SRCC is welcoming its new batch. According to the familiar narrative, students from diverse social and cultural backgrounds take admission in our college, making it a cultural melting point. This is undoubtedly a pleasant description. But is it true? Does SRCC really represent the diverse Indian population or is it a space accessible to only a few privileged sections?The admission to our college is purely based on merit, that is, marks obtained in class 12th, which is fully according to the DU norms. It can not even be corrupted by possible personal biases during the process of interview, which could be the case with many other institutions of the country.
Now, making the reasonable assumption that students of some community are not inherently more intelligent than others, we expect a balance of students from different social backgrounds in SRCC populace. Quite contrary to our expectations, the SRCC populace is not random, but is in fact found staging a distinct pattern.SRCC has more elite, upper class students compared to other DU colleges.The presence of minorities and Dalits is minimal. Our college is in fact dominated by English speaking, urban based, high social class and caste people. It has a crème layer of students as is generally said, but the layer is actually distinguished, and defined, on social privileges rather than intelligence.
This pattern emerges due to a bias against underprivileged sections both from the bottom, that is, from the background of denied opportunities for better schooling, and a lack of wholesome school and social atmosphere; and also from above, which includes policies of the university and colleges. The bias exists in different dimensions of class, caste, region, rural or urban background. All of these categories are interconnected and require special attention. SRCC is one of the most expensive colleges of Delhi University. The annual fees of our college is 30000 INR, which is comparatively higher than the fees charged in other DU colleges, which is around 10000 INR or below. This is definitely a huge difference for those coming from the lower strata of the income class.This relatively higher fees should mandate higher, or at least adequate freeships or scholarships. But the reality is, that any objective judgement would consider both the number of students availing scholarships, as well as the amount of scholarships granted, as woefully meagre. Only very few students are able to receive scholarships, and the scholarship amounts to less than half of the college fees.
Another important component in affordability is cheap accommodation for the students. Here, too, the college fails miserably. Extremely limited number of people are admitted to the college hostel (only 50 girls), leaving majority of its students with no option other than costly paying guest facilities. Ultimately, accommodation, food and college fees cost minimum around 150000 per year for any regular student. It is obvious that this would burn deep holes in the pockets of those who do not earn large sums. Only those who can stomach in this gigantic budget will therefore come to this college. Even if we consider policies like reservation based on income, they will be nothing more than a mirthless joke if students can't afford college even if they get admission.
However, it is imperative to understand that income starts acting as a hindrance way before they reach college- it plays a major role in schooling also. When public education is ignored, or destroyed, and quality education is accessible only in private schools which demand high fees, a large chunk of low income class people miss out on quality schooling. The present system is such that private schooling, unlike the neglected public sector schooling, eases the attainment of high grades which are required to make the cut to the top DU colleges, such as ours.
Private schools are also more concentrated on urban areas than public schools. If there are rural students in our colleges, they are generally coming from states with better public education, such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala. Neglect of public education and the privatization of education is limiting access to better schooling, and consequently to better higher education to rural students.
Focussing on region, we see many of the students in SRCC are from Delhi, or the NCR region, and are accepted without any bitterness. The same welcoming atmosphere, however, is not extended to the South Indian, and particularly Tamilian students. Increase in number of students from this region was frowned upon and squarely blamed on the apparent ease of securing marks in their particular state board. Both the faculty and student community share the blame in belittling and intimidating students from South India in the name of 'unfair capturing of seats' by the Tamil State Board students.
Admission process in DU is itself discriminatory. For instance, in 2017 admission criteria for BCom (Honours) was tweaked to fit the agenda of reducing South Indian students.According to DU admission process, while calculating best four there should be at least one language from list A which includes not only English and Hindi but also other regional languages. But from 2017 onwards, BCom (Honours) has a special rule allowing only English and Hindi in the best four calculation. This puts students who studied regional languages at a position of disadvantage. The number of students from Tamil Nadu has reduced considerably after this amendment. No logic other than an elitist, casteist mentality of the institution can explain these exceptional requirements in admission process. Since there are students from different educational boards seeking admission in DU, and examination and scoring pattern is different in all boards, some kind of normalization of score will be required for a fair admission process. But equalisation process should be based on proper analysis of all factors related to different educational borads. This cannot be random as it is now
Now if we look at caste, we have to first understand that the caste and class of people in India are highly correlated, and any discrimination based on income is generally, by default discriminating against the lower castes. This caste bias, then, takes on quite subtle forms of expressions. For instance, as discussed earlier, there is a bias against state board students(those who can’t afford private schooling or are not accepted there), against students from South India (where public education is strong and lower caste students are a higher fraction of students), and so on and so forth.
Moreover, with even visible caste discrimination still common in most parts of India, the exclusion and intimidation lower caste students face in schools make it even more difficult for them to excel, furthering their distance from securing a seat in the reputed colleges. It is actually the affirmative action policies like reservation, that play a major role in increasing the admission of students from backward caste, scheduled caste and scheduled tribes. A teacher, who was part of the scholarship committee, observed that most of students from low income background are also students from scheduled caste. Income was assessed using the proxy variable of fees paid at school and income certificate. It was observed that 80% of the poorest section is from scheduled caste. This shows that the poor who reach SRCC are also mainly able to do so due to reservations.
Though we have observed that fulfilling reservation requirements is adding to diversity and inclusiveness, sometimes even the reservation policy harbor injustice and discrimination. For instance, the discriminatory fee structure during registration is biased against OBCs. They have to pay 450 rupees more than EWS category despite the fact that they have the same income limit of 8 lakhs as the EWS category for availing reservation. So at the very first step of entry into DU, there is a discrimination based on caste.None of this rules out the possibility of exceptions, and indeed there are many exceptions who happen to be in college without the will of system. However, after this the college acts like a finer sieve to sort the elite from its lot, to further propel them forward in a disproportionate manner. The college has its own method to accomplish this task, a method which will be discussed in future writings.
All these points raise a serious doubt on our notion of merit, and it questions the sacrosanct nature of it. If those who are able to garner 'merit' are limited, and moreover accumulated within a particular social strata instead of being random, then are we not selecting the meritorious but the privileged. Even though we have not done a general diagnosis of the hollowness of the idea of meritocracy that plagues our educational systems world over, we have looked at it through the lens of our college's admission process. It is indeed frightening that at the very first step, the college performs the function of nothing but preserving privilege.
Click below to read related news-
DU colleges yet to admit reserved category students to various courses( The hindu- july 15 2019)
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/du-colleges-yet-to-admit-reserved-category-students-to-various-courses/article28431245.ece
Thoroughly researched and excellent viewpoint! This heralds a new era.One of non-conformity to Injustice.