A Tale of Two Indias
India’s Supreme Court recently upheld a stay against a quota system in higher education for historically oppressed Indians. Upper- and lower-caste Indians are at odds over the ruling.
By Jonathan Sidhu
The latest battle between India’s increasingly successful haves and left-behind have-nots is playing out in the country’s educational system. This past May, the Indian Supreme Court upheld a stay against a quota system for low-caste and historically oppressed Indians, who are officially called Other Backward Classes.
The decision could halt quotas for central government-financed universities. These universities have reserved 27 percent of their seats for OBCs, affecting such elite institutes as the Indian Institutes of Management, whose acceptance rates are already well below .04 percent.
Upper-caste Indians almost universally oppose the quota system and support the court’s ruling, but lower-caste Indians and education activists call the decision a major blow to educational equality. For now, admission committees have been barred from using the quota-system for the 2007-2008 class admissions.
