Thanatos and Reservations

According to the great psychologist Sigmund Freud, humans have two types of forces/energies/desires in them. One is Eros or life force. We preserve ourselves, take care of our childeren, take actions that are good for humanity in general. This is the force which sustains life on earth.

The second desire is Thanatos. This is the death force under which man undertake destructive activities. When it is directed towards oneself it leads to suicide and when it is directed towards others it leads to homicide.

Similarly it can be argued that nations have both Eros and Thanatos. Now Eros is obvious. Nations take care of their citizens, undertake welfare activities, defends itself when attacked by outsiders. But history has been replete with nations undertaking self-destructive steps. Maybe the genocide of Jews by Hitler immediately comes to mind.

And how else can we explain this policy of extending reservations? From 1991, with the liberalization, India has achieved tremoundous economic success. Indian companies are being recognized worldwide for their skilled manpower and state of the art technologies. We are getting foreign currency loans at a cheaper rate than what many American Corporations get. This shows the trust and faith that Western Banks have in India Inc. And govt has played an important part in this India shining, if not India glittering.

But alas with good comes evil. With Eros comes Thanatos. With economic progress comes reservation. It has come in 2 forms: OBC reservation in premier educational institutes and SC/ST reservation in private sector.

Lets talk about the OBC thing first. What are OBCs. Mind you it is just a synthetic division. ST are the tribals and SC are the untouchable castes. They can be easily identified. But OBC is not a social class. It is just a political terminology. I do agree that there have been in past certain castes(I mean jatis) up the hierarchy and certain jatis below it. But this happens in every society. There always are certain ppl below and certain above. But you don't find this reservation policy in any other part of the world.

That OBC is a sythetic classification can be seen with the help of an example. Jats have been declared OBC in Rajasthan and not in UP. Now UP and Raj are just political divisions. There is not much to differentiate socially between the two. Then why are Jats OBC in Rajasthan. Because here they are powerful and have successfully lobbied for their inclusion in the coveted list(Yes backwardness is a virtue in India).

Now at my IIT level, there have been number of Jats fronm Rajasthan. They have entered IIT without reservation. But now with the coming of the law they would be offered reservation in CAT. Isn't it unfair for their friends with whom they have competed at IITs. The recieved similar education at IIT and are roughly at similar level. But the Brahmin would have to compete in General category while Jats in Reserved category. So osn't reservations creating rift where there was none. Isn't it dividing society into divisions which just are not real.

And thats why I have referred it as death energy. It would just take the spirit of achievement out of so called OBC people. And it would lead to frustration among the non-OBCs. Many of us were not at all aware of which castes we belonged to. But now everyone is suddenly aware wether he is a Jaat or Brahmin or Baniya.

The intitutions of excellence that is IITs and IIMs, that have carved a reputation for themselves at global level risks of loosing out the most. Because OBC candidates would have it easy, the desire to learn among them would definitely be on decline. And hence their performance would very closely match what it is of SC/ST candidates in IIT/IIM. Hence the quality of the students coming ouut of these premier institutions would definitelty deteriorate. So where they stand a chance in global competition.

Tired as of now. Would comment on the SC/ST reservation in pvt sector in my next post.


Tag: Reservations||OBC ||Sigmund Freud||IIT