Whenever I see LI devolve into a NLS/NALSAR/NUJS bashing club, I can't help but draw an analogy to the caste system

NLS / NALSAR / NUJS students accomplish more (land more vac schemes, get more "reputed" LLM admits) etc because of the capital accumulated over years. They have a wider network of alumni. NLS is widely known to has a super cohesive one.

This accumulated capital percolates into law school activities too. Take NLS for instance. While newer law schools are fighting with their admins about basic infrastructure, NLS kids are debating on amending the 3rd version of the academic rules. While newer law schools are content with half decent profs, NLS kids (at least pre Sudhir) were scrutinizing their prof's research papers and seeing if it's relevant to what they teach. NLS Alum in various fields are more likely to give a one hour guest lecture to NLS, than in RGNUL.

Obviously NLS kids are not inherently smarter. But barring a few, they inherently do better because of capital accumulated over the years. Similarly, while there are always shining stars in newer law schools, it is difficult for them to "uplift" the whole batch simply because they do not sufficient capital. If an average NLS kid has 4 people to read / edit their SOP for LLM, an average RMLNLU kid may have just 2-3.

I'm not sure if the analogy works beyond a poin and it is made in good faith. But I hope people register what I'm broadly saying before childishly comparing NLUs (overlooking the privilege of some of them). It'll also help inform this debate. If you are a UC from a newer law school and hate on NLUs, but also think reservation is unfair, may be you can consider it like this --- amarchand offers 20 PPOs a year and it has decided to limit PPOs to NLS/NALSAR/NLUJ/NUJS PPOs to 10 even though the demand for amarchand jobs there is very high. What is your reaction to this?

Hey Kian / LI, I am fatigued right now because of covid. But could you also make these slices of bread understand that reservations are NOT FOR ECONOMIC UPLIFTMENT, but for REPRESENTATION. Caste is permanent, unlike economic status.

But since this thread is old (you may not publish this comment in public interest), I will make a better thread under a different more majestic username, but I guess you would know my identity from browser fingerprints and other fancy things.

Hi Guest

I don't look for reserved category lawyers in law firms. It's just an observation which I shared from my experience of 5 years at a top tier NLU and still experiencing. While in college, I have seen 9 batches and not even a single reserved category student got placed in any tier 1/2 firm. I have seen candidates with decent grades, moots, publication, internship and still ending up with tier 3/4 law firms. Here I am talking about placements during college and not lateral move in the firms.

Quote:

as they seized the coat tails of the British early

A blatantly racist remark which should be expunged. Parsis fought for independence and went to jail. Know your history. Also, they came as paupers to India and worked their way up. It's a truth those playing vote bank politics won't tell you.

Agree, the quote was not trollish though at the end the comment became clearly trollish and disingenuous in intent rather than advancing any rational argument, when this language was used: "But it's an unpopular opinion among the woke NLU crowd and will lead to one being ostracised, as seen on LI comments. Palkhivala would have been cancelled had he been alive today."

Debating the merits and demerits of reservations should be absolutely fine in the LI comments section, but considering this is a sensitive issue, please keep to facts and actual arguments rather than prejudices, half-truth opinions or provocations...

They won't discriminate you on your caste, of course. They will just 'subtly' ask you your "CLAT rank" after seeing your surname even if you have 8.5 out of 10 CGPA. Because of course, your entrance exam rank matters more than what you scored learning the law for 4 years in college! And then they will tell you after the interview that you did not make even though you answered all the questions and 10 research articles in reputed journals specifically relating to the practice area you said you were interested in.

But of course, you were rejected because you couldn't 'crack the interview'!

1a. How do you know that there is hardly any 'category candidate' in Tier-1/2 firms?
1b. Do you - [...] - go looking for a 'category candidate'?
1c. How do you know 'how' to find a 'category candidate'?
1d. Have you been taught by society to recognize a 'category candidate' from name, social markers, etc.?

If you have been so taught socially that you go looking for a 'category candidate' everywhere you tread, you are a problem. And you are not alone. All [...] upvoting and downvoting comments against reservation are also.

2. Now, when [...] you search for a 'category candidate' everywhere, why the F do you think you guys will not 'search' (and eliminate) at the time of hiring?
2b. So, tell us - would you check the CLAT ranks or would you be happy to eliminate via common markers of being a 'category candidate'?

Everybody of repute who advocated for doing away with casteism actually wanted a casteless society. What you folks are asking for is that the power and privilege should remain with you, and the right of reservation should be taken away from others. That is transparent vulture behaviour, but you are too thick-skinned to notice that. As someone said, give up your privilege and people won't need reservations to begin with. Otherwise, don't try to hide your lack of merit behind other's rights.

Since a lot of people are passing off anecdotal experience and personal opinions as facts, here's one from my side:

Only people who actually lack in merit keep on grumbling that reservation is destroying merit and society is getting destroyed as a result. Every single one of the whiners.

I feel it is right to have reservations in graduation programs as of now. But reservations should be sacked in advance studies and specialization courses whichever stream it is. We perhaps will never grow if we are spoon fed like this.

What happens with reservation in advance courses: Father is the Registrar of a University, Mother is a Professor in Govt. college, daughter is doing GM (MD) and son is hoping to get into a good college for MD /MS through reservation.

I would never go to them for consultation.

This is rubbish. Domicile reservation in the NLUs at least has only seen affluent people from the capital city getting those seats, who don't have any issue with the language. This sort of half-baked claim in the absence of any supporting study is unbecoming of a law school student.

While we are at it, let's make public primary education compulsory for all. No more fancy English medium schools, private tuitions, finishing classes for you privileged lot. Get the exact same education as the less privileged, earn your food like the rest of them, and then compete with them 'on equal merit' for the higher education institutions. Your parents, relatives and most people around you discriminate on the basis of caste. Until the day a poor Brahmin person finds it absolutely normal to do manual scavenging for money, or no human being has to do such work at all, saying that such reservations are not needed only means that you wish to continue the oppression and beget its poisonous fruit for you and your kind.

As Kian pointed out, this is a trollish post not meriting a response. But in case one wishes to engage, do consider the following points:

1. Everything should be merit based is a fallacious capitalist concept from the 18th century. Why? Cause not everyone is born equal. You're no better than the child of your maid. it's just that you were born with socio economic privileges that she wasn't, and this inequality will only gradually increase, putting you at a chronic advantage over her- read about the principle of Cumulative Advantage by Robert Merton to understand this better. Therefore to measure her against the same yardsticks as you would be a social, economic and mathematical anomaly and grossly unfair on her, since you had access to socio economic resources/ privileges that she simply didn't.

2. Non-reservation hence is the ultimate destination, since a society where reservation isn't needed, is also one where everyone is born with the same socio economic resources. Hence to do away with reservation, we need to eliminate the necessity for reservation (i.e. socio economic differenes). The fact that privileged kids (the author, in context of the socio economic realities in India) lack the clarity and empathy to realize this, and quite happy to enjoy his own privileges at the cost of others, show that we're far from there.

I am attempting to provide a constructive argument on my inferences and research on reservation. I am really apologetic if I unintentionally offend anyone, that was not what I intended.

I believe reservation was obviously started with good intention and something was obviously needed to uplift the socially marginalised communities. But as it went ahead, it came out as a flawed system, why? I would try to simplify stuff and not make it too complex.

1) Only a certain set of people from reserved category have been enjoying reservation. Think of it like this. When we got freedom, most of the people from dalit community were illiterate and uneducated. They were given reservation on justified grounds. Some people went ahead got reservations and got good jobs. They achieved some social and financial mobility. There kids could now go to school, they could now afford. Now let’s hypothetically say, there are 50 seats reserved for SC in NLS and there are 200 SC students who want to attain a seat. Now 50 of these students got proper education because their father achieved mobility, while others didn’t. So obviously these 50 students will get admitted and others won’t. Now these 50 students would graduate from NLS and would have enough privilege to educate their kids in a DPS Rkpuram or something like that. Again these kids would have leverage over kid’s of people who could never get reservation. This is what is happening, even after so many years, a major proportion of the socially backward caste people have not ever used reservation because a small community keeps on using it again and again.

Proposed solution:- Don’t let a family use reservation beyond 2 or 3 times. Moreover although financial upliftment is not the same as social upliftment, if anyone is earning above a certain threshhold (say 12lpa) or own capital over 50 lacs, they and their lineages shouldn’t be allowed to use reservation. Because financial upliftment does not bring social upliftment but it still brings some of it. There are people who need reservations more than these people because they are both financially and socially backward.

2) Reservations have affected the intellectual capacity of students. I suggest you to go through individual placement stats of any IIT or NLU. People who get the worst packages and placements are people from the reserved category. Why are Indians respected in US and Europe? They are considered extremely hardworking and intelligent. Because due to the sheer population and competition here in India, they have to work hard to secure a seat in a university and which makes them more intellectually capable. In reservations, there’s very less competition which is indicated by the low cut offs. They will get into a top NLU or IIT but these students suffer there because they sometimes can not match the intellectual capacity of their peers (not because anyone is inherently intellectually superior but because one group of students was subjected to more competition and rigour to get a seat which was comparatively easy to obtain for the other). Reserved students usually don’t do well in academics and that reflects on placements.

I don’t have a proposed solution for this issue but it’s causing problems to the community. This problem will haunt the communities on the longer run.

Also OBC reservation need to end for most of the communities enlisted in there. It’s BS. Some of the most affluent communities have been awarded reservations. It’s not needed at all.

There is a serious case to do away with community/caste-based reservations. Investments should be made in primary/secondary educations for all, and more so for marginalised communities. But, top institutions should not have reservations, in fact, that gives politicians an excuse to not invest in basic access/education. Rather than just do reservation politics.

While I would not go into the debate of SC/ST/OBC reservation (some people genuinely need it, while many do take advantage of it), but I agree with ending domicile reservation. I go to a law school where there is a heavy 85% reservation for the home state students. The domicile reservation was created just a few years ago, and since the the multiculturalism in the college has reduced quite significantly. I also feel like that from being a mostly English speaking institution, it has reduced to a vernacular one. For those who don't understand the language, it's quite alienating as even any update or circular by the University also comes in the state's language and can't understand it. Even recruitment has taken a hit because of that in the past 5-6 years.

You are taking an obviously petulant attention-seeking rant from a guy with generations of privilege behind him in good faith? Why? Because it mentions 'merit', something which people like this have got no clue about, but like to parrot away nonetheless to maintain status quo?

This guy has either never been to law school, in which case someone should send him to one asap, or has completely wasted his five years down there, in which case he should be sent back with greater supervision this time around. Frankly, Kian, while one or two of the recent LI conversations have been genuine, helpful, and wholesome, for the most time, this new feature has filled this page with garbage like this. If you have an app that would filter out the conversations and only keep the news items, I'll happily subscribe to it.

Prima facie, this seems to be a trollish post intended merely to stoke outrage and debate.

However, proceeding on a good faith basis, please provide some constructive thought or suggestions for alternatives, rather than just saying all reservations should be banned (quoting Nehru does not count as an argument).

Do you accept there are still caste- and background-based inequalities in society. If so, do you agree it is incumbent for the government and laws to address these?

If so, and if reservations are not the answer, what would be an alternative? For instance, could a purely means-tested system work in India to replace reservations? And do you think it would even be politically possible to remove reservations (even if replacing it with something better / as good)?

We need to ban SC/ST/OBC/minority/domicile reservation in NLUs and everywhere else in India. Every single student who enters NLSIU, IIT, AIIMS, IM and UPSC needs to do so on merit. At most we can allow reservation for a limited number of seats for people from economically weak backgrounds (irrespective of caste) but even there it should be very selective and only a very small relaxation of marks should be allowed. Let me also remind everyone of what Nehru said:

“I dislike any kind of reservation, more particularly in services. I react strongly against any thing which leads to inefficiency and second rate standards. I want my country to be a first-class country in everything. The moment we encourage the second-rate, we are lost. The only real way to help the Backward group is to give opportunities of good education… But if we go in for reservations on communal and caste basis, we swamp the bright and able people and remain second-rate or third-rate. I am grieved to learn of how far this business of reservation has gone based on communal considerations. It has amazed me to learn that even promotions are based sometimes on communal and caste considerations. This way lays not only folly, but disaster. Let us help the backward groups by all means but never at the cost of efficiency. How are we going to build our public sector or indeed any sector with second-rate people?”

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/nehru-was-against-reservation/story-ewARXxkjkUjasAzBNe6UWP.html