Editor,
I am writing to draw attention to a glaring and frankly baffling trend in our state’s public sector recruitment that seems to have completely escaped the notice of the recent Expert Committee on reservation.
While it is genuinely fantastic and a matter of celebration that our tribal youth are excelling and securing posts across the board, the final selection lists for the “unreserved” (general) category raise some serious questions.
Look at our board and university results every year: permanent non-tribal students consistently clear their exams with flying colors, frequently topping across various academic disciplines. Yet, when it comes to state government jobs, non-tribal candidates don’t even manage to secure 1 percent of the unreserved posts. Year after year, practically every single unreserved job goes to tribal candidates.
This leaves us with two logical conclusions, and both are deeply troubling. If this is happening entirely on merit without any backend manipulation, then it means the permanent non-tribal citizens of Meghalaya have somehow become far more backward than the groups the reservation policy was originally built to protect, given that they cannot land even a single job. On the other hand, if they aren’t that backward, it strongly points to systemic manipulation within the recruitment process itself.
What is most astonishing is that the Expert Committee, headed by Justice (Retd.) Mool Chand Garg and Justice (Retd.) Dr. Satish Chandra, chose to completely look the other way. They took absolutely no cognizance of this massive disparity. (I admit I haven’t tracked how other minor tribal groups like the Rabhas, Kochs, or Hajongs are faring in this setup, but the overall picture for general category non-tribals is entirely blank).
A healthy state cannot thrive when an entire section of its permanent population is systematically invisible in its administration. The authorities need to take a hard, transparent look at the selection data for unreserved seats before the youth completely lose faith in the system.
Johny Paulos Kumar
Shillong
Via e-mail
