At the time when I had written my first post on Tina Dabi, I was not ( neither many of us ) even knowing that she belongs to the SC Category. At that time, the whole nation was celebrating the rising status of woman in our society and appraising her for this huge success in her very first attempt, just at the age of 22 . But, now things have changed and there are hundreds of news articles, blog posts and social messages that have been written on the issue of her belongingness to a reserved category.
So, I am not going to write the same stuff here again but just wanted to clear out one confusion that many of us have. For example , here is one comment on a post related to Tina Dabi where a reader is upset about something.
He is upset about the fact that though she belongs to SC category but since she is an overall UPSC 2015 topper, she will end up taking the seat of one non-reserved person or a person from general category. Has she actually eaten up one seat from the non-reserved or general category?
The one-word answer is : NO! How? Let me explain that to you.
If the following prelims mark sheet of Tina Dabi is considered true ( This mark sheet has been taken from this post. I do not claim it’s authenticity )
Note: Prelim Paper-II marks were not counted in Mains-selection this year and hence only consider the Paper-1 Marks while considering the cut-off marks.
Her mark-sheet of Civil Services Preliminary examination-2015 implies that she managed to appear for the Main exam because of reservation. As you can see the cut-off mark for UPSC Prelims-2015 general category was 107.34 and for SC category, the cut-off mark was 94. She couldn’t have cleared the prelims examination without claiming reservation. Kindly look below for the official cut-off list shared by official UPSC website. You can download the PDF version of this cut-off list here.
Now, I am not trying to convey that she is not eligible enough to be called as the Topper or something. In fact, she is capable enough to be the topper every exam she will ever appear in the future as her previous academic qualifications suggest. There are different kinds of skill-set require to excel in the different format of exams and she appears to be more of analytical and descriptive which doesn’t suit that well with MCQ type questions.
Anyways, let’s get back to the topic again. Now, since has already claimed herself in SC category during the prelims. So, according to the Civil services rule, even if she is an overall topper ( Including all categories) in the UPSC Mains-2015, she will be assigned an SC seat under UPSC quota.
Now this is a totally different topic of discussion that what if she could have passed prelims under marks above the general cut-off. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to take a general seat? Total constitutional reservation percentage is 49.5% in India. Does it mean that all reserved quota people are bound to be under this category even if they score better marks? Doesn’t this actually mean that 50.5% seats are reserved for general category even though they constitute only 27% of the population of India ?
We will discuss all these questions in detail some other day. As of now, If you find this article informative, please share it and if you have anything to add or modify here, please write under the comment section. Thank you.
Click here to know more about Tina Dabi, like her academic background, family, photos etc.
Update 23/05/16 : Don’t be abusive, offensive or prejudiced while writing comments under this post. I think all my readers are mature enough to understand this. This article was written to state a simple fact, not to discuss the overall reservation issues. But if any of you think that he/she is good enough to write an unbiased and logical article in favor or against the reservation, you can send it to contact@tomatoheart.com to get it published here after proper reviewal . Keep reading.
Update 23/05/16: Some of the readers may be confused with the definition of “General category” in the context of this article as it appears from some of the comments. So, when I say “General Category”, it means “people without any kind of constitutionally allotted reservation advantage”. It doesn’t mean all people including reserved category. Thanks to the reader “Yuvraj Singh” who pointed out this.
Update 21/05/16: Some readers quoted me spreading lie by this statement where I said “50.5% seats are reserved for general category even though they constitute only 27% of the population ” Let me reclarify that I haven’t stated it as the constitutional rule but I only raised this as a question from those people who believe that reserved people shouldn’t take non-reserved seat even if they receive more marks than general category cut-offs. So if reserved category people are bound to take reservation seats only irrespective of their marks, then it will practically convert into having 50.5% reservation non-reserved category. But since the cause is an assumption, not the reality, hence the effect is also a logical assumption, not the reality. the percentage data shown in this statement are taken from this article of The Hindu. Does it make sense now?
Update 21/05/16: Somebody asks that if 50.5% seats are reserved for the general category then why the merit/general cut-off for GENERAL CATEGORY is higher than all other Categories?
First of all, 50.5% seats are NOT reserved for the general category as per reservation related constitutional rule but just for the sake of logical discussion, considering it as the truth, here is how the cut-off for the general category will still be higher than other categories.
Suppose there are 100 students in a class, among which 27 are boys and rest 73 are girls. Suppose all boys have more than 85% marks and max. up to 100 marks in the math whereas girls have marks as low as 35% and maximum up to 80 marks in math ( Please don’t think that I am being racist by stating low marks for girls . It’s just a dummy example) Suppose there is a math contest in which there is 70% reservation for boys and rest seats for girls. What do you think, will be the cut-off marks for boys and the girls for the entry in the contest ? Here the cut-off for boys will surely be higher than the girls even when they have more reserved seat for the contest. So, there is no proportionality relationship between the reservation category and the percentage of reservation they get.