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Written by Correspondent
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Friday, 13 July 2007 |
The news that Catholic schools across the country are planning to introduce up to 60 per cent quotas for Catholic children points to a very strange crossroads that our society has reached. After six decades of being an independent nation, it would be reasonable to expect a society with equitable distribution of opportunity. Instead, further divisions have consolidated along established lines of prejudice.
For all the outbursts and excoriations we have had over reservations for the various castes in India and for all the arguments that we have heard for and against, the fact is that caste, community and religion are potent issues. It is not enough to blame politicians; we must look deeper at our own society and the fact that it allows discrimination based on birth.
It is also becoming clear that minorities in the country are deepening the lines between themselves and others. The general feeling, right or wrong, is that you have to look after your own, because no one else will do it for you. So Catholic schools - once the bulwark of the educated and liberal elite - now believe that they have to concentrate on the education of Catholic children.
The education policy of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India Commission for Education and Culture states that “No Catholic child, Dalit/Tribal or otherwise, should be deprived of quality education because of a lack of means.” The mention of Dalit/Tribal takes it further into the fissures of Indian society, acknowledging that even Christianity has not escaped the Indian caste system. For groups like the RSS, this move confirms their worst suspicions that missionaries are allegedly trying to convert tribals to Christianity.
An even bigger question is: What does this mean for India if this kind of ‘minorityism’ and identity politics continues? St Stephen’s College in New Delhi - a Christian but not Catholic institution - has also announced it plans to start reservations for Dalit/Tribal Christians. Clearly, the feeling that they are being left behind as a community cuts across Christianity, regardless of internal schisms.
Institutions are discovering that they can no longer keep the less privileged out. And government schemes cannot cope with the huge numbers. At the higher education level, with greater private participation, there are islands of excellence, but these are too few and far between. India’s dreams of greatness will founder if we continue to ignore the issues of education and discrimination. But are quotas the way out? And how far can we take them? Questions to which there are no easy answers.
(Source: DNA dated 13 July 2007)
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