NEET: Supreme Court’s Decision Is Against The Feudal Concept Of Merit
Vikram Singh
There is an all-out attack on the reservation in the name of merit and the feudal interpretation of merit is used for this purpose which deliberately ignores the social, economic, and educational background of the students. The Brahminical forces are skilfully using tactics of postmodernism limiting the interpretation of merit to only one post and the applicants for it. Deliberately in a cunning way the relation of this post and aspirants of the post with the entire society is isolated. In fact, it is a conspiracy, not to present our society as a whole which is full of social and economic inequality but to present examinations, candidates, and merit in isolated parts. By restricting the merit to a particular individual, there is always an effort to prove that reservation is anti-merit.
The dominant forces of the society continue to openly oppose reservation through various platforms and means. Such examples are easily available in the public sphere in the forms of hate speech against Dalits/ Adivasis and reservations along with warnings of anti-reservation struggles. The people who are indulged in this process are not the fringe elements but the key and influential personalities of our society. Even some functionaries of the present government are also actively vocal against reservations. Mohan Bhagwat and his RSS keep showing their true colours by demanding to review the reservation from time to time. A part of judiciary also has caste prejudices and anti-reservation sentiments.
Nevertheless, a large section of Brahminical thinking, especially the educated section, does not want to appear directly involved in caste discrimination in the pursuit of showing itself as civilized. This does not mean that they are not casteist but their methods of caste discrimination have become very sophisticated.
For example, despite huge incidents of caste discrimination in classrooms and education instructions with a number of teachers openly involved in it, the teachers from the above section normally do not directly ask the students their caste in the class but asks them their full name and decides their caste by their surname. Then this same teacher, guided by caste prejudices, discriminates against him in various ways.
This vast section of the so-called civilized community use merit as the main argument against reservation. Along the same lines, there are movements for so-called equality in the country, which deliberately make no distinction between mechanical equality (in which only equality of opportunity is argued) and equity for those sections of society that have been victimized for centuries. At this juncture, the decision of the Supreme Court of India on a petition challenging the reservation for the Other Backward Classes in the medical entrance examination ‘National Eligibility cum Entrance Test’ not only gives some hope but also exposes the bourgeois definition of merit.
Before further discussion on the comments of the Supreme Court, it must be clarified that NEET itself is against the concept of equality and promotes discrimination. It leads to hyper-centralization of education and imposes uniform parameters throughout the country where our states are full of diverse social and economic conditions. It is against state rights and federal principles. The NEET exam closes the door completely on the possibilities of fighting the effects of real inequalities, by taking away the rights of the states to develop medical education according to their social realities and needs, through over-centralization for admission in medical admissions. NEET is making medical courses inaccessible to students from poor and marginalized backgrounds. After the introduction of NEET, the number of government school students securing government seats in medical colleges has dropped drastically. Many students distressed by the impact of this centralized examination system have committed suicide in Tamilnadu. The student movement is growing against the NEET. Therefore many state Governments including Tamil Nadu and many political parties including CPIM are opposing the NEET.
Earlier this month in the first week of January itself, the Supreme Court upheld the 27% reservation for OBCs under the All India quota in NEET. On January 20, a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna while giving reasons for their earler decisions explained the concept of merit in detail, which has not only increased the faith of the marginalized community in the Supreme Court, but it also upheld and clarified in detail the concept of equality enshrined in the Constitution of the country.
The court clarified that ‘Reservation is not at odds with merit’ and warned against the narrow definition of merit in the following words, “Merit cannot be reduced to narrow definitions of performance in an open competitive examination which only provides formal equality of opportunity. Competitive examinations assess basic current competency to allocate educational resources but are not reflective of excellence, capabilities and potential of an individual which are also shaped by lived experiences, subsequent training and individual character. Crucially, open competitive examinations do not reflect the social, economic and cultural advantage that accrues to certain classes and contributes to their success in such examinations”.
Explaining the merit of the examination in social context, the court has identified reservation as not anti-merit but as a means of achieving equality in the society and said, “High scores in an examination are not a proxy for merit. Merit should be socially contextualized and reconceptualized as an instrument that advances social goods like equality that we as a society value. In such a context, reservation is not at odds with merit but furthers its distributive consequences”.
In our country, a misconception about reservation is spread again and again that reservation is against the right to equality enshrined in Article 15(1) of the Constitution of India. The Apex court of the country has once again clarified, “Articles 15 (4) and 15 (5) employ group identification as a method through which substantive equality can be achieved. This may lead to an incongruity where certain individual members of an identified group that is being given reservation may not be backward or individuals belonging to the non-identified group may share certain characteristics of backwardness with members of an identified group. The individual difference may be a result of privilege, fortune, or circumstances but it cannot be used to negate the role of reservation in remedying the structural disadvantage that certain groups suffer”.
This judgment clarifies another aspect of the controversy regarding reservation. Casteist people very conveniently try to establish their argument against reservation by giving some random examples. For example they site examples of some candidate who took the benefit of reservation but claim that he/she is not backward. On the other hand, it is also argued that some people in the upper castes are backward but reservation hurts their cause. On this basis questions are raised on the entire system of reservation.
Commenting on this aspect, the judgment stated that “Articles 15 (4) and 15 (5) employ group identification as a method through which substantive equality can be achieved. This may lead to an incongruity where certain individual members of an identified group that is being given reservation may not be backward or individuals belonging to the non-identified group may share certain characteristics of backwardness with members of an identified group. The individual difference may be a result of privilege, fortune, or circumstances but it cannot be used to negate the role of reservation in remedying the structural disadvantage that certain groups suffer.”
Concluding the entire debate in the judgment, the top court has linked the benefits and deprivations experienced by the individual ( as a part of caste community to which he belongs), due to his place in the social hierarchy and how it affects his results in competitive examinations and said, “”The crux of the above discussion is that the binary of merit and reservation has now become superfluous once this Court has recognized the principle of substantive equality as the mandate of Article 14 and as a facet of Articles 15 (1) and 16(1). An open competitive exam may ensure formal equality where everyone has an equal opportunity to participate. However, widespread inequalities in the availability of and access to educational facilities will result in the deprivation of certain classes of people who would be unable to effectively compete in such a system. Special provisions (like reservation) enable such disadvantaged classes to overcome the barriers they face in effectively competing with forward classes and thus ensuring substantive equality. The privileges that accrue to forward classes are not limited to having access to quality schooling and access to tutorials and coaching centres to prepare for a competitive examination but also include their social networks and cultural capital (communication skills, accent, books or academic accomplishments) that they inherit from their family.
The cultural capital ensures that a child is trained unconsciously by the familial environment to take up higher education or high posts commensurate with their family’s standing. This works to the disadvantage of individuals who are first-generation learners and come from communities whose traditional occupations do not result in the transmission of necessary skills required to perform well in open examination. They have to put in surplus effort to compete with their peers from the forward communities.
On the other hand, social networks (based on community linkages) become useful when individuals seek guidance and advise on how to prepare for examination and advance in their career even if their immediate family does not have the necessary exposure. Thus, a combination of family habitus, community linkages and inherited skills work to the advantage of individuals belonging to certain classes, which is then classified as ―merit reproducing and reaffirming social hierarchies”.
At a time when caste violence is on the rise in our country, the assertion by Dalits/Adivasis for their share of resources and dignity is being dealt with brutal violence. The BJP-led central and state governments are openly giving patronage to criminals of caste violence, glorification of Manu and Manuvad in the country is growing, open attacks are increasing on all provisions of the Constitution to bring equality in the society including reservation, which also vastly uses a narrow understanding of merit, this decision of the Supreme Court ends the baseless debate of merit against reservation.
Dr. Vikram Singh is the Joint Secretary of All India Agriculture Workers Union and was the former General Secretary of Students’ Federation of India.
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