Ramachandra Guha in The Telegraph, Calcutta:
“Some months ago, a news item in the Bangalore edition of a national paper carried this headline, “Three shortlisted for Mysore varsity post”. Since I am a former academic, and have known many past graduates and teachers of Mysore University, I read on further.
“The report continued to say that:
“…finally, the search committee has shortlisted three candidates for the Mysore University Vice-Chancellor’s post. The committee, headed by K. Balaveera Reddy, met on Tuesday. Sources told The Times of India that the shortlisted candidates are from Lingayat, SC and Vokkaliga communities. The candidates’ names have been placed before the government”.
“The report mentioned the names of the shortlisted candidates, from which one could discern their respective caste affiliations. Remarkably, the news report did not carry any details on the qualifications of those who aspired to be the new vice-chancellor of Mysore University.
“What were their areas of academic expertise? What were their plans for reviving a once-good university now gone to seed? Apparently, these matters did not matter to the newspaper, as they did not to the government that was to make the appointment. Perhaps they were of no concern to the candidates themselves.”
Read the full article: The chancellor’s vice
Also read: Graduates of Indian Universities need not apply
Tags: Ramachandra Guha, Churumuri, The Times of India, Sans Serif, University of Mysore, K. Balaveera Reddy
4 July 2009 at 4:15 pm
Sad but true….
This is sample exhibit of institutionalized Racism in this country, but we protest the racism in Australia.
Just looking at the caste that matter and caste/religion that does not matter is an eyeopener.
But then again there is a method, lingayats has rights, gowdas a castiest thing, SC a favour and well if ever you know who ..it is appeasement. Ah I forget, brahmin always merit ;).
So it is told and retold …
4 July 2009 at 8:14 pm
Khan Sahib:
What exactly were Professor Shouting Ali’s qualifications that qualified to him to be vice-chancellor of Mangalore University?
The Brahmin-Nonbrahmin issue imported into Maisuru University in the forties essentially negated the university’s commitment to secularism. For a long time Karnatak U’s vice-chancellor could only be a Lingayat. Bangalore U’s vice-chancellors used to be packaged in New Delhi. Imagine an IAS officer becoming the V-C and an IPS officer the Registrar, neither with any academic accomplishments to his credit.
I don’t know much about Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s status as a philosopher, but his administrative skills were overrated. However, Andhra U needed a respected name of Telugu origins.
Guha’s suggestion that fifty percent of all university entry level teaching jobs be reserved for the formerly disenfranchised classes is a good one. What do we do with the practical reality of those positions going unfilled for many years for the obvious reason that there will be no scholastically qualified candidates available and government machinery finds expedient solutions to the problem?
Dr. Prabhudeva’s qualifications as a heart surgeon are unexceptionable. However, the reason he was made Bengaluru’s V-C is that he had been badly mauled by the Haradanahalli clan while at Jayadeva and needed a visible salve just as the Gowdas needed to be shown their Byzantine villainy had its limits.
In any case a vice-chancellor today is a figurehead administrator. If he has any vision, he better leave it at home if he wants to stay in the position for a full term. Remember what happened to H. Narasimhayya when he made it his business to debunk a certain Hindu magician’s claim to alter nature at will? Our fearless secularist CM, Devaraja Arasu, sent HN home.
4 July 2009 at 8:19 pm
Same thing is true for most of the offices in India, including the highest.
Khan, yes Sir, Brahmins are presumed to have merit, that’s why it really sucks to be one and not have good scores.
We have institutionalised everything including
mediocritystupidity in our system.Do not worry the State shall soon make all oppressed, privileged.
4 July 2009 at 11:51 pm
Khan aka Mongolian Lord,
Yes you are right. The Minority comunity candidates are rather thin on the ground. So you have to do better and get your ilk out from madrasas to sit for regular univerity exams. Fair? Oh BTW don’t the Minority community have its own caste system? Please enlighten us on your own, ‘Brahmins, Lingayats, Gowdas’ amongst you. Thank you.
5 July 2009 at 4:17 am
Yeah Khan,
Everyone is a racist. I seen the same thing everywhere I travelled/lived – the middle east, europe, north america. Groupism by ethnicity, religion and skin color. No different in India – only we seem to be bigger hypocrites than others. We practise casteism, ghettoization by religion and discrimination by skin color (ask any African student in India, or for that matter any dark skinned person who buys fair and lovely/handsome), but we cry loudly and accuse others of racism as though we are always at the receiving end.
But the all-pervasiveness of caste in politics and government service in India is probably the most in-your-face racism anywhere in the world.
5 July 2009 at 4:20 pm
these type of things happen when we have people lording over somebody else’s money, somebody else’s education(how many of their own kids attend(UoM) and when their own perks and reputation are not tied to their measureable achievements or the faculties they lord over. undersuch circumstances everything other than education become important. it is not their fault. there is no system to begin with.
forget the govt. what about us? we will all kayyi mayyi parchkofy because somebody from some caste got selected. did we ever kayyi mayyi parchkofy over the dismal scholarly output of the university? what is the output in real measurable terms of any single department in the last few years, for example?
so what if a Li/Sc/Vo is selected based on his caste. The real question is even if selected on caste basis, what prevents him from doing an effective job? Japan is also nepotistic. But that does not prevent then from doing stellar work.
you task somebody with a goal to make just one department in the university to be one of the best in the country. even if it is in a field as narrow as history of the last wodeya of mysore, or even ethnographical studies of the kanarese dalits. some such well defined field of scholarship. whatever topic. atleast in that we should have the best authorities in the whole wide world. alva?
**
the main problem is between the castes there is only a hankering for temporary power, not eternal glory that comes from doing good. people are content with one kuvempu and one mahadeva and so on. what about the next guy who will carry the name forward? when that sort of long term, legacy then we will see even casteists doing work that is meaningful to all people. why not a competition amongst all castes about who have produced and sustained the most productive and insightful scholars?
**
here is a request to ram guha & to churumuri. at the end of the tenure of whoever is selected for VC, please follow up on this and analyse and study the output of the VC in real measurable terms.
since that level of crutiny is unlikely to come from govt. atleast the intelligencia should do it. otherwise, they themselves will be the people whom they warned us about. the people who are too scared and too deep in a cesspool of incest to write the relevant post script – how (not) become a self appointed know all.
5 July 2009 at 8:02 pm
Even islam in india has a shadow of casts (http://indianmuslims.in/the-problem-of-caste-among-indian-muslims/). It would be nice to hear from Khan sir to shed some light on this.
So it is told and retold …
6 July 2009 at 12:03 am
Dr. Parbhudeva is not an exception ! Even Dr. Narasimhaiah never taught in the university system. Similarly Dr. Rudrappa and Dr. Ramegowda never had teaching experience in the University.
In the recent past we had on few lucky professors happily serving as Acting VC of UOM on the basis of some questionable provisions in the University Act.
Still more shocking was the Search committee appointed by the Governor during the Presidents Rule disobeying the his direction to select as new list and still going Scot-free ! It is surprising no one went to court when a New Search committee was appointed later for which the Act has no proviso.
Then we had URA going to town saying some one outside UOM should be made VC !
UOM has a internal academic audit which rates its professors and the moot question for what purpose if the same does not have any bearing in the final selection.
Finally we have criteria for the selection. Just every one seems to send their CV to the Principal secretary , Higher Education Department . This Babu acts as the Convener for the Search committee and forwards shortlisted CV’s to them ! It is absurd as many in the Babudom go all out to add that pre-fix – Dr. and register before the very same Professors as their Guide !
It is all a sham and needs a total overhauling and there is an urgent need to first make Universities free from the clutches of Politician and Bureaucrats.
6 July 2009 at 11:04 am
Casteism in Mysore university has been firmly institutionalized since the last four decades. Just to clarify this is not casteism of the manuwadi vareity with Brahmin on top and so on. This is a kind of sub altern casteism which has been endorsed and practised by none less than K.V.Puttapa alias Kuvempu our Rashtrakavi who spoke of Vishwamanava. Kuvempu’s protege Javaregowda continued this reverse discrimination in Mysore university.
If you have to be a VC in mysore university you have to invariably be from these three caste groups –
Vokalliga- Vokkaliga represent the farmers – the proletariat in the commie model even if they are very rich landowners like Kuvempu.
Lingayath followers of the enlightened teachings of Basavanna – they get a clean chit for being followers of an egalatarian philosophy.
SC -The oppressed classes dalits exploited since 5000 years, or was it 10000.
Kurubas caste can be considered sometimes as they were local chieftains and shepherds.
For people from other communities it is a strict no entry into the top positions. The other community people can be rest assured that since their ancestors have exploited the masses for thousands of years their ‘Merit’ for any top position in the university is suspect.
6 July 2009 at 1:00 pm
TS,
A nice observation as in , …”o what if a Li/Sc/Vo is selected based on his caste. The real question is even if selected on caste basis, what prevents him from doing an effective job? Japan is also nepotistic. But that does not prevent then from doing stellar work…”
Even South Korea is the same; but Koreans simply excel !!
6 July 2009 at 2:42 pm
Similar stories, similar persons, similar situations, similar organizations and subsequent similar arguments – Left, Right and Centre. This has been going on for the last fifty years or so and I am sure it will continue to be so for the next, at least, 100 years. And, this is the same story in case of every other institution, whether it is is academic or scientific or governmental or any other. Like R.K.Laxman’s common man, except for looking at the things groing on around us, is there anything we can do to to improve the system?. Hardly, there is anything. Pathetic situation.
6 July 2009 at 5:14 pm
Dr.Jay B.simha
Sir, your name remind me of my teacher with same name. Yes Muslims do have caste system, afterall we are product of the same system. As you might know most of the Muslims in India are artisan class of “Hindu” society, the extension of caste system was natural.
There are as many jats & rajput Muslims in north India as Hindus. Those converted who were not from major caste, dissolved into whatever existing ones. Forget about sub-continent Arabs are bunch of tribals, so are the Turks.
“we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another” from Quran should be enough to put the myth that Muslims are homogeneous group.
Hope it helps you in understanding.
@ others
The point is not about caste system, but the institutionalized caste/religion bigotry in our system. Some of the comments are as if it is non-existent or they just don’t want to acknowledge.
First acknowledge that caste has become important in the decision making, rather than running down on me for pointing the same.
6 July 2009 at 6:26 pm
make Universities free from the clutches of Politician and Bureaucrats.
but that is not so trivial as that. de-regulating existing universities also creates a vaccum that will almost surely be occupied by many fly by night operators and two bit educationists. imagine the impact on hapless students every-time a two bit school is identified and shut down.
I think putting the blame on P&B, is a misleading slogan. in the list of board of trustees of the state university of new york, there are buereucrats, social workers, small bussinessmen, real estate developers and so on… places like U Cal has half the government machinery involved – ex-officio, but nevertheless involved. i can repeat this Massachusets, Vermont, New Hamsphire, Penn, NJ, Georgia, Iowa and so on…. are you telling me there are no political appointees in these cases? sure SUNY is no NYU or columbia or cornell or RPI but there are departments within the SUNY that hold on their own against the best. and UCB is right up their with Stanford, and schools like UCLA, UCSB etc., right behind. so what is it that makes schools in places like Vermont & Iowabe centers of excellence despite all the interference by P&B? and why is it that our P&B, who are after all cut from the same cloth, cannot do the same?
6 July 2009 at 8:19 pm
TS–
We are mimic men and women, as Naipaul says. We cannot sever our umbilical cord to colonial matrixes because doing so would not be in the interest of those who wallow in power and money. There are no words to describe the baseness of our academics who worship at their feet.
Get the universities out of the clutches of various strata of the education bureaucracy and tie the hands of politicians who want to interefere with education behind their backs. A laudable dream. How is it going to happen? What we need is a rebellion within the ranks in favor of objective world class scholarship and academic leadership. But in the current ferment of social change in India that is not going to happen. The jaathi criterion, the negative kind that tries to keep a putative exploitative caste out of decision making positions, will ultimately destroy education. Knowledge is impersonal; it does not care who acquires it. Those who have the mettle for scholarship will obtain it regardless of the circumstances. They leave the country or suffer in loud desperation laboring under mediocrities or worse.
As for having a committee evaluate a vice-chacellor’s performance, it should be done while he is still in office. After the fact scrutiny brings no profit. What has become the allegations against the Hegdes, the Prasads and those who preceded them? Furthermore, remember we live in a state where a former chief minister barged into the office of the vice chancellor of the Open University and demanded that she “regularise” all the vokkaliga temporary workers on the spot. The poor woman retired on health grounds as soon as she could. Fortunately, she did not have a massive heart attack while the goonda was pounding his fist on her desk with his henchmen cheering him on.
I am waiting for the grand habba at the trough that will follow the arrival of the hundred crore rupees when the University of Maisur becomes a central university.
Rajachandra describes the absurdity behind the v-c selection process well. India must be the only country where civil servants sport the title “Dr.” And how difficult is it to obtain a doctorate with no course work and a ghosted dissertation? I have seen one or two published versions of those scholarly works. They do not even adhere to the most basic conventions of scholarly documentation. Again this should not surprise us in a country where the very limited son of a former prime minister fails to get an undergraduate degree at Harvard and then goes on to get an M. Phil from Oxford or Cambridge.
6 July 2009 at 10:01 pm
I feel its one of the bad effect of selecting people by caste,influence,money etc….The people who selected those “would be” Vice-Chancellor’s , must have been selected somehow because of same reasons of caste etc that they dont have any knowledge about the pure job they had to do being in that position of selecting vice chancellors……God only knows when we are going to see a good change(if it ever happens!!)..
7 July 2009 at 1:11 am
DB,
The Japanese and Koreans live in a society with remarkably uniform ethnicity.
‘Ethnically Korea is the most uniform country in the world. It is populated almost exclusively by a single ethnic group, the Han. All speak the Ural-Altaic language.’
Ref:
http://books.google.com/books?id=mqXlA7e4VN8C&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=korean+uniform+ethnicity&source=bl&ots=qwc1E1rTtI&sig=Fmn2EySG7I1tlmK_cWlx0xabBi8&hl=en&ei=eFFSSq-PHY-0NuCRnD4&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6
Their nepotism is less influenced by caste, religion, language, skin color or ethnic type when compared to our system. For us generally, caste/religion come first in worldly matters and only then come other things. The word nepotism does not even completely capture what we indulge in.
BTW, an interesting article on the Ainus – an ethnic minority of Japan who were discriminated and are now close to extinction (at least with respect to their culture):
http://yourkeeper.blogspot.com/2007/08/hairy-ainus-of-japan.html
http://yourkeeper.blogspot.com/2009/06/hairy-ainus-of-japan-ii_15.html
A trivia is that the Ainu men are reputed to be the hairiest in the world:
http://www.cedarseed.com/fire/humantypes1.html
7 July 2009 at 6:50 am
It is all in the GAME!
7 July 2009 at 7:29 am
PTL,
why do you consider a term end review of the accomplishments and contributions of a VC as useless? in my opinion this lack of accountability and quantification of actual work done in measurable terms is the primary source of degradation of indian public service.
you want people to run on pure theoretical ideas like morality. let me break it to you, please smell some of chickamagalur’s finest. this is the age when every single kid from ka’s cities has read ayn rand and prolly understands quid pro quo more than his/her karanth.
so lets get realistic and ring only those bells that resonate with people who are actually around, rather than pine for people who wish were around.
we have tried this gogariyo neeti vaada for eons now. looks like it doesnot work. why not get lingayat about it get right to the kaayaka? some wise men have already pointed out all this out – kaayaka is potentially where the kailasa is.
7 July 2009 at 10:16 am
Thanks Khan. Actually, my point is that. In India *caste* than merit rt capabilities. Certainly I am not against any religious person, but only against organized religions, which are opiates to (so called) civilized society. Since I do not get your profile from pseudonym, I could not recognize you. Lets us hope we will be different than idiots.
7 July 2009 at 2:53 pm
No wonder our universities barring few institutes in the country sink and stink!! An academic should head a university not a bureucrat…
The top universities in India if not caste or linguistic groups do play a major role in deciding VCs, or in recruiting academics.
Why Mr Guha making such a big issue of caste etc? Linguistic community he belongs to is notorious for reserving positions for their linguistic community. He must have been good beneficiary!!!
7 July 2009 at 2:55 pm
@ Dr Simha ( whatever) ….Vanity is the quicksand of reason ~George Sand
17 September 2009 at 6:08 pm
A fitting response to Guha — http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=721#more-721