A higher exclusion

A survey shows Indian campuses are more inclusive than before, but a lot of ground needs to be covered still

Indian campuses can take some satisfaction in the fact that they are more inclusive than before in terms of the presence of women, dalits, tribals and people from Other Backward Classes (OBCs). This is the predominant takeaway from a recent study, ‘Exclusion in Indian Higher Education Today’. Published in the India Exclusion Report 2017 and released by the Centre for Equity Studies this week, this writer and Delhi University professor Satish Deshpande co-authored the study. However, beyond the optimistic findings, education still needs to be located within other realistic frameworks.

Comparing the present numbers with numbers of the earlier times, one has to accept that the improvement would not have been possible without political interventions like the 93rd amendment to the Constitution (2006) which ensured OBC reservation to the elite institutions of national importance. It should be a sobering moment for those who have always opposed such moves, calling them an attack on the meritocratic culture of higher education. A system which excludes the genius of a large section of society by way of tradition or custom cannot call itself meritorious at all.