Dissecting The Myths Of Merit And Meritocracy PART-XI

By Narendra Kumar Arya 

15 January, 2013 

Countercurrents.org:

Merit as a Static Notion:

There may be little consensus among the supporters of the conception of what really constitutes merit but one thing stands out common in their mind that merit is a static and once-for-ever sort of thing. Either you have it or not. You have it for once and always. This mind-set resembles the attitude and perceptual deformity of status-quoists. The mental morbidities and blindness is almost incurable; more so, if the patient is unwilling to accept the change in circumstances and his inner hiccups. It is widely believed that if a person is un-meritorious in a given sense at a given time one will not and cannot attain traits of merit as expounded by its enthusiasts. This phobia even at the entry level is could be observed. The hardcore merit fanatics don't believe that human being is a dynamically endowed being and his capabilities and mental faculties are easily repairable or upgradeable and given a positive motivation and ambience this can be vigorously changed. Again the environment (work, study, job etc.) itself plays the role of an implicit a motivator or change –agent ,denying this fact is denial of human potential and the humanity, at large. May a dare to quote what an ancient philosopher saw some 2500 years ago and we still bear witness vulnerability to his prophetical warning “Every living entity goes through a process of development from ‘potential' to ‘actuality', if it is not interrupted.” 26 People socialized in a specific cultural milieu easily transform themselves to its requirement and display high degree of adaptability but it does not affirm the prejudiced pet theory that ‘outsiders are not competent to attain the required level of competence or efficiency. The stagnancy has deeper roots in the culture of discrimination and psychic inelasticity than the actual experiences or human performance potentiality .A renowned social psychologist Prof. Kuppaswamy has correctly observed that “one of the unique features of Indian culture is the resistance to reorganize attitudes on the basis of new information .The new information is assimilated without abandoning (old) customs, beliefs and attitudes which are contradictory to new information.” 27

Prejudices in Indian Society

We are citizens of caste- blind state but castiest society. Prejudice is a permanent character of Indian caste system and society at large, cut across geospatial and temporal boundaries. This is not that all other societies are bereft of prejudices and stereotypes but it is often not that unique as it is in Indian societies especially against Dalits, Muslims and women. Caste-oriented perceptions and attitude imparting forms the staple diet of Indian children and it never goes away again. No matter how hard you may try to desensitize this, even our hardcore scientists and Marxists cannot discard them. It seems as if “In the realm of beliefs we are all hostages to fortune .Had we been born in a different era, culture or social class-had we been educated at different schools, raised in different neighborhood or born with a different temperament-many of our beliefs would be different than they are .So, unless we are unbelievably lucky, we are all addled with false beliefs, even about the most important things…… homo sapiens , rational animals –are so very fallible?” 28 Even Indian Diaspora settled in more ‘modern' European and American set up is unable to give up its caste prejudices and whenever there are opportunities to save caste culture and norms they would make all efforts to follow them, even at the cost of conflicting the law of the land. A British Indian writing in The Guardian narrates; caste permeates Indian society, even today. But its influence most often lurks beneath the surface. On the surface, it does not necessarily seem to exist, but it always lurks beneath the skin. ” 29