ET: A rewarding experience called affirmative action: April 14, 2008 | CSR

A rewarding experience called affirmative action

In the long run, universal access to quality education would be the only solution to the problems of social discrimination

IT WAS the middle of 2006 and the mood among industry leaders was that of agitation and anxiety. There was a lot of political noise on job quotas for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the private sector. Apparently, that would solve the problem of social discrimination that has existed in Indian society for about three thousand years for a group of people who number only 250 million at present!

The private sector was obviously disturbed. Then came the famous speech by the prime minister at the Annual Session of CII in April 2006. He appealed to Indian industry to be more inclusive with particular reference to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. This was taken to heart by the industry.

Indian Industry responded swiftly. A detailed report on possible areas of intervention by industry with specific targets was prepared and handed over to the prime minister by the end of July 2006. The bulk of the interventions were in areas beyond the domain of employment in private sector, and for good reasons. The workplace in the private sector was one place where caste-based discrimination does not exist. I made that statement with certain degree of confidence then. I stand by that statement now with a greater degree of conviction. Let me explain why.

The government wanted industry to disclose the proportion of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe employees in each company. Within the CII, we asked our members if they had such figures readily available. I was not surprised when our non-PSU members came back to me saying that they did not have any such figure and nor were they keen to engage in an exercise of collecting such figures since it could create a fissure and insecurity among a workforce, which has been oblivious to caste issues so far. Indeed this was a very sensitive issue and some companies proceeded cautiously. Others refused to carry out such a head count.

As results of the employee head count started to trickle in from the companies which had undertaken to do this, we were not surprised to find that in most cases the companies’ workforce reflected the demographics of the adjoining areas. In other words, companies operating in tribal areas had a very large representations of scheduled tribes in their workforce. This was bound to happen, since industry recruited on the basis of availability.

But, this was only a survey and not a deliverable, which industry had committed to the government. CII had committed to the prime minister and all stakeholders that industry would embark on a comprehensive programme of affirmative action, which would look at help bring to the mainstream a significant number of members from the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities, who otherwise would have to struggle.

And so we started to look very carefully at how to make the maximum difference to the lives of people we wanted to change.

In the course of preparation of the CII report on “Concrete steps for affirmative action” — that’s what we called our report — we realised that there was immediate need for two sets of interventions.

We realised that in spite of having the basic qualifications, many members of the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes were unable to find suitable jobs since they lacked the opportunity to learn good communication skills, basic IT knowledge, career counselling, how to speak in public, how to conduct themselves in an interview, etc. These are soft skills, but very critical nevertheless. Therefore, we had identified employability creation as one of our key areas of intervention.

The second was the universally accepted shortcoming which afflicts a large part of our young population irrespective of their caste status — quality education. In the long run, universal access to quality education would be the only solution to the problems of social discrimination. Now this is an action, which lies largely in the government’s domain. But for the time being, we decided to make industry’s modest contribution to the cause. CII decided to provide scholarship support to students, who wish to pursue higher education, but would not be able to do so owing to severe economic limitations.

Then there was the third area of intervention. In our country, if one maps the size of the working age population and compares that with the number of jobs that are created across all sectors every year, the huge mismatch would be staggering. Yet it is important that every person in the working age population must have a means of earning a livelihood. The solution is no rocket science. We just have to create a large number of entrepreneurs, who in turn would be able to create jobs for others. Naturally, this was CII’s choice as the third area of initiative for the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe youth.

In other words we started on a comprehensive programme of empowerment of the youth from these communities, because the youth are the future of this nation.

Institutions like the Entrepreneurship Development Institute, Ahmedabad, the Regional Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, Chandigarh, etc, came forward to partner CII in creating entrepreneurs. A three stage model was agreed upon, whereby selection on the basis of psychometric parameters would be followed by training, financing and mentorship. We had targeted to train a 100 potential entrepreneurs in the first year — 2007. Last month when we took stock of all the people who have been trained in the first year, we realised that we had covered 1,594 of them. How successful they become as entrepreneurs, only time will tell but we did make more than a modest beginning. I have been inundated with stories of how some of the early starters have already established their businesses, varying from catering services, electronic items business, beauty parlours, contractors, etc. The fact that many of them are already looking at employing others is the biggest satisfaction.

Similarly, we had set out to train 10,000 people to make them more employable. We ended up training 22,580 in 2007. We exceeded the target we set for ourselves. But what was a more rewarding experience is when I met these groups undergoing training before and after their courses. They were changed personalities. To one of the passing out batches in Pune, I generously offered that the Tata group would be happy to offer jobs to them. To my pleasant surprise, I found out that I was late — my other colleagues in CII were quicker on the take and each and every one of the trainees had found placement immediately after their courses got over.

Stories of struggle and survival are popular among movie buffs who are fond of the Mumbai and Hollywood flicks. We all like to watch them as the last scene fills us with gratification and our hearts swell at the eventual success of the protagonists, who come through in their glories of success. Similarly, my heart swelled, when I saw the list of students that we have been able to support through our scholarships. The list is littered with tales of struggle and survival which should have the movie moguls scrambling for their stories. It is indeed gratifying for me and for industry at large that we are being able to contribute in our own way to these young people with large dreams. Many of these students are in IITs, medical colleges, prestigious colleges and universities across the country. The fact that they have come through conditions of economic struggle and despair and yet made it with their own merit into some of India’s best educational institutions, means that they are our future leaders.

If I have to bet on the future of India, I will bet on these people, because they are survivors.
(The author is chairman, Council on Affirmative Action, CII and director, Tata Sons)

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