Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Reservations XIV: Corporate responsibility- mandatory?

Earlier, I had worked in really large organizations and now I run a small organization and I know the pitfalls of mandatory policies to implement reservations in Indian industry. I know the implications and consequences of such policies and I would not like to go that path if given a choice. Mandatory provisions, if they are similar to what are practiced in Indian government, are going to affect the Indian industry in many ways. Imagine promotions being made on caste lines and imagine you can’t fire someone because he is from a lower caste, etc.

If given choice I wouldn’t want to go that path of mandatory reservations policies that are similar to the ones practiced in Indian government offices. Instead, I want our industry to wake up and embrace voluntary practices so that Indian government can be assured that we are wise and mature enough to implement policies that actually bridge the gap between different social groups in our industry. As a wish I do not want these policies to be enforced upon us.

However, I do not see any voluntary action on part of Indian industry. I don’t see a single action from them that suggest they are going to embrace this voluntarily. Indian industry is not even ready to disclose their numbers- on how many backward communities are on their payroll, how many women, how many Muslims, Christians, etc. The voluntary disclosure of such numbers is only the first step. What follows next is the realization- that we have gone wrong somewhere. So that we can then ask some hard questions to ourselves- Where did we go wrong? How can we include certain parameters and provisions to take care of correcting these under-representations without affecting our corporate functions? Should we come up with our own strategies to combat this problem? If indeed our rolls are filled with people from single class, shouldn’t we be ashamed of ourselves?

But then, if we were indeed that wise and mature, we wouldn’t have had caste-based-discrimination in the first place, right?

Should the government impose mandatory policies right away? Should the government first give the room and space for Indian industries to rectify their systems and then see if they have made enough progress before enforcing the mandatory policies? What is the right way to do it? Should we trust the Indian industry to take up this task on its own or let the Indian government mandate the task?

I would like to give an example here. Imagine India started to see a fall in the ranks of its army and defense forces. Let’s say, it has been agreed by experts that a quarter-million force is necessary to provide an adequate deterrence to an external aggression. And let’s say we realize that there is only a fifty-thousand force since no one is keen on joining the forces. To overcome this problem, Indian Army could start off with providing incentives to people to join, and if even that doesn’t work, it may start making mandatory policies to recruit people. This is not a far-fetched scenario. Many countries in the world have mandatory recruitment into their army for certain period of time. This allows them to maintain a credible army at all times. In absence of volunteers many countries resort to mandatory enlistment.

The same analogy can work for Indian industry. Indian government should allow Indian industry to voluntarily come up with different mechanisms to address the gaps in the representations of different classes of people. Meanwhile, the Indian industry should quickly take this opportunity and start implementing the policies to bridge gaps between various classes right away. In absence of such voluntary actions from Indian industry, the Indian government will have no choice but resort to the mandatory provisions.

I wish that companies like Wipro, Infosys, Tata, Reliance, etc, which are big names of the Indian industry should readily embrace voluntary methods. By doing that, they will set an industry standard which other companies like ours can embrace without having to resort to mandatory provisions. I am sad to see that many of these companies are running away from embracing this voluntarily. Such apathy will only take us down the mandatory path.

6 comments:

  1. Since the time I have been working in the industry, I have never witnessed someone not given a job because of being from a lower caste.

    If you are really talking about correcting under representation, how about providing 50% blanket reservation in all education, government and private jobs to women.

    Whatever holds for the low caste people holds for women too. They have been equal or more deprived. I wonder how many of pro-reservation people would agree to this.

    I am completely against reservation for any group except for the handicapped.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! Look at the presidential primary elections in the US. On democrats side they have one black (Obama) and one woman (Hillary) remaining in the race - incredible. Looks like they have reservation seeping in the US as well.

    They should start with reservation in corporate America for blacks and women.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My comments may be summarized by saying I wonder whether I can do really any better than what another respondent, Anjali Bharadwaj, says. Moreover, who ever says that in any category of people, say women/ men cateogirzation, there will be same proportions among women with a high mathematical IQ as among men? To assume these proportions are equal would be unscientific, and to provide mandatorily equal proportions of men and women in say, jobs of maths teachers in schools and universities, will be foolish, and that is NOT we as a nation can progress. Similar argument applies to Hindus/Muslims/Christians/Jains/...categorization, or among castes also. Please note that in Tamilnadu, in the southern districts of Tuticorin, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari, Christians are a very sizable minority as a result of missionary work in various ways in those poverty stricken areas. Their representatives have already vehemently opposed the government move to reserve a state overall proportion of jobs for Christians in govt. saying Christians are already holding a much higher proportion than indicated by their state population figures in the total, in many areas, notably education. Hence those who champion mandating job proportions as identical with proportions of castes and religions and sexes in total population should seriously ask themselves, whether by so doing, we are really not trying to sow seeds of horrible divisiveness in our great society which for millennia has been carrying on happily in harmony despite invasions and violences by alien forces, without too many scrambles and clamours for jobs but treating as more as service as a means for increasingly "comfortable" life. While we have a leadership role for the world, with our spiritual values - for example treating jobs more as an opporunity to service of fellowmen, instead of looking at them exclusively as a means of livelihood, we seem to be more than willing to ape the materialistic West. Even there, there is no proportional representation of minorities or even among genders. There is affirmative action mandated in the US, for ex., but it is NOT QUOTAS, mind you, that are in proportion to numbers of heads. Thus, blacks, will always continue to figure prominently much more than the rest in several fields where their muscle and physique are looked at as factors for special consideration, whether this is of significant value in the jobs they hold. Asians - Indians occupy "disportionately" large nos. in teaching jobs in the US but 'affirmative action' which is NOT based on quotas equated to proportions of persons in categories, is mandated. Companies are required to maintain and submit data on what action they took, if they could at all, by way of encouraging them. And the government setup for quotas is really not an exclusive department or one being obsessed with a single job of measuring affirmative action with barometerlike yardsticks.
    In the Indian armed forces, to which a reference has been made in the topic for discussion, reports say there is significant shortfall in the numbers in the ranks, low to high, one factor of course being remuneration. There IS a 'shortfall' in Muslims if you go by their population proportions in India, in respect of their presence in the armed forces. Although the government officiously called for data on communal proportions in the armed forces, Muslims do NOT, for whatever reason, volunteer to join the forces, so as to oblige the govt. by fulfilling the proportionality requirement which the government, nay, the various political parties, want to use as a slogan in their scramble for power and personal wealth using their political power and influence.

    Hence, to conclude, the paramount consideration is to see that quality education is provided universally, at all levels, with financial aid to ensure that poorer people [not 'poorer communities, or castes, or religionists!] are NOT denied education for want of money. What they do once qualifying themselves educationally as per their own choice, that will mean that opportunities are available on a fair and just footing. The quotas based on religions and castes in jobs and education will, if anything, only give a spurious feeling of 'achievement' in the minds of communal minded political leaders. For, jobs will be in terms of thousands, except in the armed forces where there are in lakhs (perhaps not annual recruitment rate, still). It is highly doubtful that such numbers of jobs will really make for economic or social elevation of a community.

    The private sector jobs in many cases run to many more than in comparable public sector jobs, wherever the public sector is also active. But assuming a quota law is made,for this sector, with all infinite clauses and provisos, the tremendous strain on businesses in the form of paperwork like periodical reports to be submitted, interference by pettyminded officials (all of it is, generally), demands for favoritism from implementing officials under threat of litigation, and so on, will be unbearable, and will take a toll on the capacity of businesses in realizing their business objectives. The horror cannot even be imagined if the quotas are made perpetual (arguing that certain communities were kept suppressed for millennia, etc.) besides.

    Finally, on the theory side, men are born with aptitudes and capabilities defined by genes and DNAs., and these are to a small extent impacted by family and social environments depending on the encouragement to pursue education or the socalled higher spirations in terms of white colar jobs, and jobs without manual taks on the one extreme, and jobs calling for ability to take a mature and overall view of situations/ issues to take decisions. Given this, it will be sane for laws to confine themselves to mandate high quality, universal education and keep off from mandatory job quotas which can harm not only the society as a whole , but also communities comprising it which have always felt proud of whatever they felt destined to do. Education can help break the self imposed barrier of communities (doing what they thing they are destined to do). National commitment to high quality universal education must be permanent. Right now quality of even school education is very poor, for various reasons, mainly due to teaching being treated as a job avenue, again going along with communal considerations regardless of true merit. This will again make it impossible for us to bring in high quality universal education as the chief tool for equal opportunity later on.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Muthukaruppan:
    Thanks for writing. Your comments are long.

    To assume these proportions are equal would be unscientific,

    Why would you think that such an assumption is unscientific?

    and to provide mandatorily equal proportions of men and women in say, jobs of maths teachers in schools and universities, will be foolish,

    Do you think that making provisions to increase the number of women at a workplace from a pathetically low representation foolish?

    Do you think that making provisions to increase the number of women in Indian Administration and legislature from a pathetically low representation foolish?

    and that is NOT we as a nation can progress.

    So, how else does the nation progress?

    …ask themselves, whether by so doing, we are really not trying to sow seeds of horrible divisiveness in our great society which for millennia has been carrying on happily in harmony despite invasions and violences by alien forces,

    Are you talking of the harmony in which sons of slaves continued to be slaves, daughters of untouchables continued to be outcasted?

    While we have a leadership role for the world, with our spiritual values

    Who gave us this role? ;-) Or do we just pat ourselves on our back for our own contribution?

    the paramount consideration is to see that quality education is provided universally,

    Shall we wait for that? Till 2150?

    Finally, on the theory side, men are born with aptitudes and capabilities defined by genes and DNAs.,

    So, why don’t we take a test on Genes and DNAs to give seats in engineering colleges?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am glad to attempt an answer the questions of K Sujai:
    Q.: 'To assume these proportions are equal would be unscientific,"
    ==> We talk about proportional representation, that is at least how I suppose quotas are mandated. Men and women are almost equal in numbers, or approximately so, on an overall basis. There are gender composition differences : regional, maybe even economic, or other categories, but I suppose it is tacitly assumed that such variations in proportions can ignored, with or without reason. Now no one says women should not take up jobs. They should, rather, compete with men, take up any jobs, subject only to the requirement that an organization may not be able to meet any demand for special treatment as a rule because they are women. As far as IQ is concerned, there are specific IQs.,and I wonder whether there is truly any rational basis, such as a scientific conclusion through experiments, that they are equal to men under each IQ. Thus, for mathematical analysis based jobs, a well designed test will be a far more purposeful criterion than the equality one. THE ONE AND THE ONLY SACRED CONSIDERATION IS THE DESIRE, APTITUDE AS REASONABLY PROVEN, AND JOB REQUIREMENTS. No discrimination based on sex, any factor, whatsoever. Women,moreover, are eminently more suitable in many, many jobs, say those requiring patience, tenderness, or such other qualities found especially as a natural characteristic in them. Men cannot be given those jobs in equal proportion as women, so to speak.You don't have to call it gender discrimination when men are not treated thus, though for practical reasons, they can be a stopgap as substitutes for women until the latter are available for the jobs.

    "Do you think that making provisions to increase the number of women at a workplace from a pathetically low representation foolish?

    Q."Do you think that making provisions to increase the number of women in Indian Administration and legislature from a pathetically low representation foolish?"
    ==> This is debatable, in the sense situations may be possible to identify in cases like IAS, legislatures, etc. depending on job requirements visavis suitability.I cannot comment on IAS re: the proportion for women specifically. But in legislature, yes, their numbers are too low, and through a threadbare discussion and analysis of all data available, I just guess their numbers can and should be increased, mandatorily, but again, whether men or women, candidates for legislature representation should be legislated only with record to their records on social mindedness, broad outlook, etc. BUT BY THE BY IS THERE ANY LEGAL BAR ON WOMEN COMPETING, EVEN SUCCESSFULLY, TO MORE THAN 50%. Perhaps you have in mind something like reserved constituencies for elections, for SC/ST. Without reservation, there could be a general invitation to women to come in larger numbers to come up to fifty per cent, since I do not think there is discrimination against women. Maybe if all parties agree, an agreement can be reached for their representation upto even 50% or whatever their proportion in states.I also feel that their coming in more numbers can benefit society more, especially since I guess they are by nature incapable of behaving like musclemen, which many of our men MLAs are musclemen. Men, in our society, use their criminal potential to jockey to the legislatures, barring isolated exceptions.

    Q. and that is NOT (how) we as a nation can progress. / So, how else does the nation progress?

    Sorry, what I meant was, such obsession with quotas linked to proportions and ignoring demands in specific situations is well directed since aptitudes and characteristics differ between individuals, not castes, where there has always been a choice. The original concept of castes, more precisely Varnas, were based NOT on birth, but Sanskar which is linked to self improvement based on inborn attitudes. DO YOU SAY IGNORING WHAT IS GOOD IN AN INDIVIDUAL VISAVIS IS BETTER FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF OUR PROGRESS AS A NATION.

    Q. Are you talking of the harmony in which sons of slaves continued to be slaves, daughters of untouchables continued to be outcasted?

    Caste based discrimination was long ago, more than half a century ago, mandatorily abolished, which there is hardly questionable,and many are using the opportunities based on their own aptitudes and merits as specified for jobs. As far as the Dalits, SCs, STs, are concerned, quotas were made only because they remained outside the mainstream. This does not apply to castes in general since no one anyway follows caste considerations in seeking jobs : a Brahmin is prepared to even clean latrines for a regular remuneration, or a Kshatriya does business, a Vaishya works as a manual laborer, .... Poverty and ignorance are prevalent widely even after over sixty years of Independence due to corruption on all fronts, politicians' misuse
    of casteist slogans and actions being no insignificant contributory factor as well. I think we should consider seriously whether the present form of democracy is really helping us best, or whether modifications are called for in our democratic institutions.
    -----------------------
    The other questions sent by Sujai K : I shall give them my maximum consideration and submit my answers very soon.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "and that is NOT we as a nation can progress."
    ==> I said that proportional representation in the matter of fixing quotas is basically unscientific, undesirable. I argued, for instance, women can have even more than their apx. their proportion of 50% in certain jobs where they can be of better value. This is an elementary argument. This is actually linked to the DNA, gene factor, or the fact that God or whatever other entity,or process like evolution, you you will, has designed this so to result in its present form. It seems more fruitful to disseminate this truth as necessary so that it is consciously followed, and not to waste our energies experimenting with alteration by artificial means this fact. Empirical observation is, also, whether women are being discriminated against in a 'men's world' is a universal debate. But nowhere, even in the Western half of the world where women's liberation campaign is at its maximum, quotas are resorted to.
    How else do we progress, you ask, as if to counter, if not offset, my arguments on indiscriminate quotas. But how about treating this as a separate topic for debate in these columns, which I suppose quite a few are taking seriously to make their contribution ?
    -------

    "Are you talking of the harmony in which sons of slaves continued to be slaves, daughters of untouchables continued to be outcasted?" you say.
    ==>> IF YOU DENY THERE WAS HARMONY IN INDIA DESPITE ISLAMIC AND CHRISTIAN DIVISIVE ACTIVITIES,ND VIOLENCES, HISTORICALLY, WHICH WAS DUE TO OUR TOLERANCE STEMMING FROM OUR HUMANITY - VASUDHAA EVA KUTUMBAKAM, IS THE VEDIC ADMONITION - I would not want to answer at all. Violences were entirely due to violent Islamic invaders and their ruthless army captains having committed to convert 'Infidels' with threat of conversion or death in the alternative. This is no longer possible, but yes, terrorism aims to do this, it seems. But of course, sometimes it will be resisted by retaliation, it is a mass frenzy in such times.

    But, then, I may ask you, does your question specifically refer to the Indian past, or the mankind as a whole? Slavery of the kinds you specify, have characterised all societies, most notably in the US where even trading in slaves was in vogue for a very long period, treating the imports of blacks from Africa as sub-human. These practices are as evil, as they have fortunately vanished all over, except maybe for the slavish status of women in certain Islamic societies, which is being duly resisted in some quarters in the world today.

    Untouchability, as a principle, was comparatively far better, as compared to the historical slaughters and genocides and tortures of those who do not believe in Christ or Allah abd refusing to specifically use such names for God's messenger or the Almighty. The practice of not touching each mother, moreover, is only symbolic of inborn unwillingness to treat a fellowman as totally identical to oneself in all the minutest details. In the Hindu society, even in a family, there has been a tradition, now all but dead, for anyone having taken his bath not to be touched by others at least until the former offers his prayer or even until taking his food, or preferably never except of course between a married couple. Also, at least in the South, you are not permitted to go within 10 metres of a woman in her menstrual period. These are scientifically rooted. Space constraints and fast life may have prevented this tradition from being practised.

    But, talking about Chandalas, or untoucables, they are seldom these days by law, and also to a very large extent in practice. The theoretical ['shastraic', if you don't dislike the term] principle was always 'baahya antara suchi' or the twin purity of inner and outer frames of man. This theory was not wrong, and there is as such no need to institutionalize untouchability, much less so with our individual and public morality and ethics and ideals, being left to our own "dictates of conscience" which differs from person to person! But that does not amounts to an indirect hint of advocacy of untouchability, slavery, etc.

    There is always the need to uplift all sections of our society needing special support, be they economically poor, or socially neglected, or otherwise little cared for. This is an economic and social task, to be divested of any missionary activities which do not part with help without a divisiveness factor being introduced by conversion of especially of classes of people merely on the basis of their outcaste label. The 'outcastes' do include a large proportion of well to do and affluent people, and non outcastes include very considerable numbers of people in dire distress. DEPENDING ONLY ON OUR GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL COMPETENCE FOR ACTION, ALL PEOPLE WILL NEED TO BE UPLIFTED ECONOMICALLY AT THE FASTEST RATE POSSIBLE. For spiritual succour, our ancient wisdom is adequate, indeed abundantly available, which rebukes us against unlimited pursuit of economic/ materialistic pursuit and gratification of the senses, which will never, never bring us peace that we seek in those ways. This admonition is for individuals, but it cannot be helped if individuals organize themselves as groups pursuing intellectual, commercial, militaristic, manually or spiritually oriented pursuits as per their own free volition. If any of these natural groups wants to dominate over, or enslave, the other groups, there will be strife and such an attempt will not succeed. Communis, capitalism, socialism, are, essentially, ideollogies disguising such enslaving attempts. Thus they never survive for any long periods, as history proves to us.
    -----------------
    While we have a leadership role for the world, with our spiritual values

    Who gave us this role? ;-) Or do we just pat ourselves on our back for our own contribution?

    ===> No one gives, and no one can assume, a leadership or followership role. India's spiritual leadership was never an ambition for Indians, but let us ask, which particular national or social wisdom has said, so explicitly, almost like a religious diktat: World is a single family of man. If we, Indians, not necessarily Hindus, are able to spread far and wide across the globe, and much of the time welcome guests who add value to our host countries, this is entirely due to our peaceful ethos rooted in an immemorial wisdom specific to our spiritual ethos. We do not instigate hatred in host countries nor dupe nor terrorise that society to our way of life.

    Swami Vivekananda seems to have been forgotten by our youth, whose energies seem to be] largely consumed in frivolties of cricket,
    inane entertainments, pervasive misuses of technology and devices, .... . He did say - countering the pseudoscholarship of the West which wanted us to believe we are an enormous set of primitive, uncivilized lot in this part of earth - that they should pause to reexamine and reconsider their preconceptions. To a large extent he succeeded in convincing the West of our spiritual superiority which informs all our different religions and indeed our daily lives. Only after his spiritual educational campaign, did the West begin to care for us, but if our youth expends less energies in wasteful pastimes, as stated just, and spreads this message of Swami Vivekananda, in their own ways, without getting violent and fanatic, they can bring about better understanding and harmony on our shrinking planet for all mankind. Again, let us not indulge ourselves any such vanity of denigrating our eternal and universally valid ethos for all mankind. The Hinduism that we talk about really comprises an entire spectrum of spiritual thinking woven into different religions of this soil, which lie between, as it were, between two extremes, and yet never touching violence by word,deed, or thought to rest of mankind but always wanting us to embrace it as a single family's members. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG IF WE INDIANS, HINDUS, CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS,..., ALIKE UNITE AS A SPIRITUALLY ORIENTED COLLECTIVE WHOLE TO SET AN EXAMPLE AGAINST EXCESSIVE MATERIALISM, ALL STRIVING TOWARD A SINGLE AND ALL CONSUMING GOAL OF MATERIALISM AND CREATURE COMFORT.
    -----------------
    the paramount consideration is to see that quality education is provided universally,

    Shall we wait for that? Till 2150?

    ==> Why the hell should we relax our efforts, wait until 'tomorrow' which can be even 3000 ! Let us introspect whether our delusory social, political, and economic thinking that has driven us along during our post Indepndence period, have yielded the maximum results, identify where we have erred in essential sense, what we set for to achieve and what we got based on our own motivations, etc.,etc. What good we can take from our roots in the past, and what we can reject as out of tune with the times, ... we need to do hardnosed self criticism without condemning ourselves, but building on our endowments and strengths.
    -------------------

    Finally, on the theory side, men are born with aptitudes and capabilities defined by genes and DNAs.,

    So, why don’t we take a test on Genes and DNAs to give seats in engineering colleges?

    ===> Well, genetics and now, genomics, and one we do not know, what further specializations tomorrow: all these ARE able to do us some good, more on the physical side, like appearance, or qualities like sour/bitter (fruits), and so on. But they are not able to what is really determined by birth at the individual level (not just correlations on collective wholes)
    . At time is it going to be possible to alter individual genes or DNAs. such that the individual, for instance, can become a great mathematician, or a philosopher to uncover the mystery of universal consciousness, or an engineer who can think through the problems of building a photon rocket that can us to stars. ... This is not the strand of thinking, when I referred to inborn qualities. We do not know why and how, but differences are there between individuals as they are born. IT is possible to improve certain characteristics, to a small degree, as psychologists using scientific techniques have concluded. Which means, it is the individual who matters, and depending on our resource constraint, all collective actions - social, governmental - can be spent to maximise individual potential to the level that is practically/scientifically feasible through environmental and educational support. No gene or DNA tests can be advocated, as they help little to understand unerrringly on what we need to do, at the individual level.

    ReplyDelete

Dear Commenters:
Please identify yourself. At least use a pseudonym. Otherwise there will be too many *Anonymous*; making it confusing.

Do NOT write personal information or whereabouts about the author or other commenters. You are free to write about yourself. Please do not use abusive language. Do not indulge in personal attacks and insults.

Write comments which are relevant and make sense so that the debate remains healthy.