An Exploratory Study of Post-implementation Experiential Perceptions of Reservations with Focus on Stigmatization Processes in the Higher Professional Education Context

Abstract

Multiple efforts around the world are made to address the issue of discrimination and marginalization. The Indian experience has taken the form of reservation policy in public services, in public sector jobs and in public higher education. Reservations in India mandated by the Constitution gave discriminated and disadvantaged castes the opportunity to build a better future for themselves and their communities. Research studies have examined the impact of reservations on disadvantaged castes in terms of increased participation in education and employment. Often solutions themselves throw up their own questions and problems which in turn have to be addressed through newer initiatives and instruments both at the state sponsored legislative levels as well as at the policy implementation levels.

Previous research indicates that the implementation of the reservation policy creates a structure in the socio-organisational space of institutes of higher professional education wherein the beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries interact with the distinct possibility that discrimination invades the socio organizational spaces of professional higher education with the attendant likelihood of the stigmatization of beneficiaries.

This study therefore looks at the experiential perceptions of post implementation of reservations in the socio organizational space of institutes of higher professional education through the first hand experiences of both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries with the utmost empathy, sensitivity and dignity with special focus on stigmatization processes.

An ethnographic approach involving direct engagement with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries was adopted for the purposes of gaining insights into stigmatization processes. A beginning was made by going to the field following an ethnographic approach using the unstructured interview method to gain preliminary understanding of various facets of the experiential perceptions of typical respondents. This was followed by direct intense engagements with both beneficiary and non-beneficiary students using a semi-structured interview process. A total of sixty interviews were recorded with equal number of beneficiary and non-beneficiary students.

The study has yielded a better understanding of the experiential perceptions of beneficiaries and on-beneficiaries related to caste, caste based reservations, other institutional actors, stigmatization processes and beneficiary responses to stigmatization.

A contextualized interpretation of the findings has revealed that there is a veil of silence around the discourse of caste and caste based reservations in higher education. Behind the veil of silence there is evidence of the deep resentment of non-beneficiaries towards caste based reservations. This becomes the context for the stigmatization of beneficiaries by non-beneficiaries through performance centric stigma profiling using various markers. The beneficiaries therefore have to deal with the dual burden of academic pressure and the burden of the stigma of incompetence in the context of the veil of silence, non-beneficiary resentment towards caste based reservations and performance centric stigma profiling. They respond by getting submerged under the burden of dehumanizing stigmatization or assert their identity and dignity in their thrust towards a humanizing-sublimating future of justice, equality and dignity utilizing education in a premier institution providing professional education. These two patterns have been labelled as Type I and Type II responses to stigmatization.

The main contribution of the study is that the responses from the direct engagement were used to piece together a holistic view of the experiential perceptions of beneficiaries and on beneficiaries in the post implementation stage of reservations in premier professional higher educational institutions through contextualized interpretation of the data. Contextualized interpretation of the responses also helped to generate insights related to the veil of silence, the structure and substance of non-beneficiary resentment which constitutes the context for the experiential perceptions of beneficiaries, the implicit markers of performance centric stigma profiling of beneficiaries by non-beneficiaries, a sharper delineation of the modalities of the morphology of the stigmatization experiences of beneficiaries and also the two major response patterns to stigmatization labelled as Type I and Type II responses.