In Examinations we trust.

Less than two months from now, a cousin of mine will sit for his first public examination with many other 16 year olds like himself .He hates it,and obviously I would be so regressive to agree with his parents to force down his throat a career perspective that seems so much of a 90s thing if you believe the new wave generalists and non-conformists that I have a chance of meeting everyday in this god-forsaken place.

We love quantify things when we cannot vouch for their credibility . We love clarity. These three hour tests will give you a number , an inalienable identity that lives with you on your certificates. Is this fair? No.

I know you hate the Haber's process for making ammonia that they teach you in your secondary school and if you still don't do it you will begin to hate the equations of tangent to a parabola that they teach you in class 12th and if you manage to bear them all, you will begin to despise the functions and pointers they will begin to teach you when once you end up in some faceless engineering college. The point is you will continue to hate examinations if you stick to the idea that they were meant to be instruments to quantify the amount of education drilled into you. Well, examinations in India are not about the business of education, they are about the business of democracy.

Long long time ago, there used to be a British guy called Charles John Canning. Perhaps you know him as the evil governor who suppressed the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. What few people know that he unwittingly created a system through the Indian Councils act of 1861 that has outlived even the Raj.He started the first clerical examinations for Indians in the British Civil Services. In the last 149 years we have diversified and introduced Viceroy Canning's legacy to every sphere of professional qualification . The first Indian nationalists were civil servants- the product of this system and early indicators of the powerful tool for democratization public examinations would become.
The dilemma for an examination's necessity was put forward so lucidly by a friend Nikhil here : "An examination is so structured , a very fair game if you are in the mode. Like say, I want to get into design. Then there isn't a career path as organized for me as it would , say if I were interested in Management. In that case, I would have just joined a coaching center and cracked CAT- a method to evaluate you fair and square."

Haven't you noticed that the Hindi movies that talk about following your heart and living by your convictions are themselves starred in by children of celebrity parents ? All our young politicians that somehow seem so promising today are not the products of a social revolution but gradual dynastic entrenchment and evolution.

Examinations , my dear, are meant not for people who want to imitate their parents or step into their shoes but for those who want to surpass them. One of these days, when you receive your admit card for your 10th board examinations, remember that what you have in your hands is something more powerful today in India than the voter ID card that they will issue to you on turning eighteen. Behind the anonymity of a roll number as you write you exams, your pen will have as much power as that of the most privileged children who appear beside you.

Equality of opportunity is not a frivolous goal - the makers of our Constitution could not guarantee it despite penning down 395 articles in terse text. Examinations may probably accomplish it. In examinations we trust.