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One of the major debates in the whole issue of reservation in higher education in India is about ‘merit’. Many people who oppose reservation are of the view that when quota based reservation is implemented then ‘merit’ is sacrificed.
Before proceeding further, we should answer the following questions:- - How is “merit” defined?
- How do we measure merit?
- Why is so-called merit confined so far only to a given minority section of our society?
- Do the existing institutions (in India or elsewhere) always respect only ‘merit’?
Usually what is understood by the term “merit” or “talent” is that it is the quality of being good at doing something; in the field of education, one may intend to say that it stands for mental agility, depth of comprehension, mathematical talent, analytical abilities, skill of doing something or flair for noticing connections between apparently dissimilar things etc. But we should remember that “merit is a social product and is context specific”. There is no universal, omnipresent entity called merit which is a hold-all substitute for such disparate qualities of a human being. Therefore, measurement of merit is itself problematic. What is usually understood by merit is narrowly defined- it is usually the score/result in a given examination, that is the percentage of marks scored or the grades obtained. Such examinations are usually designed to test only a very specific skill, whether it is really needed for the particular job for which the test is meant for, of the students/job-seekers. For example, the IIT-JEE or other engineering or medical entrance tests are designed to test the maximum problem solving capacity of the applicants within a limited period of time. That too almost all the questions are objective type questions. To be a good doctor or an engineer, one need not necessarily possess only such kind of ability. One may take a little more time to solve the problems, but s/he would not qualify in the test of ‘merit’, even though s/he may possess other qualities of becoming a good doctor.
The ‘merit’ based on ranking in the highly competitive entrance examinations is not without its problems. Any teacher or administrator at some of the top institutions (such as IITs or IIMs) will agree that there are typically several hundred candidates of equally good quality at the top, and they are able to admit only a small fraction of them, so that there is a large element of luck and randomness in the process of selection. For example, at the national entrance examination to the IITs every year, there are more than 3,00,000 entrants, yet only around 3,000 gain admittance to the various IITs. Yet it is quite likely that the top 20,000 are equally good if not better than those few who are fortunate enough to get selected, since performance at one single examination is rarely a complete indicator of actual aptitude or quality. In any case it is also well known that these entrance tests typically test not intelligence or ability in the subject per se, but a certain aptitude for answering such tests, and it is itself a skill that can be learnt. There are renowned coaching centers in all cities now, but some cities, like Kota in Rajasthan, is exclusively famous for providing training for JEE entrance tests that comes at a high price of about two lakhs pen annum. One who can spend money, begets ‘merit’. This can be called manufactured talent. So the flourishing “coaching” industry for these competitive exams amounts to another form of exclusion, or “reservation” for those who can afford to spend enough time and resources to ensure this prior coaching.
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Reservation 
