Your success is in your genes

Once in a blue moon, there comes along a book that knocks the hell out of all your preconceptions and convenient beliefs. Gregory Clark's book, The son also rises: surnames and the history of social mobility must fall in this bracket. I haven't had a chance to read the book myself but I have seen many the reviews (including the ones in the Economist and the Guardian), an interview with Clark and several comments on the Net. Clark's own brief exposition on his book is here.

Clark's thesis is that how successful you are in life can be traced to your ancestors 15-20 generations ago, or nearly 300 -450 years ago. This means the way society is constructed today reflects the distribution of haves and have-not in the nineteenth century or so. Here's a stunning precis of his thesis:

According to his calculations, if you live in England and share a last name with a Norman conqueror listed in the Domesday book of 1086—think Sinclair, Percy, Beauchamp—you have a 25 percent higher chance of matriculating at Oxford or Cambridge. If you’re an American with an ancestor who graduated from an Ivy League college between 1650 and 1850, it’s twice as likely that you’re listed in the American Medical Association’s Directory of Physicians.

True only of elitist societies such as the US or the UK? Not by a long chalk, says Clark. He has looked at Scandinavian countries and found that social mobility hasn't changed much. Most astonishing is his study of China. Despite the cultural revolution, despite the annihilation of large numbers of those in the elite, Chinese society is dominated by the descendants of those who were at the top before the Maoist revolution. As Clark puts it:

When you look across centuries, and at social status broadly measured — not just income and wealth, but also occupation, education and longevity — social mobility is much slower than many of us believe, or want to believe. This is true in Sweden, a social welfare state; England, where industrial capitalism was born; the United States, one of the most heterogeneous societies in history; and India, a fairly new democracy hobbled by the legacy of caste. Capitalism has not led to pervasive, rapid mobility. Nor have democratization, mass public education, the decline of nepotism, redistributive taxation, the emancipation of women, or even, as in China, socialist revolution.

The exasperating thing about Clark's findings, one that will raise hackles amongst do-gooders, is that there isn't much you can do to improve social mobility. If you had great ancestors, you have everything laid out for you; if you are ancestors did not amount to much, chances are you won't either. The best of educational opportunities, the most open and meritocratic selection processes will not make much of a difference to outcomes. To quote Clark again:

If your surname is rare, and someone with that surname attended Oxford or Cambridge around 1800, your odds of being enrolled at those universities are nearly four times greater than the average person. This slowness of mobility has persisted despite a vast expansion in public financing for secondary and university education, and the adoption of much more open and meritocratic admissions at both schools.

Clark's conclusion is grim and unsettling:

Large-scale, rapid social mobility is impossible to legislate. What governments can do is ameliorate the effects of life’s inherent unfairness. Where we will fall within the social spectrum is largely fated at birth. Given that fact, we have to decide how much reward, or punishment, should be attached to what is ultimately fickle and arbitrary, the lottery of your lineage.

What do these findings mean for public policy? Should governments thrown up their hands and just allow genetics to play out? Not at all. Quite the contrary, perhaps. Since inequality will not be rectified in the natural course- and certainly not by providing adequate economic or educational opportunity- there is an even stronger case for affirmative action or quotas to redress inequalities in society. By the same token, since the gifted will naturally rise to the top, the case for large incentives to reward the successful is undermined.

In India, the argument that we should open primary and higher secondary education through scholarships and generous funding in order to help who have lagged behind traditionally would not wash, going by Clark's findings. If we believe that inequality is unacceptable beyond a point and that social inequities threaten peace and order in society, the case for affirmative action is even stronger than before. It is only through aggressive quotas in jobs as well as higher education that we can give a leg-up to the under-privileged.

We Indians can, perhaps, legitimately tell Clark: we knew this all along; here we say 'sab sar pe likha hai'.

Reservation in promotions

The reservation in promotions for SC/STs Bill has been passed in the Rajya Sabha. Its passage in the Lok Sabha is awaited. Many of those who favour reservation for SC/STs at the point of entry are opposed to extending the principle to promotions. The merits of the Bill can be debated but the crucial thing to note is that the Bill will have to withstand any challenge in the  Supreme Court. The Hindu today carries an article that brings out the constitutional aspects very well.

There are two criteria of the Supreme Court that are relevant to any provision for reservation in promotions for SC/STs. One, such reservation must not come into conflict with requirements of efficiency. Two, the government must demonstrate lack of representation of the SC/STs by providing appropriate data. The article points that as part of the negotiation with the BJP, the UPA government agreed to drop an earlier provision in the Bill that would have allowed it to ignore concerns about efficiency. However, the present draft contends that the government need not demonstrate under-representation. The author writes:

The draft of the 117th Constitution Amendment Bill has a rather short-sighted response to the Supreme Court’s demand that the inadequacy of representation of the SCs/STs must be demonstrated on the basis of each cadre. In essence, the Supreme Court’s position is that if the state wants to provide quotas in promotions for clerks, it should demonstrate inadequate representation of the SCs/STs among clerks . The response of the 117th Constitution Amendment Bill is to remove any reference to the requirement of demonstrating inadequacy of representation. The Supreme Court’s demand that the cadre must be the basis for demonstrating inadequacy of representation is far from ideal. A cadre-based determination of inadequacy of representation of the SC/STs would not result in an accurate picture of representation of the SC/STs in public employment as a whole. The 117th Constitution Amendment Bill should have clarified that a cadre-based determination of inadequacy of representation was not required by the Constitution and that it would be sufficient for the State to demonstrate inadequacy of representation in public employment as a whole. Instead, the Bill that has been passed in the Rajya Sabha goes to the other extreme and no longer requires the state to demonstrate any sort of inadequacy of representation. 

I am not clear as to how quotas on promotions will work. Are we to suppose that there will be 22.5% reservation for SC/STs at each level- joint secretary, additional secretary, secretary- in the government? Or will governments settle for, say, representation in the office cadres as a whole? If SC/STs are adequately represented at the joint secretary and additional secretary level and in the services a whole but there are not enough of them at the secretary level, would this call for government intervention?

The implications of having 22.5% quota at every level should be evident. Promotion would become virtually independent of performance or any comparative evaluation of merit. However, if we don't have enough SC/STs at the senior levels, that could be construed as violative of the intent of the amendment proposed. A compromise would be settle for some rough indicators- at least 5-10% of SC/STs for all posts at senior levels in the aggregate. But, then, an argument could erupt about the numbers; some would say that anything short of 22.5% is discrimination.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of quotas in promotions but I'm afraid I can't see how quotas in promotions will operate or can be operated. Any suggestions?

EU quotas for women on boards

The EU is planning legislation that will make it obligatory for member countries to ensure that, by 2020, 40% of directors on corporate boards are women, FT reports. As I have argued in earlier posts, I am all for gender diversity and, indeed, for diversity of every kind on boards.

Opposition is building up in the UK and the argument is a predictable one: it is better to find ways for women to move naturally up the ladder. But this won't happen any more than we will have better representation for SCs/STs through a natural process (of superior education, economic betterment etc). For these things to happen naturally would take another 100 years or so and, that too, with a lot of luck. There are entrenched prejudices. Equally important, women's need for motherhood could come in the way of their corporate careers. Also, their preference for soft skills, such as HR, instead of marketing and finance could prove something of an obstacle in the rat race. This preference, in turn, arises from women realising that being in areas such as HR can given them more flexibility in their careers and work schedules.

Schumpeter makes these points well in a recent article in the Economist:

Several factors hold women back at work. Too few study science, engineering, computing or maths. Too few push hard for promotion. Some old-fashioned sexism persists, even in hip, liberal industries. But the biggest obstacle (at least in most rich countries) is children. However organised you are, it is hard to combine family responsibilities with the ultra-long working hours and the “anytime, anywhere” culture of senior corporate jobs. A McKinsey study in 2010 found that both women and men agreed: it is tough for women to climb the corporate ladder with teeth clamped around their ankles. Another McKinsey study in 2007 revealed that 54% of the senior women executives surveyed were childless compared with 29% of the men (and a third were single, nearly double the proportion of partnerless men).

Many talented, highly educated women respond by moving into less demanding fields where the hours are more flexible, such as human resources or public relations. Some go part-time or drop out of the workforce entirely. Relatively few stay in the most hard-driving jobs, such as strategy, finance, sales and operations, that provide the best path to the top.

Thus, quotas are the only way to ensure greater gender diversity on boards.The contention that this will dilute 'merit' or 'quality' on boards is utterly laughable. The performance of boards everywhere is so pathetic that almost any change or innovation would be an improvement. One of the things about quota for women is that it will necessarily bring in people from outside the closed club in which boards now operate.

Perhaps the most important reason boards do badly is that there is not enough diversity of views or perspectives. Bringing in women will make some difference in this respect. To improve boards, bring in women and also bring in workers, minority shareholders and institutional shareholders- in short, anybody who is a stranger to today's charmed circle whose members think they need only to nod their heads and slap each other's backs.

Quotas and quality

Everytime, the subject of quotas for disadvantaged in education comes up, the refrain is that this will undermine 'quality' or 'excellence' in education. We will end up with engineers who can't design bridges properly and doctors who are no better than quacks. This argument was heard during the OBC quota debate.

I argued at the time that the cut-offs for OBCs- of, say, 98 percentile at the IIMs- would still mean that OBC students who got admission were in the top 2% of an applicant pool of over 200,000. This was very high quality considering that your chances of getting into a top B-school in the US are high if you are in the top 10-15% in an applicant pool of 10,000!

Well, we have the benefit now of having had a chance to see how OBC candidates have done. Outlook reports that they have done pretty well in several places:

Outlook accessed records from a few premier institutes—IIT Kanpur, IIM Ahmedabad and two Delhi-based colleges, Hindu and Lady Shri Ram—to gauge the performance of students. admitted through the OBC quota. And the good news is that all these students have fared rather well—a fact confirmed by teachers in
these institutions.

As with other institutes, IIT Kanpur too had implemented the nine per cent quota in the first phase in 2008. Of the total of 564 students admitted through the joint entrance examination, 63 were from the OBC reserved category. And if the average marks (on a grade point average) for first-year students in the general category in a coveted course like B Tech (Computer Sciences) was 7.92/10, the OBC students were not far behind at 7.2/10.......Things are equally encouraging at IIM Ahmedabad, which admitted 17 OBC students in the reserved category out of a total of 297 candidates . All have moved to the second year, and with mostly ‘A’s and ‘B’s.

So much for the concern about undermining quality through quotas. Let me add: if anything undermines quality, it is the capitation fee racket. And what is the neo-liberal answer to that? Let us have market-determined fees so that what happens underhand is legitimised. The argument is eerily similar to that made for legalising drugs. And the consequences of such legitimisation could be as malign.

One problem with legalising drugs is that it renders drug use respectable and that could stimulate demand further. With market-determined fees, your render the politics of exclusion legitimate. There is no pretence of being apologetic about cutting out a large chunk of the population from higher education.

No caste please, we're Indians

Outlook magazine carries a story on how an attempt to carry out a caste census is being stonewalled by private sector companies.

When the OBC quota controversy flared up, people questioned the basis for the 27% quota, saying there was no data to back it up. At the time, it was pointed out that there has been a marked refusal on the part of successive governments to collect the data in the first place. Ok, what is past is past, but surely there is merit in trying to see whether quota policy rests on a sound basis of data? This is what the Outlook story says:

<> The Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes (KSCBC) is embarking on a massive caste census for the first time since Independence. Besides covering 1.18 crore households across the state, it will also look at the private sector—which is where it runs into resistance. The commission has written to 176 companies, including IT majors like Infosys, Wipro, Dell, Yahoo, MindTree, Sun Microsystems, IBM and HP, asking them to furnish "religion and caste-wise information" of employees But the response has so far been cold. KSCBC wrote to the companies in March this year and set a May 15 deadline for submission of data. But, as a KSCBC official pointed out, "Only 11 companies have provided information, 18 letters were returned undelivered, and three companies have written back that they are unable to furnish the data." Last fortnight, the commission sent out reminders to as many as 154 companies

The report points out that opposition to the survey is not confined to the private sector- many in government would rather not have the facts coming out. Because then we will know who has benefited so far and who hasn't.

OBC quotas-uncertainty continues

I was away over the past week. I found I couldn't escape the OBC quota row even while away from the campus.

The SC has stayed the Calcutta High Court's own stay on the operation of OBC quotas in IIM- Calcutta. The Hindu's report provided more detail than most others:

the Chief Justice said: “It is strange that such an order has been passed by the Calcutta High Court. Once the Act has been upheld by us where is the question of stay? We don’t think the [Calcutta] High Court can sit over the judgment of this court.”

When counsel for respondents — K.K. Venugopal, Harish Salve, P.P. Rao and Rajeev Dhavan — opposed the stay on the Calcutta High Court order, the Chief Justice said: “Your argument is very strange. If you feel our judgment is being violated, you file a contempt [against the Centre]. We can’t allow the stay order to operate.”

The way I understood the various petitions filed in the High Courts, the principle of OBC quotas in central educational institutions is not being questioned. The issue now is whether the HRD ministry's directive on this subject is in conformity with the letter and spirit of the SC judgement in the case.

The CJ's remarks suggest that the remedy, in the event that the HRD ministry directive is in any way violative of the judgement, is to file a contempt petition against the government, not to seek a stay of OBC quotas in IIMs and elsewhere.

But I am at a loss to understand what would happen if the government were to be found guilty of contempt- say, because some of the admissions made were not in strict confirmity with the SC's observations and guidelines on the 'creamy layer'. The present SC order says that admissions made wil be 'provisional' subject to final disposal of the present bunch of petitions filed in various High Courts ( a point missed in the Hindu story).

What happens if some of the admissions made in accordance with Ministry's directive are seen to be violative of the SC judgement in the OBC quota case? Will the concerned students have to withdraw? Suppose this happens several months after they have joined one of the central educational institutions?

There are more fundamental issues that have been raised. One is whether the proportion of 27% would be valid if the OBC population after excluding the creamy layer turned out to be lower than this. The appropriateness of the figure of 27% was one of the issues raised when the SC heard the petitions against the central educational institutions' Act. The SC then took the view that since Parliament had accepted this figure, there must be some basis for it.

SC judgement in OBC quota case

The SC judgement in the OBC quota case is seen as a politically correct judgement- it allows quotas (which will please the reservationists) but disallows the creamylayer, which will please opponents of quotas.

Well, that may well be the outcome but it would not be correct to suggest that was the intention. A careful reading of the judgements suggests that it is based on a careful interpretation of the Constitution and the formidable case law that has accumulated on reservations. I read the judgements and was left with a sense of admiration for the fundamental justness of the verdict. My comments on a couple of legal aspects and the implications of the judgement are there in my ET column, Expect quota battles to continue.

The thirteen key legal questions and the answers to these are summarised in Chief Justice Balakrishnan's judgement. I reproduce this portion:

Questions:

1. Whether the Ninety-Third Amendment of the Constitution is
against the "basic structure" of the Constitution?

The Constitution (Ninety-Third Amendment) Act, 2005 does
not violate the "basic structure" of the Constitution so far as it
relates to the state maintained institutions and aided educational
institutions. Question whether the Constitution (Ninety-Third
Amendment) Act, 2005 would be constitutionally valid or not so far
as "private unaided" educational institutions are concerned, is left
open to be decided in an appropriate case. (Paragraph 79)

2. Whether Articles 15(4) and 15(5) are mutually contradictory,
hence Article 15(5) is to be held ultra vires?

Article 15(5) is constitutionally valid and Articles 15(4) and
15(5) are not mutually contradictory. (Paragraph 100)

3. Whether exclusion of minority educational institutions from
Article 15(5) is violative of Article 14 of Constitution?

Exclusion of minority educational institutions from Article
15(5) is not violative of Article 14 of the Constitution as the minority
educational institutions, by themselves, are a separate class and
their rights are protected by other constitutional provisions.
(Paragraph 102)

4. Whether the Constitutional Amendment followed the
procedure prescribed under Article 368 of the Constitution?

The Ninety-Third Amendment of the Constitution does not
affect the executive power of the State under Article 162 of the
Constitution and hence, procedure prescribed under Proviso to
Article 368(2) is not required to be followed.
(Paragraph 103)

5. Whether the Act 5 of 2007 is constitutionally invalid in view of
definition of "Backward Class" and whether the identification
of such "Backward Class" based on "caste" is
constitutionally valid?

Identification of "backward class" is not done solely based on
caste. Other parameters are followed in identifying the backward
class. Therefore, Act 5 of 2007 is not invalid for this reason.
(Paragraph 142)

6. Whether "Creamy Layer" is to be excluded from SEBCs?

"Creamy Layer" is to be excluded from SEBCs. The
identification of SEBCs will not be complete and without the
exclusion of "creamy layer" such identification may not be valid
under Article 15(1) of the Constitution. (Paragraph 152)

7. What should be the para-meters for determining the "creamy
layer" group?

The parameters contained in the Office Memorandum issued
by the Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public
Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training)
on 08.09.1993 may be applied. And the definition of "Other
Backward Classes" under Section 2(g) of the Act 5 of 2007 should
be deemed to mean class or classes of citizens who are socially
and educationally backward, and so determined by the Central
Government; and if the determination is with reference to caste,
then the backward class shall be after excluding the creamy layer.
(Paragraphs 153 and 155)

8. Whether the "creamy layer" principle is applicable to
Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes?

"Creamy Layer" principle is not applicable to Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes. (Paragraph 163)

9. Whether the principles laid down by the United States
Supreme Court for affirmative action such as "suspect
legislation", "strict scrutiny" and "compelling State
necessity" are applicable to principles of reservation or
other affirmative action contemplated under Article 15(5) of
the Constitution?

The principles laid down by the United States Supreme
Court such as "suspect legislation", "strict scrutiny" and
"compelling State necessity" are not applicable for challenging the
validity of Act 5 of 2007 or reservations or other affirmative action
contemplated under Article 15(5) of the Constitution.
(Paragraphs 184)

10. Whether delegation of power to the Union Government to
determine as to who shall be the backward class is
constitutionally valid?

The delegation of power to the Union Government to
determine as to who shall be the "other backward classes" is not
excessive delegation. Such delegation is constitutionally valid.
(Paragraph 186)

11. Whether the Act is invalid as there is no time limit prescribed
for its operation and no periodical review is contemplated?

The Act 5 of 2007 is not invalid for the reason that there is
no time limit prescribed for its operation, but a review can be made
after a period of 10 years. (Paragraph 187)

12. What shall be the educational standard to be prescribed to
find out whether any class is educationally backward?
The contention that educational standard of matriculation or
(10+2) should be the benchmark to find out whether any class is
educationally backward is rejected. (Paragraph 189)

13. Whether the quantum of reservation provided for in the Act is
valid and whether 27% of seats for SEBC was required to be
reserved?

27% of seats for other backward classes is not illegal and
the Parliament must be deemed to have taken into consideration
all relevant circumstances when fixing the 27% reservation.
(Paragraph 193)

Justice Raveendran on OBC quotas

In my last post, I had flagged an issue that troubles people in states such as Tamil Nadu. There is a huge quota for OBCs. On top of this, OBCs get in through the merit pool. The total OBC representation thus exceeds the quota limit which itself is generous. Can this happen in central educational institutions now that the Supreme Court has rejected the challenges to the 93rd Amendment?

Justice Raveendran flags this issue in his judgement but refrains from expressing an opinion:

<>

<>I would however leave open the question whether members belonging to other backward classes who get selected in the open competition field on the <>basis of their own merit should be counted against the 27% quota reserved for other backward classes under an enactment enabled by Article 15(5) of the Constitution, for consideration in an appropriate case.

My guess is that this may not be a problem in the elite institutions to start with. Once the 'creamy layer' is excluded, it will not be easy to fill up the 27% earmarked for OBCs.

But, yes, over time, it could be an issue. That is why I say that we must monitor total OBC representation: watch the percentage of OBCs in the quota category and also in the general category. Cut-offs for quotas and definitions of OBCs must be revised periodically so that total OBC representation amounts to 27%.

OBC quotas and the 'creamy layer'

The SC judgement on OBC quotas is in. The focus now turns to implementation. There are two issues as I see it:

i. How do we define the 'creamy layer' for education purposes;

ii. Whether the 27% quota is to be introduced at one go or in phases as the Moily committee had recommended.

On the latter, I just saw on TV that Ramadoss wishes to have 27% at AIIMS right away. I have favoured phased implementation not just because it is politically more acceptable ( to those adversely impacted) but also because we are not clear as to how OBC representation in educational institutions will be impacted by the 27% quota. Let me, therefore, focus on (i) above.

I have not had a chance to go through the judgements myself. From what I could make out from newspaper reports, the 27% quota is subjected to several constraints:

• 'Creamy layer' to be excluded. For jobs, the definition was those from families with income of Rs 2.5 lakh per annum. It appears that, on top of this, the present judgements impose several other criteria: children of those occupying certain high posts or belonging to certain vocations, graduates, etc. Whether these are mandatory or indicative is not clear. On TV yesterday, I heard several people say that each state has evolved its criteria for determining the 'creamy layer'. It is upto the HRD ministry, I suppose, to clarify what criterai would apply to central educational institutions.
• Private unaided institutions are not covered by the existing legislation. On whether fresh legislation can be framed to cover them, all judges except Justice Bhandari are reported to be silent. Justice Bhandari is said to have taken the position that private, unaided instiutions fall outside the ambit of the 93rd constitutional amendment.
• Graduates do not qualify as backward, hence there will be no OBC quota in post-graduate courses. This is one issue that needs to be resolved quickly because we have to determined whether quotas apply to the likes of IIMs or not.
• There is to be a review of the quota level after five years. Again, whether this is merely a suggestion or a direction needs to be clarified.
• The OBC quotas will be subject to minimum eligibility criteria. According to some reports, the difference between the eligibility cut off for the general pool and for the OBC quota should not exceed 5 marks (some say 5%). What this means for IIMs which follow the percentile system is not clear- is the OBC cut off 5 percentile below the normal one or 5 marks below the normal one. My guess is that the latter would be much lower than the former. The Moily committee itself had a sentence to the effect that quotas should not be at the cost of institutional quality- this meant that institutions could exercise their discretion in judging how far they should go to accommodate OBCs.

On the face of it, it would appear that the constraints imposed by the SC will result in a representation for OBCs below the 27% intended. On TV yesterday, I heard dalit activist and scholar, Kancha Iliah, say that the combination of 'creamy layer' and higher fees at educational institutions would prove lethal to the cause of OBC quotas- those with incomes below Rs 2.5 lakh would be sufficiently intimidated by the increasing levels of fees not to seek admission; those could afford the fee would be ineligible. The 27% quota would remain a dream.

Iliah argued that the additional seats being created for OBC quotas would end up being appropriated by the higher castes ( the SC judgement apparently says that seats not filled by qualifying OBCs must go the general pool). Thus, OBC quotas would have the perverse effect of giving greater representation to the higher castes than they enjoy at present!

How plausible is this scenario? Health minister Ramadoss (who was on the same show on Times Now) made the point that 17 years after the implementation of Mandal I, OBC representation in government was just around 5%. If the same happens with educational institutions, I guess the upper castes would be richer by 22%!

However, I am not sure we can extrapolate from the experience with government jobs. People have cited some surveys done in educational institutions (where quotas do not exist at present) that show that OBC representation is quite high even now- on the TV show yesterday, somebody mentioned a figure of 24%. It may well be that OBCs who graduate from good institutions do not seek government jobs, hence the representation in education does not translate into commensurate representation in government.

Iliah may be right: outside the 'creamy layer', not enough people may qualify to meet the quota of 27%. But he overlooks one fact: 'creamy layer' OBCs may be getting in without any concessions, on pure merit, that is. The objective should be overall OBC representation of 27%, not 27% through quota plus whatever OBCs get in the general category. This translates into a higher than mandated representation for OBCs in many states such as Tamil Nadu and is the cause of much of the anti-reservation sentiment.

So we need to monitor OBC representation in the general pool and that in the quota pool and see whether the total approaches 27% or not. This is why phased implementation is desirable. Start with 7% or 10% in the first year for quotas and see what the total OBC representation, including that in the general pool, is. Adjust the definition of 'creamy layer' accordingly.This gives us an empirical basis for defining the 'creamy layer'. It will be so defined as to ensure that OBC representation in the general pool plus that in the quota category amounts to 27%. It also gives us a basis for setting cut-off levels of marks for quotas.

Caste discrimination in Indian industry

Indian industry claims it has no caste bias and that its hiring policies are entirely meritocratic. It uses this claim to oppose caste-based job quotas. The Economist had a feature on the subject largely supporting industry's contention and arguing that quotas would hurt industry while doing little for the underprivileged. Much of the discrimination, the feature suggests, may have to do with class rather than caste:

There is no strong evidence that companies discriminate against low-caste job applicants. Upper-class Indians, who tend also to be high-caste Hindus, can be disparaging about their low-caste compatriots. “Once a thicky, always a thicky,” is how a rich businessman describes Ms Mayawati. Yet this at least partly reflects the fact that low-caste Hindus tend also to be low class; and in India, as in many countries, class prejudice is profound.

Two academics, Paul Atwell, Professor of sociology at City University of New York and Katherine Newman, Professor of sociology at Princeton, contest these claims in a letter to the editor. Their empirical study bears out what those who favour quotas have been saying: caste discrimination may not be overt but it exists and improving the educational credentials of lower castes alone will not be enough.

Our two-year study, which we will soon present, found widespread discrimination against highly qualified low-caste individuals. We sent out 4,800 applications in response to advertisements for graduate jobs in Indian and multinational companies. These applicants bore distinctively upper-caste names, Muslim names and dalit surnames, but were otherwise identical in educational qualifications and work experience.

The odds of a dalit being invited for an interview were about two-thirds of the odds of a high-caste applicant with the same qualifications. The odds of a Muslim applicant being invited to an interview were even worse: only one-third as often as the high-caste Hindu counterpart.

The evidence is solid. Serious policies, coupled with an overhaul of India's education system, a required to overcome this pernicious form of social exclusion. Maybe then the widespread relegation to the bottom of the barrel of India's poorest castes will begin to diminish.

The difficulty I see with quotas in industry is that they will be hard to implement- bureaucrats and politicians alike will be bought off by businessmen and anybody who leans too hard on industry will find it hard to survive in politics- he or she will not be able to access the kind of funds that political surivival requires these days.

Stay on OBC quota

I was under the impression that the stay on OBC quotas issued by the two judge bench of the SC before the summer recess was final and that it was only the validity of the Constitutional amendment that had been referred to a larger bench headed by the Chief Justice.

It turns out that the larger bench that will be hearing the challenge to the Constitutional amendment next month will also hear the fresh plea for vacation of the stay on July 31. The ministry for HRD has filed the application on the ground that the stay will impose hardship on hundreds of OBC students who had applied and qualified for the quota for the present academic year. The IIMs are more than a month into their session. How would they respond if the stay were vacated? We could be in for a fresh round of acrimony.

OBC quota in the news again

With the Supreme Court having convened after its summer recess, OBC quotas are in the news again. The legal battle over the constitutional amendment extending quotas in educational institutions to OBCs has been resumed with the government again moving the SC for a vacation of the stay on quotas.

The stay had been granted by a bench before the summer break. Now the plea for a vacation of the stay is being heard by a bench headed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan. The court has posted the case for hearing on July 31, according to a TOI report. The government is arguing that hundres of OBC students who would have made it through the quota route are being left high and dry.

What happens if the SC lifts the stay now? I don't know about other colleges but the IIMs' new session will have been more than a month old. Is it feasible all to admit them in the current academic year? I have my doubts.

The larger issue of referring the challenge to OBC quotas to a constitutional bench will be taken up by the SC next week, the report says. Somehow, I was under the impression that the matter had already been referred to a constitutional bench by the two judge bench that heard the petition earlier.

Now, that's being progressive!

Indian Express (May 27) carried a lead story that said that the Pune-based Symbiosis college was going ahead with OBC reservations, whether the government dictat holds or not. The constitutional amendment on OBC quotas, be it noted, holds for private institutions as well, not just to centrally-administered ones.

This option was mooted by a colleague of mine at IIMA during the recent stand-off between the IIMs and the HRD ministry over admissions. His argument was that such a solution would be fair to those who had applied under the OBC category (and who would otherwise have competed in the general category) and whose admission was being held up because of the legal process.

Could we have done it voluntarily when the SC had stayed the government order? I wonder what the legal eagles have to say. If there's any expert out there, I am all ears.

OBC quotas- permanence is the vexed issue

I noted in an earlier post (More on OBC quotas, May 9) that one reason why reservations arouse so much hostility is that they are seen to be permanent, not a temporary measure meant to enable some sections to overcome long-existent handicaps. You have the classic position of the oppressed turning oppessor and dominant groups within reserved categories reducing reservations to a naked grab for spoils.

In an article in today's ET, Bodhisatva Ganguli touches on this point:

Much more relevant is one of the questions posed by the SC’s division bench, as to whether reservations can continue indefinitely and whether the government has unfettered power to reserve any percentage of seats. The question to be answered is whether this amounts to a violation of the fundamental right to equality for those denied the benefits of quotas. Not even the most sophisticated pro-reservation argument is willing to clarify whether reservations will eventually end, particularly in states where they have been in place for many decades, or are they part of a stable permanent arrangement. Clearly, some indeed see it as a semi-permanent arrangement as revealed by remarks that OBCs have ‘waited’ 56 years for their due. But there has been no legal bar on OBCs competing on merit. Indeed, one striking aspect of the debate is the lack of data on how many members of the OBC communities have made it on merit to IITs and IIMs in the past.

Incidentally, Ganguli thinks that the chances are that the SC will eventually uphold the policy of OBC reservation in educational institutions.

More on OBC quotas

One of the central criticisms of reservation for OBCs in centrally-administered educational institutions is that caste cannot be the determinant of backwardness today. Another is that proportion of OBCs arrived at by the Commission rests on a badly dated census, that of 1931. The Supreme Court itself had raised these issues recently while hearing the challenges to the Quota Bill.

MS Gill, who was secretary to the Mandal Commission, addresses these issues in today's TOI. First, about the criticism that caste alone cannot be used as a determinant of backwardness, Gill says that the Commission considered as many as 11 indicators of social and educational backwardness of which caste was only one.

The remaining 10 indicators pertain to: dependence on manual labour for
livelihood; marriage at a tender age; level of female participation in work;
number of children who never attended school; rate of student drop-out;
proportion of matriculates as compared to the state average; value of family
assets; residence in kuchcha houses; source of drinking water beyond half a
kilometre; and availability of consumption loans. These indicators objectively uantify the degree of social, educational and economic deprivation as compared to the state averages, and none of them is based on caste per se.


Fair enough. But what about the second criticism, namely, that identification of OBCs based on these criteria isn't satisfactory? The way I understood Gill, the Commission's identification was based on a survey of two villages and one urban block in every district of the country. Is this a good enough substitute for a comprehensive census?

The proportion of OBCs to the population was based on the 1931 Census. The Commission's survey identified 3747 OBCs. The proportion of these to the population in 1931 was determined. The present proportion of OBCs was presumed to be the same as the proportion then because "whereas the country’s population may have grown nearly four times since then, the proportion of its various constituents has obviously remained more or less the same."

What Gill says may be broadly true but the problem arises because some of the castes identified as OBCs are perceived to be manifestly advanced. Some well-placed castes in Kerala and Karnataka figure in the OBCs. This is what upsets people. So, while the Mandal Commission's estimates may be broadly accurate, there may be scope for fine-turning.

There is, however, a more fundamental problem, one that I believe arouses the most opposition to reservation for OBCs. It is that reservations tend to become permanent and particular castes hang on to their quotas long after they have ceased to be backward.

For reservation policy to have broad acceptance, we must have a mechanism for monitoring backwardness on an ongoing basis. OBCs that cease to be backward must be eliminated from the reserved category. A basis for this could be cut-off scores in competitive exams. If scores for OBCs as a whole or for particular converge with those of the general category, that would be one indication that reservation has outlived its utility.

In other words, ensure that reservation policy for OBCs has built-in mechanisms to self-destruct once the goals of reservation have been achieved. Then some of the anger amongst other groups will subside.

Quotas and brand IIM

In an article in today's ET, Prof V Ranganathan of IIM Bangalore writes:

The IITs /IIMs are the one product with a ‘Made in India’ stamp that emerged as India’s global brand, and there is an apprehension in some quarters that this is now being sacrificed at the altar of caste politics. Will that brand decline in value due to a perceived fall in quality by foreign recruiters, who, after all, bestowed such sterling brand equity on those institutions in the first instance? It was these foreign MNCs, who flew down from New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong and recruited these students, paying them eye-popping salaries, besides conferring global recognition on these institutions

This is the standard line taken by anti-reservationists: the great IIM brand is in jeopardy. Look closely at the proposition and the flaws become apparent.

• The international recruiters hire around 60 students at IIMA out of a batch of 250. The number must be the same or lower at the other IIMs. These are the top 60 of the batch. Assuming that those who get in through the OBC quota are all of lesser calibre, how does this affect the top 60? It doesn't. So the foreign recruiters will continue to get the quality they are accustomed to.
• There is a problem only when overseas demand swells to a point where there is a market for the entire batch of 250-300. But we are a long way off from that point. By the time we get there, those who get in through the OBC category may not be very different from those in the general category. Why? Because cut-off scores in the reserved categories tend to coverge towards those of the general category over time.
• We need to look at the cut-offs for those who get in through the OBC category. How much lower are these? And are all OBC students having lower scores than those in the general category? We need some data on this.
• The idea that the IIMs exist primarily in order to create an international brand through international placement itself deserves critical scrutiny. We need the IIMs to produce managers in large numbers for the Indian economy. We need them to produce good management education. There is something demeaning about the notion that the IIMs are an exalted placement agency- faculty at IIMs would be wise not to foster this notion.

Ranganathan also refers to the proposed IIM Bill and its implications for the IIMs.

It now seems the government is rather perturbed at such a miracle of a brand being created in spite of itself, that it now wants to make amends for it and rob IIMs of their financial autonomy by bringing them on a par with IITs through an Act of Parliament. With financial autonomy gone, and the competition to attract quality faculty from international markets at its peak, the IIMs will find it very difficult to attract and retain quality faculty. All they will perhaps be left with are teachers who are no better than the bureaucrats they are trying hard to reform.

I must confess I have no clue about the Bill myself. I also do not know whether bringing the IIMs on par with IITs will mean any loss of academic autonomy. Assuming, however, this is true, I hope Ranganathan is not suggesting that the present degree of financial autonomy of the IIMs has somehow enabled them to attract quality faculty, especially, international faculty. The plain truth is it has not.

Elsewhere, Ranganthan talks about IIMs being able to attract faculty who would be able to switch jobs and go to the top 10-20 schools in the world. He seems to suggest that the IIMs should have even greater autonomy so that they can de-link from government pay scales. Once this happens, they would become attractive to top faculty. I'm afraid that in the foreseeable future, this is only a pipe-dream.

The top 10-20 business schools are mostly in the US. And in higher education in general- and not just in business management- the US reigns supreme. There is a chasm that separates US schools from even European schools. The top European schools find it difficult to lure away faculty from the US even when they are willing to match American salaries. This is because, salary apart, networking and collaboration in research is much easier if you are in the US. Faculty value this and would not give up a position in a top US school easily.

As Ranganathan acknowledges, Singapore is not able to attract top faculty with all the money it can offer. So, even if IIMs became more autonomous and were free to set their pay scales, that in itself would not enable the IIMs to compete for the best talent in the near future. Maybe 20-30 years from now they can- when India is a very different country and if the IIMs systematically go about pulling up themselves by their bootstraps.

The IIMs need to be realistic about their objectives. They need to set objectives that are meaningful in the context in which they operate. They certainly could use more funds and they need to think of ways to mobilise these. But it is not clear that having to operate within the government framework is a constraint on raising more funds.

It is convenient to suppose that there is some government devil that is keeping the IIMs from soaring to greater heights, that greater funding or greater financial autonomy will propel the IIMs into the big league. The reality, alas, is rather more complex.

IIM admission saga

So where do we stand now? The Supreme Court has advanced the hearing of the constitutional validity of the OBC quota bill to May 8. Does that mean that the matter will be resolved then? Not, if we go by one newspaper report. The report says that the Chief Justice had asked the parties to complete their representations in 10 days' time. That would take the court hearings upto May 18. The SC could conceivably take some time thereafter to give the verdict.

Who will hear the matter now? Will it be the two-judge bench of Pasayat and Panta that stayed the OBC quota or a new bench to be constituted by the CJ? Will that be another two-judge bench or a larger bench for hearing a constitutional matter? We don't know yet.

Now that the court hearings seemed poised to stretch upto late May, it does appear that the HRD ministry will allow the IIMs to release their admission lists as per last year's intake.

There were one or two things about yesterday's proceedings that caught my eye. First, the government seems to have responded deftly to the SC's refusal on April 23 to vacate the stay. The Attorney- General was asked to mention the matter in court when the CJ was presiding. The SC rules do not permit mention of any matter unless it is scheduled but, apparently, there is a provision in the rules that makes an exception in favour of the Attorney-General.

Secondly, there was a rather charged exchange between the counsel for the petitioners and the CJ. Counsel P C Lahoty argued that for the government to mention the matter before the CJ was not in conformity with SC procedures and the matter could mentioned only before the two-judge bench. The CJ asserted that it was his preorogative to decide the date of the hearing. The CJ was quoted as telling Mr Lahoty who had raised his voice, "You may give a speech elsewhere".

Today's Indian Express has an article by Pratap Bhanu Mehta which lambasts the IIMs for caving in to the HRD ministry when the latter issued a directive asking that admissions be put on hold. Mehta thunders, "A terse one-line order issued by a joint secretary of the Government of India was enough to bring India’s mightiest institutions to their knees".

Mehta is getting carried away. The JS's letter mentions that the orders had the approval of the "Competent Authority" (read, minister). In the present framework, the relationship of the IIMs to the HRD ministry is not very different from that of ONGC to the petroleum ministry or the nationalised banks to the finance ministry. As the minister pointed out yesterday, the IIMs may be autonomous but they are not "independent". For the IIMs to defy the order could have been illegal. It hardly behoves such institutions to violate the law.

Incidentally, each week in this long-running saga brings a new twist- you could be watching a TV serial.

IIM admissions (contd)

The saga of IIM admissions, stalled over the OBC quota issue, drags on. Today the Supreme Court will take up the government's petition. Note, however, that the government has moved swiftly to squelch one of the principal criticisms of the government's order to the IIMs to put admissions on hold. This is that students would end up paying through their nose by way of non-refundable fee(deposit) as they would not be able to finalise their choice of b-school until the IIM admission uncertainty was resolved.

IIM Admission: Don't worry, you can wait now (ET,April 22)

The AICTE has asked all technical education institutions, universities and deemed universities providing technical education, that is managment, engineering, pharmacy, architecture, to only charge a maximum of Rs 1,000 from students who withdraw from a course before the academic session begins.

Fullstory:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/IIM_admission_Dont_worry_you_can_wait_now/articleshow/1935808.cms

Critics say that the SC has only put OBC quotas on hold, so why should the others suffer? As I have argued earlier, the counter to this could be: why should only the OBC category suffer?

On Times Now TV the other day, Harish Salve pointed out that there was no outcry when the SC stayed the Mandal Commission recommendations on quotas on government jobs, so why the hullabaloo over the present stay? Incidentally, apart from Salve, three other participants in the discussion- PM Bhargava of the Knowledge Commission, Pratap Bhanu Mehta of the Centre for development studies and Shiv Khera, the public speaker, bashed the HRD ministry for interfering with the IIMs' 'autonomy'. They also contended that the IIM directors should have defied the ministry's dictat.

I am not very sure. My understanding of 'autonomy' at IIMs is that they are independent of the university system and are free to grant their own diplomas. I doubt that 'autonomy' means independence from government. As for defying the ministry, that would conceivably mean violation of the Memorandum of Agreement between the ministry and the IIMs- a point highlighted in the ministry's communication.

IIM admissions

IIM admissions are on hold again. ET reports:

The IIMs have decided to announce their admission lists only after further communication from the government. Though the government and IIMs can now breathe easy that they have avoided any confrontation, it’s the aspirants that have been left on the tenterhooks.

The IIMs had earlier decided that they wouldn’t wait beyond April 21 to announce their admission lists. On April 5, the central government had asked the IIMs to hold their admissions in abeyance. The government has petitioned the Supreme court to vacate its stay on the implementation of the new quota regime, which will provide 27% reservation for other backward classes (OBCs). The petition will be taken up by the apex court on Monday.

The IIMs had proposed a two-stage announcement of results. First, they would announce the general category list. After the OBC quota position was clarified by the SC/government, they would release the second list pertaining to the expansion in seats. The HRD ministry's position thus far has been: all or nothing.

The IIMs call about 2000 people for interview. These candidates will have received offers from other b-schools with deadlines for acceptance. The problem is that on accepting an offer, candidates have to fork out large sums as non-refundable fee/deposit. At XLRI, the amount is Rs 1.76 lakh out of a total fee for the first year of Rs 2 lakh. Getting loans to finance such deposits is not possible. Middle-class families will have a tough time raising cash to pay deposits pending the announcement of IIM results.

The problem is not confined to the 2000 or so candidates awaiting IIM results. There are second-round effects on other students. When a candidate who has got into an IIM turns down the offer from a second-tier business school, his seat becomes available to somebody who has accepted an offer from a third-tier busines school. So, candidates hoping to get into a second tier business school will now have to think of paying the deposit at a third-tier school. The cumulative financial costs could be fairly heavy.

However, even if the IIMs' plans for announcing the general list go through, the OBC candidates will face the same problem until the quota issue is resolved. You could argue: why should one set of students alone face uncertainty and the resultant costs?

Well, there are those who contend that the SC has stayed only the OBC quota; it has not asked for the general list to be put on hold. It is the ministry that has asked for the latter. On TV yesterday, I heard lawyer Harish Salve raise the issue of IIMs'a autonomy in such matters. Does a joint secretary in the HRD ministry have the right to issue such a fiat, he asked? (The JS, in his communication, does mention that the order to the IIMs has been cleared by the 'competent authority'- read, minister). Salve also said something about raising this matter in the SC on April 23.

I guess we have to await the SC's orders on April 23.

IIMs and HRD ministry

Admissions to the IIMs this year are proving to be a messy affair. The IIMs had wanted to release the admission list to April 12. Since the matter had gone to the Supreme Court, they moved the date to April 21. The IIMB director was quoted as saying the results would be on out April 21 "come what may". Now, we hear that the IIM directors are to be meet in Delhi on April 20 to take a final decision.


The SC has posted the matter for hearing on April 23. The IIMs say they would like to release the list for the general category on April 21. Based on the what ensues from the hearings in the SC, they will take a decision on the OBC quota later on. They say this will minimise inconvenince and financial loss to students in the general category who will also be having offers from other business schools. But does this mean that students in the OBC category will be subject to inconvenience and financial loss and not those in the general category? After all, that would be the outcome if the general category were released separately from that of the OBC category.

With the HRD ministry appearing to stick to earlier directive to the IIMs to put admissions on hold "until further orders", we seem to be approaching a repeat of the showdown between the IIMs and the ministry during the time of Murli Manohar Joshi.

There was one point about the ministry's petition to the SC that struck me. The ministry argues that the SC had accepted the concept of OBC reservation in the Indra Sawhney case. But in that case, the SC had expressed asked for the exclusion of the "creamy layer". Had the provision for OBC quotas excluded the "creamy layer", the ministry may have been better placed to argue that parliament's actions are consistent with the SC's earlier judgement.

I had a chance to present my views on OBC reservation in IITs and IIMs in a debate organised by the Economic Times

I highlight one of the less publicised facts about IIM admissions. Standards for SC/ST categories are lower than for the rest but they are still pretty high- they are, in fact, comparable to the standards at the best b-schools elsewhere in the world. Indeed, there is a view that, given the quality of talent in the applicant pool for top schools, selection by lottery would be as good as any admission process!
We can expect OBCs to come in somewhere between the general category and the SC/ST category. That would mean a high level of performance. So, I just don't buy the argument that OBC reservation will dilute the famous IIM brand.

But I do believe that reservations should not be there in perpetuity. Then, reservations become a means for certain groups to grab spoils for themselves. Reservation policy for OBCs must include mechanisms that allow the policy to self-destruct once the goals of the reservation have been achieved. As groups graduate out of backwardness, they must cease to be eligible for reservation.