Reservations XVI: Why elite lower castes do not support

During those debates of Anti-reservations last year, there was a joke circulating in the internet.

Imagining an Indian Cricket team based on reservations….

We should have 10% reservation for minorities, 30% for OBC, SC/ST like that.

Cricket rules should be modified accordingly. The boundary circle should be reduced for an SC/ST player. The 4 hit by an OBC player should be considered as a 6 and a 6 hit by an OBC player should be counted as 8 runs.

An OBC player scoring 60 runs should be declared as a century. We should influence ICC and make rules so that the pace bowlers like Shoaib Akhtar should not bowl fast balls to our OBC player. Bowlers should bowl maximum speed of 80 kmph to an OBC player.

This joke was copied to all and sundry in a work environment in IT industry of India. The innate belief is that everyone working in IT industry is upper caste, and that they are all ‘meritorious’ and that they all condemn reservations-based-on-caste unequivocally. Though there might be some lower caste people, they are not seen voicing a counter opinion.

Many lower caste Hindus that I met in IT industry seem to be ambivalent about this topic. They are shy from taking a stand, are diffident in expressing their opinions, and even if they do speak out, they end up voicing certain reservations against reservations-based-on-caste. They do not like to be seen supporting such reservations.

Elite lower caste do NOT support reservations

This is not very different from elite Blacks in US who do not wish to be seen as ‘those who got help’ from affirmative action. Once you have made it, you don’t want to extend any help to others of your kind with a pure selfish interest – 'not to be seen as incompetent by your peers'. Any such support to such affirmative policies is seen as ‘lack of competence’ by others.

The elite lower castes of India are no different. There is a prevailing notion that those who support reservations are those who cannot make it on the basis of ‘merit’; that they could not win in an open competition; that they are inferior in certain way which can only be compensated by reservations.

Here’s an example from recent news wherein some OBCs made it to IIT in ‘open-category’ [emphasis mine].

"When there are so many OBC students who are doing well naturally, why set aside seats for them and demoralise them?" asked an OBC student who joined IIT Bombay.

Here, an OBC student who made it to IIT in open category believes that reservations actually demoralize the students. I don’t know if village women feel the same when they are given reserved seats in buses.

When I started supporting reservations-based-on-caste on this blog, people assumed that somehow I lack the competence, that I wasn’t smart enough to make it to those premier institutes, that I am a loser in my life, that I make up for those inadequacies by leaning on reservations.

Can’t one support a cause just because he believes in it? Can’t I fight for Muslims without being a Muslim? Can I fight for poor of India without being poor? Can’t I fight for gay people without being a homosexual?

Many elite lower caste Indians shy away from supporting reservations-based-on-caste because they do not want to be seen as admitting incapability. It’s hard for many Indians to admit they are incapable of something, especially the elite of India, where saying ‘I don’t know’ is a sure sign admittance that you are ‘good for nothing’.

‘I will never say I-don’t-know’ Syndrome

I have seen many engineers in India who are NOT ready to admit that they do NOT know something. They are afraid that they will be seen as incompetent. So, they rather make up something, on the fly, to cover their ignorance, and speak something that is ‘seemingly intelligent’ but is usually quite garbled. A person of real experience and competence can easily see through such facetious attempts. This is so common in all meetings. Even a VP in these industries wants to sound technical to prove that he is competent. Being technical, and sounding technical is extremely important for these people to believe that they are competent. They don’t want to do or talk anything that might reflect negatively on their capabilities. Supporting reservations is seen as lack of competence. And hence you will not find many supporters for reservations-based-on-caste in IT industry, not even from lower castes.

This syndrome starts quite early in most Indians, where scores (or marks) are everything. One gets high scores only when he mugs up things, learns by rote, remembers by heart, reproduces exactly what is in the text book, all verbatim. Therefore, a ‘smart’ guy is the one who has mastered this excellent ability to spew forth his knowledge verbatim, without taking a breath, in one spurt of outburst. A small pause, a gasp or slight hesitation is a sure sign of incompetence. Trying to put the idea in your own words is also sure sign of incompetence.

And how do these elite kids get into top schools when they grow up? By cramming up lot of exercises in a short period of time- doing the same exercise again and again till you get it right! [The fact that just two or three institutes of Hyderabad produce nearly 20% of IIT rankers should tell you how this cramming exercise is done these days]. In most engineering schools of India, remembering an old, arcane and completely useless formula is a sure sign of intelligence. How does one use it in real life? That’s of no concern to anyone. No wonder you see such pathetic roads in India. What do you expect from those engineers who passed their exams by learning their stuff by rote? They have no clue why and how and where that knowledge should be used.

Most IT companies inbreed engineers who constantly keep losing their creativity. They are NOT supposed to think for themselves. They are NOT supposed to be original. They are NOT supposed to be creative. They are supposed to just FOLLOW the guidelines given to them by their client who invariably happens to be an American or a European. They are just supposed to DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD. What use is their esteemed degree from an esteemed institute when all they can do for self-gratification is indulge in bouts of ‘seemingly intelligent’ conversations over coffee trying to outwit the other by remembering old and arcane formulae they learnt many years ago?

When every one is doing a mediocre job, the only way you can outshine the other is sounding technical and pedantic. Even a VP has to do it to get the attention and respect from his team members. After sometime, you don’t know why everyone, including the VP and Senior Director are discussing the age old Physics formula or syntax in C.

In Indian IT industry, competence is about ‘sounding’ competent, not actually doing it. So, you see that even the lower caste IT engineers, who should have stood by their own kind coming from villages, do NOT support these reservations, lest they be seen as incompetent.

Additional Links:

No Reservation, Only Merit Based Employment in Wipro : Azim Premji

14% IIT students from general category OBCs