AIIMS: Teaching Discrimination

Chances are if you are a Schedule Caste/Tribe student studying or practicing in India’s premier medical institute, AIIMS in New Delhi, none of your fellow student or doctor will work with you and you will have to live in a ghetto, you will not be able to play a certain sport and each and every day, you will be reminded again and again that you belongs to an inferior class in the society.

The Thorat Panel set up by the Union Health & Family Welfare Ministry at the PM behest after a series of articles from the print media exposed the social discrimination practiced in the Institute was led by Mr. SK Thorat, UGC Chairperson with two other members. The report has thrown up many shocking result, which, not surprisingly, the Administration of AIIMS rejected ‘in totality’.
The Panel which interviewed 50% of the Students belonging to the reserved category accused the Director (of AIIMS) of instigating and creating a divide between the students and ghettoizing reserved category students.

The report says the AIIMS administration failed to ensure safeguards for weaker sections of society guaranteed under the Constitution like undergraduate programme and special coaching for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes students. They also accused the faculty of ‘misusing’ their power during internal assessment.

As many as 69% of the reserved category students alleged that they did not receive adequate support from teachers, 72% said they faced discrimination, and 76% said their evaluation was not proper while 82% said they often got less than expected marks.

In practical examinations and viva voce, the treatment meted out to them was 'not fair'. And worse, 76% said higher caste faculty members enquired about the castes of their students while 84% said they were asked, directly or indirectly, about their caste backgrounds. An equal percentage of students alleged that their grading was adversely affected due to their background.

The reserved category students also alleged 'social isolation' at various levels, including even from faculty members, with 84% of the students saying they faced segregation in the hostel that forced them to shift to hostels No. 4 and 5 where there was a concentration of SC/ST students.

So far, the AIIMS administration has rejected the report as a bundle of lies and set up their own panel, their report is awaited. But considering that the panel was set up by the administration which is also the alleged perpetrator, one doesn’t expect much except for ‘another bundles of lies’.

It is no secret the problem between the Health Minister and the Director of AIIMS especially after the recent reservation controversy, but the question is –is these brutalities triggered by the recent reservation controversy or is it a deep-rooted tradition in the institute that was there for a long time but exposed only when this controversy cropped up?

Whatever the answer is, discrimination in any form, be it harsh or subtle, be it based on caste, creed or race, it should be condemned. Every one must note that the Quota system did not guarantee entrance to any institute; all the SC/ST students in AIIMS get there based on their merits. Their selection is not based on caste or religion, but on their performances in the extremely competitive Entrance Exam –so there really is no void of merit.

There is no denying that the quota system as practiced in India is not the best solution for what it is applied for. Still you cannot compare the effect it has on the communities. Just compare this –the general community having one more doctor and the tribal community having its first doctor.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/2007/05/06/stories/2007050609700100.htm

The Tribal, the Job Market & the Quota System

Being a Christian, a tribal and an arts graduate doesn’t give you much edge in the present day job market. But that puts you among the minority of minorities and that’s not a disadvantage –at least not in India. If you wonder what I mean, I am talking about the adorable evil called quota or reservation system in India.

The quota system enabled me to enroll myself into a college in Delhi University which I would not be able to get into if I were in the general category. Being a Christian (or the western education system it brought along) contributed to my medium of education that helped me sail through the three years where I was deemed unfit if I were to go along with their eligibility criteria set-up for the general category.

I know many other who managed a seat in the country’s best IT and Business school through the quota system. And if you want to apply for a government job, there are seats reserved for you. And there is more to come. With the Home Minister of the Congress led UPA govt. intent on implementing the quota system in private sector, we the tribal –with our ‘not qualified for the white collar job market but over qualified for blue collar job’ qualification, are the one to benefit the most.

When it comes to education, most of us from the North-east, especially the tribals, cannot afford the financial or infrastructural backing to get good education, especially the technical or management kind, or simply don’t have access to them. And a resume without any technical background is difficult to sell in today’s job market. But our modest English medium of education gives us an edge over our counterpart in the mainland whose medium of education is in some regional language rather than English.

Even though the quota system is yet to be implemented in the private sector, a certain number of them started showing-off how much tribals, dalits or backward class employee they have with them despite their resistance to its implementation. That definitely is good news for us, but it should be noted that even if the quota system is implemented in the private sector, it will be on voluntary basis, and we cannot expect much from it.

Still, what bother me is –if the quota system is implemented, what could be the possible implication for the tribals of north-east India? In my opinion, it would surely benefit those of us living outside the north-east of India, but in the north-east itself, it would hardly make any difference since there’s no private sector functioning from there.

Rather, it will spurt another wave of migration to the mainland. That would certainly be good news to the government if they are serious about greater integration, but it definitely won’t ring a bell with the various liberation armies back home (is that good news for us as well?). It would also means lost of roots and identities for many of us.

But as I said before, the quota system is yet to be implemented and that too on a voluntary basis so we cannot expect much benefits from it. As such, what we can do is –those of us who are already in the mainland should continue working hard -seriously and sincerely, and shows them (the mainlanders?) the stuffs that we are made of, and most importantly, occasionally sent a few thousand back home.