The case for affirmative action

At the outset, I would like to state that I have nothing to gain from any affirmative action policies, whether in education or in employment. I also need to state here that until recently, I have been a strong and vocal advocate against affirmative action.

Recently however, I am beginning to wonder.

Consider a situation where two equally intelligent, equally hard-working candidates are vying for one seat in a prestigious engineering college in the country. One of them studied at an excellent school, say Bombay Scottish in Mumbai or DPS R K Puram in Delhi. By virtue of being born in the most economically advantaged places in the country, this person has had access to better teachers, better coaching classes and an ecosystem conducive to furthering education. The other candidate, grew up in a tribal region in say, Chattisgarh, and had to walk 4 km everyday to get to school. A few years later, this person had to move to a nearby town for high school and stayed at a relatives place if he or she were fortunate or at a dharamshala or government run hostel otherwise.

The teachers and facilities in the village or in this small town are unlikely to have been of the same calibre as the teachers and facilities in Mumbai or Delhi. The number of people with access to a better urban life, that are willing to give this up, to teach in rural Chattisgarh, is likely to be small indeed.

For a given level of intelligence and hard work, the rural child has to work against a disadvantage that is not of his or her own making, nor something that he or she has control over. The urban child, with access to better facilities, not least of all, the internet, and access to people of the world like successful parents and their parents' equally successful and ambitious friends, is likely to do a little better in the examinations. While this last might be arguable for subjects like Mathematics and Physics, the difference in exam performance is going to be all but assured in subjects like literature or social sciences where, having access to different points of view will likely cause a richer essay to be produced.

To take this argument a little further, consider these people now vying for a seat in a prestigious Business School where a Group Discussion or Personal Interaction is part of the admissions process. It is not a stretch to imagine that an urban candidate will come across with more flair and perhaps better fit-and-finish than a rural candidate and therefore make a more favourable impression upon the admissions panel.

The rural person will never be able to compete with an urban counterpart of equal intelligence and work ethic. The same argument could be extended with varying degree, for the difference in opportunity, accorded by circumstance to two urban children, one growing up in an affluent home in say South Mumbai or in Lutyen's Delhi and the other in the slums of the same city. Are those that were not born to privilege, to be condemned to their lot with no opportunity for rising above?

This is where affirmative action comes in; to try and provide some modicum of equal opportunity.