[Reader-list] And it was like this that modernity arrived!

[Shivam Vij]

Third Division merits a cry

By Chandrabhan Prasad
 http://dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=PRASAD157%2Etxt&writer=PRASAD&validit=yes


While the UPA Government's Mandal-II has once again massacred
aspirations of the MBCs (Most Backward Classes), the Dwijas are at
their self-condemning best.

In suspecting merit of other's, they forget their own past, and the
idea of merit they had only a century and a half back.

It was around 1856 when the Madras College came into being. But, from
the start, it faced a peculiar problem - the college building had come
up with all other infrastructural facilities, and professors from
England, but not enough students to make the college viable.

 India has a big pool of historians who know every detail of the
modern history, and many have mastered even the world history. What
they know not, or don't like to know, is the story of the College, and
the history of modern education. They took no pains in explaining as
why the College had shortage of students, and how that problem was to
be resolved. They would also not tell as to when, why and for whom was
Third Class considered as pass.

Till the Madras college came into being some where in 1850s, the pass
marks required at Intermediate level was a minimum of 40 per cent, and
First and Second were the only divisions.

On the insistence of the Indians (read Brahmans), the pass percentage
requirement was brought down to 33 per cent, and Third Division
introduced. The College soon got enough students to justify its
existence. By all accounts, this was the first victory the merit lobby
had won in the past one millennium. We can understand, and sympathise
with them.

While I have begun my research in procuring those crucial documents
from archives, the Report of the Indian Universities Commission (1902)
gives an idea. While discussing the results of the Matriculation
examination for the year 1901, the report (page 45) says: "We were
told that at Calcutta 1,400 more candidates would have failed had the
standard in English been 40 percent of the marks instead of 33 per
cent."

Many a merit theorists cite failure rate of Dalit/Adivasi students at
Medical/Engineering/Management Colleges, which is often less than a
percent, as a reason to scrap reservations.

The meritorious historians however, would not tell the failure rate of
their own people. According to Progress of Education in India
(1922-1927), Vol. 1, Page 40, the failure rate of students in MBBS
stood at 47 per cent, and in Engineering, at 34 per cent.

They would also not tell us as how during 1860s', their ancestors were
afraid of taking science and mathematics as subjects of studies, and
were in fact, bribed to study sciences and medicine. Despite huge
failure rates, the British government continued promoting science
education amongst them.

Despite being victims of social segregation, and economic deprivation,
and as the newest entrant in the world of learning, Dalit/Adivasis
never demanded bringing down pass marks to, say, 20 per cent?

Did Dalits/Adivasis demand adding a Fourth division?

Or, did Dalits/Adivasis demand any reservation in examination for
getting degrees?

What all Dalits have insisted is reservation during admissions, and
many of them do better than those students who had higher percentage
of marks at the time of admissions.

India's traditional ruling castes have become ridiculously incoherent,
and sorrowfully, inarticulate.

If there was a third party - UNESCO for instance, to examine the kind
of arguments the Merit Lobby has been pushing through, and the
arguments put forth by Dalits, the Merit lobby would fail to qualify
for a degree course unless a Fourth Class was added.

The Dalit Diary would like to throw a humble challenge - what
difference it would make between 50 per cent and 70 per cent at plus
two level, or similar situation in an entrance test.

Can any one say with certainty that the 70 per cent mark sheet holder
is superior to the 50 per cent mark sheet holder in intelligence?

Can any one say with certainty that those who pass with first class
are necessarily better than the second class degree holders at work
places?

If not, then the Dwijas must stop ridiculing themselves, and abandon
their self-defeating Merit illogic.

India will remain incomplete without Dalits/Adivasis - MBCs and lower
caste Muslims in institutions of learning.