I was in two minds about whether to write this article or not. When the author of the article ‘Reservation and Roster: VVP and Anti-VPP’ misconstrued the article that I had written for The Shillong Times, ‘Who Deserves Reservation: Khasi-Jaintia or Garo?’ my initial reaction was to ignore it. After all, this is the age of digital media, where content once made public will forever become part of the digital repository.
So, for those who might have been intrigued by the claims made about my article, they could always go and check it out on their own. This way, they will realise for themselves that the conclusions drawn from my article are not only misleading but amount to downright malice. But then I realise that the reason the author thought he could get away with making wrong claims about my article is the same reason he expected no one would verify his claims: laziness.
I don’t think the author had any ill-intentions towards me that compelled him to write the piece where he made misleading claims about my article. It’s just that he wanted to push an agenda of his own, and he saw my article – at least the title, I think – and decided to use it as a straw man to buttress his own claims. So what were those claims? Let’s take a look.
I am extracting the passage directly from his own article so that I cannot be accused of misconstruing his words. I wouldn’t want to be blamed for something I have been made a victim of. So in his article, he has claimed that “articles with a subject such as “Who Deserves Reservation: Khasi-Jaintia or Garo?” and with illogical claims that Khasis no longer need a reservation to show to the world that they can compete with anyone are baseless arguments of nothing but self-aggrandisement”. So there are two parts to this statement that I would like to discuss: the first is the claim that I believe that Khasis no longer need reservation, and the second is that my arguments are attempts at self-aggrandisement. Let’s take the first one.
In my article ‘Who Deserves Reservation: Khasi-Jaintia or Garo?’ I made the argument that reservation in India is derived from Clauses (4) and (4A) of Article 16 of the Indian Constitution, which mention that the State can make provisions for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of backward classes of citizens that, in the opinion of the State, are not adequately represented in the services under the State.
The focus here, therefore, is on backwardness and lack of representation in jobs (services), not demography, which is being touted as the reason for reviewing the 40:40 formula of the current reservation policy. So, the question that arises is how to measure backwardness, which will form the basis on which reservations will be made. However, I did not ignore the point of demography, which I would later incorporate to come up with a revised formula of my own that takes into consideration both the issue of backwardness and demography.
There are many ways to measure backwardness. One is the Human Development Index (HDI), developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, while the other is the Multi Dimensional Poverty Index (MDPI), developed in 2010 by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme. Then there are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), 17 goals in all, that attempt to provide a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.
Among the three, the SDGs are the most comprehensive. This is because both HDI and MDPI attempt to measure the dimensions of health, education, and standard of living (the former at the aggregate level while the latter at the micro level), all three of which are part of the SDG, and much more. In fact, in the ‘North Eastern Region: District SDG Index, Report, and Dashboard Baseline Report 2021-2022’ prepared by NITI Aayog, SDG 1: No Poverty has listed MDPI as one of the indicators for measuring progress towards the goal.
This is the reason I chose the SDG as the framework to measure backwardness among the Khasi-Jaintia and Garo in Meghalaya. My aim was to see, based on backwardness, who is in greater need of reservation, the Khasi-Jaintia or the Garo, but not who doesn’t need reservation.
I used the ranks of individual districts (aggregated into two groups, Khasi-Jaintia and Garo) to measure their performance on SDGs and found that “when all the SDGs are considered, the average rank achieved by the Khasi-Jaintia districts is 75, while the Garo districts get 85, i.e., a difference of 10 ranks”. In fact, my analysis of the report (which is available in public for others to do the same) revealed that “the Khasi-Jaintia districts have performed better than the Garo districts in ten SDGs, i.e., 66 per cent of the total SDGs. This reveals the clear gap in terms of development between the two regions”.
Since reservation is based on backwardness, the Garos are in greater need of reservation than the Khasi-Jaintia, but that does not mean the latter does not need it. So, taking the argument of demographics, I gave the Garo “a share based on their demographic size, i.e., 31 per cent. However, in order to correct for the historical injustice (backwardness as brought out by the SDGs), a figure of 10 per cent (difference in rank) should be added, which will take the figure to 41 per cent. As for the Khasi-Jaintia, their share will be reduced to 36 per cent because the combined size of the Khasi-Jaintia and Garo populations is 77 per cent, not 80 per cent. This can be reviewed every few years upon the release of fresh data”.
So as one can see from the extracts that I have used from my original article, ‘Who Deserves Reservation: Khasi-Jaintia or Garo?’ I did not say that “Khasis no longer need a reservation”, only that the Garo need more. So why did the author try to misrepresent my article? In fact, the author goes on to say that “if one opines that any of these communities do not need a reservation, then he or she has directly questioned the wisdom of the founders of the state Reservation Policy and also speak against the decision of the Hon’ble High Court concerning the Roster system”.
The simple answer is that the author in question did not read my article but simply saw the title and decided he already knew what the content was. Reading the article meant spending at least ten minutes and then reflecting on it, which, depending on comprehension capacity, will take a few minutes to a couple of hours. In short, it would take too much of his valuable time. Since he already had an agenda to push, and people usually like to tell people what they want rather than listen to what others are actually saying, the result was the utterly misleading article ‘Reservation and Roster: VVP and Anti-VPP’.
Now that we have established that the argument made by the author about my article is misleading, it is clear that his claim in his article that my arguments are baseless and “nothing but self-aggrandisement” is nothing but a perfect example of ad hominem, Latin for “to the man,” attacking the arguer and not the argument. This is not the only one, and there are many more such tricks that are used to mislead people.
I have already mentioned the straw man at the beginning. Those who would like to know more about such devious tricks (maybe they can use them on others) can read the article ‘The Baloney (nonsense) Detection Kit: Carl Sagan’s Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking’. Just type this title, and Google will take you to the page where you can find more tricks like the one the author tried to use on me.
There are many problems with the article ‘Reservation and Roster: VVP and Anti-VPP’, not least the ones I have identified. But then writing on them will require multiple rejoinders, so I will leave that for the future. The only thing I would ask of the readers of this article is that they should not believe my words but can go and review my article, ‘Who Deserves Reservation: Khasi-Jaintia or Garo?’ on their own. They can also analyse the NITI Aayog ‘North Eastern Region: District SDG Index, Report, and Dashboard Baseline Report 2021-2022’ (which is publicly available), on which my reasoning for giving a higher share to the Garo rests.
The Khasi will not lose their reservation but will get a reduced share. There are those who may not agree with it, but it’s up to them to argue otherwise, and that is perfectly alright. We live in a democracy where everyone has the right to express their views. However, they have to be based on facts and not misrepresentation or ad hominem attacks. That is a lazy approach that is not really attractive. So please avoid that.
(The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect in any way his affiliation to any organisation or institution)
