Where Merit and Equity Meet

 This is a guest post, written by my brother Samarth, originally written in response to this article. This is intended to be a comment on the 'open letter to Mr. Sibal'.

Dear Bijendar, 

Nice article! Great presentation and even better sarcasm. But I fail to agree with the core of your view... This is how I look at it.

I would like to take you back in time, the time when the IITs were getting established. Behind their formation, was the greatest socialist leader our country has ever produced- Pt. Nehru. He had 'social equity' as his core ideology and he sought to achieve it by - I am sure you must be knowing - the trickle down theory of development. This model seeks to achieve growth by first developing what can easily be developed, and then assuming that it will propagate outwards(/downwards). So, they established the IITs as centers of excellence, assuming that they will act as nodes, producing engineers of world class talent who will drive the country into the modern age. Huge funds were put into them, and still are. So the points to note are twin. First- that the IITs are not some private bodies, but are government nurtured institutions. Second- that the IITs were created not just to promote merit, but to use merit for all round development by giving it a chance to realise its potential.

Now the basic fallacy of such a model is that in trying to use merit as a tool for future equity, it creates more inequity. Also, the people who benefit from it - in this case the middle classes - never do what is expected from them. What happened as a result was called brain drain. The "brand" which the IITians have created, although a big achievent of Indian intellectuality, is a big failure of the government. The fault here is not with the people, but with the government policy itself, which somehow assumes action in public interest as something coming naturally to a human being.

How do I see the recent governmental policies vis-a-vis the IITs?
1. on opening up new IITs..NO...not because it will tarnish the image of the IITs, but because it is just an extension of the trickle down theory. The money can be better spent directly on the bottom of our socio-economic pyramid. Infact if you ask me today, I would not support even the creation of those seven in the first place.
2. On reservation...NO more of populism please!...They only benefit those are already well off to support their basic education and have a decent living, not those who have nothing.
3. On a common entrance test... YES!...because it has the obvious benefits of integration, but it should take the varying needs of institutes into account.
4. on taking the board marks into account...please prepare the framework it needs first, then do it. It will give a better idea of the overall personality of the student. But dont try and reach the moon with an autorickshaw.

People who benefit from a government policy start opposing newer policies, even if the newer ones have the same ideology as the ones which benefitted them, if they think that they will negatively affect their self interest. The OBC groups opposing the women reservation is an example, and so are the IITians opposing newer IITs. The basic goal of any government of a country should be to allow people to act in their self interests, and only support those who really cannot, rather than creating distortionist policies based on false assumptions.

It's high time that merit finds its way out (on its own, of course)!