The road to polls, like that to hell, is paved with good intentions. The West Bengal government’s decision to reserve 17 per cent of the seats in higher education for the other backward classes has everything to do with the forthcoming panchayat polls in the state and very little to do with higher education. Together with the existing reservation of 22 per cent for the scheduled castes and another six per cent for the scheduled tribes, a total of 45 per cent of the seats in colleges and universities in Bengal will now be outside free competition, admission tests and the marks obtained in the school-leaving examinations. The ever-expanding space for reservations will make examinations, scores and merit irrelevant to higher education in Bengal. The government’s proposal to create additional colleges and universities in order to increase the number of seats available in the general category also has nothing to do with higher education or its quality. It is clearly aimed at preventing a potential backlash from the general category of students. Ever since she came to power in 2011, Mamata Banerjee has routinely initiated policies and programmes aimed at wooing particular social constituencies. It is no coincidence that the OBC category in Bengal includes almost the entire Muslim population in the state. The fact that the Left Front too had planned to introduce an OBC quota in higher education only shows how rival politicians think alike when it comes to expanding their vote bases.

How the chief minister hopes to procure funds to set up more colleges and universities remains something of a puzzle. She never misses an opportunity to complain about the state’s empty coffers and the huge debt burden she inherited from the previous regime. However, what must be more worrying is the possible impact of her populist politics on higher education in Bengal. When she ended the Left’s long reign, there were high expectations that she would clean up the mess in education as much as in other spheres. Both school and higher education under the Left had become major sources of jobs to loyalists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The cadre-turned-teachers spent more time looking after the interests of the party than those of education. What Bengal desperately needs is a return to merit and quality in education at all levels. Using education to expand vote bases is no way to achieve that goal.