Lakhs of students in India throng to Kota, a city in Rajasthan state, every year to join coaching centres for engineering, medical and other entrance and competitive exams. Twenty-four of them have tragically ended their lives this year itself. Kota is not an isolated phenomenon; coaching centres of different scopes and natures that prepare aspiring students for competitive exams to get into engineering and medical colleges - with their huge gaps between demand and supply - are spread nationwide. In addition to these centres’ promotional strategies, uncritical acceptance of the meritocratic system and miscalculation in the public perception of merit’s link with success and happiness contributed to this ugly phenomenon. 

Michael Young, a British sociologist who popularized the term 'meritocracy' in the 1950s, used the term pejoratively to indicate the sense of inferiority among the ‘losers’ in a competition and the resulting inequality. Today, ‘meritocracy’ refers to a ‘fair’ reward distribution system, and merit is considered the gateway to success. But it is not as simple as that.

Firstly, the idea of merit in entrance exams in a highly populous nation like India with disproportionately low infrastructural resources and livelihood opportunities is a ‘crowd management strategy’. It is a justification to convince the qualified candidates of their ‘ineligibility’ for practical reasons. Entrance exams reflect this strategy in screening qualified candidates to arrive at a manageable number to match the available resources.

Secondly, from the merit angle, one’s success is the result of talent and effort, and on the same token, failure denotes a lack of talent and indolence. Therefore, over-emphasis on merit makes students solely responsible for their ‘successes’ and ‘failures’.

Meritocracy and opportunity

In his famous book “The Tyranny of Merit”, Michael Sandel observed that merit banks on mastery and self-making. It comes with the promise of success through fairness, which it is not, as the game has already been rigged in multiple ways. But, our approach to meritocracy as a fair system stigmatizes failures and makes it unbearable to the budding minds locked in the ‘coaching chambers’ of Kota and elsewhere.

Merit demands one to believe in himself - ‘your fate is in your hand’. But, as Napoleon Bonaparte contended, “ability is of little account without opportunity”. Understandably, providing equal opportunity is difficult in a country historically marked by many strands of structural discrimination. Studies have proven that socioeconomic and genetic factors interplay with one's effort to succeed. In India, the correlation between parents' educational status and their children’s is as strong as the correlation between genetically transmitted traits. For instance, only a tiny proportion of first-generation learners ‘succeed’ in the meritocratic system.

The feeling of ‘deserving it’ by merit predominates the winner’s consciousness and feeds his ego gratification. But in reality, as in Ecclesiastes, “Race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise; but time and chance happeneth to them all”. As Robert Frank succinctly presented in his book “Success and Luck”, in any competition, the most talented and hardworking will usually outdone by the ones who are almost as capable and hardworking but also considerably luckier.

Acknowledging this element of fortune in a victory makes the victor humble and graceful. This reminds the ‘winners’ of their mutual coexistence with the ‘losers’ and their responsibilities back to the community. But, training for competitive merit, devoid of the larger philosophy and principles of education, substitutes humility and grace with competitive self-interest and arrogance.

Unreasonable parental expectations

Field workers have documented that the students in these coaching centres are under tremendous pressure from their parents to succeed. Recent interviews from Kota captured students lamenting that their parents rebuked them for not putting in ‘sufficient effort’, children apologizing to parents for their ‘failure’ to perform as expected, etc.

What we see in Kota today is deeply rooted in middle-class aspirations for social mobility, considering meritocracy a fair and promising system. But, the ‘merit ladder’ for upward mobility is not equally tangible and accessible to all. The material, social and psychological resources available for these students depend on their social location.

As John Rawls said, "No one deserves his greater natural capacity, nor merits a more favorable starting place in society." Unfortunately, the reality is different. One must understand that there are more resources at the disposal of children lucky to be born in the upper rungs of society. For upward socioeconomic mobility, aspirants from the lower rungs must bear and overcome the ‘meritorious weight’ of the rungs above them.

The system of meritocracy in a country with perpetual social inequalities functions as an ideological myth to obscure, legitimize and extend the disparities further. Let us not put unreasonable expectations on our children and youngsters. Parents must not project their own aspirations and wishes onto their progeny. Encouraging them to pursue their passion, embedded in self-actualization, would help them bear the humiliation and weight of merit at this time of growing inequality.

(The author is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director, Centre for Social and Policy Research at CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Bangalore. Views are personal. He can be contacted at om.prakash@christuniversity.in)