ATSUM’s Boomerang

Source: IMPHAL FREE PRESS
Posted: 2007-07-11

The claim today by the All Tribal Students Union Manipur, ATSUM, that meritorious tribal candidates of the recently held combined recruitment tests for various top line Manipur Civil Services jobs, who made it within the ranks outside of the reserved seats should get general seats and not the reserved ones, would have held water if not for the ATSUM’s own track record of agitations on the issue. Recruitment rules of government jobs, as also of nomination to specialized professional educational institutes, such as the medical colleges, say precisely what ATSUM is saying, but unfortunately a lot more. On the one hand, these rules are unanimous that SC/ST candidates who make it of their own merit to the ranks of general candidates must be availed of general seats so that weaker candidates from these categories still would get to have all of the seats reserved for them. This is however only one side of the coin. For on the other hand, the same rules also say that should it arise that in any given year there are no SC/ST candidates qualified or fit enough for any of these particular jobs or educational seats, the vacancies must be allowed to be filled by deserving candidates from the general category who scored the qualifying marks but failed to make it to the list because competition was stiff in their category. ATSUM has been dead opposed to the latter, forcing recruitment authorities to forgo rules and even court rulings to put this demand to effect, and now it wants the other half to be kept intact. All the recent economic blockades causing immense inconveniences to the general public were on the earlier demands. Recall also the 2003 MBBS/BDS entrance examination where only one ST candidate qualified, and yet because of the emotive banner of injustice raised, the best among the ST candidates who could not touch the qualifying standard had to be still selected. You can’t have the cake and eat it too, and still call it justice, for justice cannot be a one-sided affair under any circumstance. Clearly, ATSUM’s campaign line at the lower end of the scale of this government recruitment norm is boomeranging on its current campaign at the upper end of the same scale.

But it is a good sign that the divide between the general and reserved candidates is narrowing down. Perhaps the government should take note of the emerging new reality and reintroduce the standard recruitment norm in letter and spirit, and not in letter only but not in spirit as the ASTUM wants it. Let bygones be bygones and let the government enforce the norm at both the ends of the recruitment scale without any special favour for any group, except as prescribed by the law. In the meantime, we do hope that the gap between the general and reserved groups gets narrowed down further, until finally it disappears one day. That will be the time a consensus can be taken on whether the reservation policy, or “positive discrimination” as it is also often referred to as, has seen its days. We for one see a tragic irony in the clamour by different communities in not just Manipur, but the entire country, to be classified as backward and primitive. The incentive structuring in India is such that there is material gains to be had from this, but absolutely no dignity. At best it is a bitter medicine which must be given up no sooner than the symptoms of the ailment disappear. But as it is turning out today, the bitter medicine has become addictive and there is a growing appetite for the reserved status, and this is unfortunate. This irony is most stark in the case of a state like Sikkim, which till 1975 was an independent and uniquely charming Himalaya kingdom. After it became a state of India, it got sucked into the reservation syndrome and this once proud people now consider themselves as “primitive tribals”, their pre-modern customs and economy deserving protection under the reservation policy. The climb-down is tragic. The same question can be asked of the many “so claimed” proud and independent communities of the northeast. But the more important question however is, should it ever be forgotten that the “positive discrimination” policy is a bitter pill, addictive and self-destructive if not administered with caution and voluntary restraint.