“I am just a poor boy”… and one who has been exploited by politicians, especially the lowly types. And it really does not matter whether the politician is from the Congress, which invented the slogan of removing poverty while enriching the super-rich, or the BJP, which believes that simple aping is the best form of flattery. You have heard it often; I am here to help the poor, I begin in the name of the poor, this program is to help the poor. So much poor around, and they are so stupid, they will buy any jargon, follow any piper’s platitude. That is what the education minister of India, Mr. Murli Manohar (MM) Joshi, believes will happen if fees to students entering prestigious schools like the IIM’s and the IITs (hereafter referred to as IIs) are drastically cut. Since there are no plans to decrease the quality of these schools, and there is an undertaking to the Supreme Court that a vice-like control is not a government objective, the belief is that the government will finance through the general budget (read yours and mine taxes) the deficit caused by the reduced subsidies.

There are many people (including those from the ruling party supporting MM) who cannot fathom what is happening with this MM initiative. I am one of them. Normally one looks for either a political or socio-economic factors as explanation. It is likely that Mr. Joshi's brilliant staff has provided him with background information of the people attending the institutes - these data must have convinced him of the political and economic rightness of his cause. Unfortunately, only MM has access to such data because part of government ownership "in the name of the poor" means that the government guards entrance data (test scores, socio-economic background, how much students spend on tuition etc.) rather zealously i.e. it is a state secret and kept so in the interests of national security.

But there is indirect information - data which suggests that there is no economic or political explanation for what Mr. MM is doing. Let us take the economic arguments first. A good should be subsidized if there are returns to society in excess of returns to the individual. As the headlines blared recently, an II graduate can expect between Rs. 30 to Rs. 45 lakhs annually, a salary level that places them in the top 1 percent of wage earners in India. Unlikely that there is any "excess" return to society here. The political argument is that there are votes out there, and this being an election year, and Mr. MM being a seasoned politico (one of those who has "dedicated" his life to public service, as a politician) he must have got his chamchas to feed him the right information - information gleaned from secret university records. Perhaps the Supreme Court can help make such data public.

Until then, there is an alternate source of information, the National Sample Survey for 1999-2000. The table details the information for 18-24 year olds in India, the age-group which is the target of MM's largesse. It is ironic but the students themselves are up in arms against MM's visions. Perhaps it is the rich students speaking, and the poor whose votes MM is after will reward him for lowering the fees. The survey does not contain data on schools attended, but the elite IIs contain no more than the top 5 percent who are attending college, and these are no more than 16 percent of the 18-24 age group. Simply, today there are about 20 million students attending school/college, out of which there are only 500,000 in specialized subjects like engineering/medicine/business, and only about 30,000 in elite colleges (a single IIT today takes in about 500 students a year).

So if the elite schools are the ones Mr. MM is after, there a'int too many votes there. But perhaps MM is far-sighted and is looking for aspirations. Perhaps he believes that it is the magnitude of the tuition that is acting as a strong deterrent against attendance by the poor, the bottom 40 percent of the population. While 7.6 percent of the poor are enrolled in college, no more than .00002 percent are privileged to enter any IIs, let alone the elite IIs. Yes, that is .002 percent of the poor, or about 2500 individuals. But the poor do not vote anyway. Mr. MM has his eyes on the bigger prize, the people in the 40 to 80 percent category - these are the people the RSS likes to convert to the Hindu way of life i.e. receive subsidies so that you can go to college, in addition to, and instead of, the effete elites. Well, only 0.12 percent of this group goes to IIs. Maybe MM's target are the upwardly mobile upper class, those in the 80 to 95 percent category. This is a potential pool of 18 million 18-24 year olds. But only 0.55 percent go to IIs. Perhaps, as with all socialists, protectors of the public sector to make it great, the "in the name of the poor" politicians, MM's target are the super rich, the top 1 percent of the population. A large percentage, 8.4 percent, of these nattering nabobs go to IIs. Students who are in the top 5 percent of the population constitute more than 50 percent of the enrollment in specialized institutions of higher learning. And for these people the good minister wants to cut the fees so that they may find it easier to enroll in college.

What these data show is that IIs are the most brilliantly conceived elitist public sector institution. They have served all the wishes of their super-rich masters. What a brilliant method for the rich to stay rich - let the poor pay for your education, while they simultaneously applaud you for being so good to them by making a university education easier than climbing Mount Everest. In the name of the poor works because the government for the rich (it is always so) controls the purse strings.

Over the last five years, IIs have become a household word worldwide. Many a learned intellectual, and all the policy wonks, have marveled at this great contribution of Nehruvian socialism. It is claimed that the success of the IIs is really the success of the public sector - the public sector with the productive face. It is claimed that it required vision, ambition, patriotism to start the IIs. It is claimed that a large reason for India Shining, albeit after 50 years of seemingly going nowhere, is the development of such institutes - and they were not provided by the private sector, you know. No doubt the Congress party is preparing to use the fact that Nehru started the IITs and this was his lasting contribution to India shining. It will go along with their oft-stated stand of not privatizing profit-making public sector units.

As the above numbers indicate - only 0.4 percent of 123 million people attend specialized schools, and only 0.02 percent are allowed entry into the elite specialized schools, the IIs. It is not some special public-sector expertise or a hackneyed vision that makes the students of these institutes so good - the graduates are so good because the incoming students are so exceptionally bright. If the top 0.02 percent does exceptionally well, then "aapne konse kaddu mein teer maara?" (loosely translated, what greatness have you achieved by shooting pumpkins?)