Business

The Economist on Private Sector Quotas

By Dweep Chanana ⋅ October 7, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

For over a year controversy has raged in India over government plans to extend quotas – India’s version of affirmative action for the lower castes – to the private sector. The plans raised the hackles of many, and for the first time led to questioning the real effectiveness of quotas. Now, the Economist has weighed in on the debate:

A proposal to force firms to hire more workers from the dregs of Hinduism’s caste system (see article) would be different. It would be a disaster…

Extending into the private sector a policy that has been a disaster in the public sector is lunacy.

The Economist is a bit late to the party – this controversy has been around for a year. But this coverage is notable because it comes from a publication better known to cover US and European domestic politics. And if the Economist’s criticism of the policy proposal is unequivocal, it is not without explaining the real problem and the real solution:

Reservations in companies would not just damage business. They would also distract attention from the real source of the problem. Responsibility for lower castes’ lack of advancement does not lie with the private sector. There is no evidence that companies discriminate against them. The real culprit is government, and the rotten educational system it has created.

Originally, reservations were supposed to be needed only for a decade. After that, it was reckoned, they would be unnecessary, because primary education would be universally available. Nearly six decades on, it is not. And the quality of much of India’s higher education is execrable. By one reckoning, only a quarter of engineering graduates, the raw material of a booming computer-services industry, are employable. The government should concentrate on sorting out schools and universities, not piling new burdens on business.

There’s another effective weapon against ancient prejudices: growth. As Indians get richer, their caste biases fade. Middle-class urban Indians are less likely to marry within their caste than the rural poor, and less likely to wrinkle their noses at a dalit. Happily, the ranks of the middle class are swelling in a fast-expanding economy—for which India has its businessmen to thank. Hobbling them with quotas will only make it harder for them to help the country change.

Well said, all around.