reservations at this level. And everyone fought it out at this level, irrespective of caste, creed or method of original entry into the MBBS course.

Reservations work and make a difference. There is no denying this fact. But the reason for reservations is to provide an opportunity to those who do not have a level playing field during schooling or in junior college. Those who are economically or socially disadvantaged are thus helped by this one act of affirmative action, when they join medicine. Becoming a doctor is a big deal…you enjoy an elevated status in society, you join the top 5% earners in the country and life changes for the better. Always. Even if you don’t want it to. Just one doctor in the family is all that is required to pull the family out of its cycle of poverty and related problems, thus serving the original purpose of the reservation policy.

Unfortunately, in practice, the policy does not work as envisaged. Too many people from the “creamy layer” take advantage of this policy and abuse the system. In theory, those families that have already used the reservation policy to better themselves, should no longer be allowed to avail of reservation seats, simply because of the accident of their birth-caste.

Just as it is intuitively obvious that the “creamy layer” should be disallowed from abusing the system, in the same manner, once a person is a doctor, using reservations as a method of gaining one more advantage, i.e. a PG seat, should also be considered abuse of the system. It is not people from the general public who take up a PG seat, but only those who have already become doctors. And by the time medical students have become doctors after their 5 ½ years grind, the playing fields have leveled, irrespective of the original portal of entry into the system.

By allowing those who have become doctors on the basis of a reservation seat, to get a PG seat as well through reservation, is a case of double affirmative action. Just as double jeopardy is unacceptable (trying a person for the same crime twice), double affirmative action (allowing the same person to get a reservation seat twice) does not make sense. It is unfair to those who are fighting for these seats on merit and also insulting to those who despite having entered MBBS through reservation, have now proved themselves equal to everyone else through sheer hard work and perseverance.

We didn’t have PG reservations, eighteen years ago and the system worked well. Somewhere down the line, the “higher centre of learning” and “double affirmative action” reasoning was subverted, someone went to court and 27-30% reservations were introduced. Now they want to make it 50%, which is absolutely ridiculous. Its time we went back to 0%, i.e. no PG reservations whatsoever.

Posted by bhavinj at May 19, 2006 11:38 AM

Comments

Post a comment