But the other criteria have evoked little comment, leave alone outrage. If the child seeking admission has a sibling in the same school, he or she gets 20 points. Another five points each for a father and mother who happen to be alumni. And 10 whole points if the father is a postgraduate — double that if the mother is also an MA. The points decrease with the declining educational qualifications of the parents — only four points for matriculates and, one assumes, no admission at all if either are illiterate.

In the fiercely competitive world of admissions into the city’s elite public schools, the Ganguly Commission’s ostensible aim is to reduce the discretionary powers of school administrations that tend to favour the wards of the well-heeled and well-connected. But for all its good intentions, the recommendations reveal a deeply elitist and exclusionary bias that has important implications in the contentious reservations debate.

First, it unequivocally confirms the long-held belief of pro-reservationists that there is no such thing as a “level playing field” in India and that inequities are embedded in the system from the very beginning. When V.P. Singh implemented the Mandal Commission report in 1990, critics said there was no point reserving jobs without ensuring that the OBCs were adequately educated. The government’s latest decision to reserve seats in educational institutions has met with a similar outcry: there should be equality at the starting point of the school system, not at the university level.

But the Ganguly Commission report brings out in the open the reservation system that operates at the lowest echelon of the education system. Given the prohibitive fees charged by most public schools, a “weeding out” process is already at work from the outset. This process of unnatural selection has now been given a further twist. By awarding points on the basis of parental qualifications and sibling and alumni criteria, inherent privileges of birth — the essence of the caste system — are officially given precedence over those with equal money but inferior pedigree.

... contd.