Commentary on the case of Mumbai University students, 1 of 3 student seeking a revaluation

1 in 3 univ students applies for revaluation

Unfairness and Wrong are not one and the same thing.

On Internet (google), Fairness is defined as :

not fair; not conforming to approved standards, as of justice, honesty, or ethics: an unfair law; an unfair wage policy. 2. disproportionate; undue; beyond what is proper or fitting: an unfair share.

As we can see from the definition, the meaning of unfairness cannot be easily assumed to be Wrong.

Unfairness is about something being not proportionate. This implies that it does not necessarily means something which is disproportionate is purposefully wrong. Human life is filled with instances, belief , judgements, which cannot be accurately measured. They are called Subjective evaluations. Every person can hold different proportion of his evaluation on these matter.  That means, merely because one’s evaluation does not meet the other’s standards , it should not be called out as Wrong.

  There, we stumble upon a limitation of all the theories of justice that we practice. Because, the theories of justice deal with controlling the Wrong, not the one’s which have been disproportionately evaluated. The English language simple term for a proportionate evaluation is Fairness. It is possible within the modern laws that someone conduct himself unfair with another person, and may yet not be culpable for having caused any apparent damage to him. That is, without having done any wrong apparently. 

   Unfairness is fundamentally the dishonest, unethical conduct during the process. Unfair process will surely yield wrongful loss or a wrongful gain. Where there is objective evaluation process involved, i.e., the use of Logic, the detection of Unfairness may be possible. But wherever there is subjective process involved, the unfairness remains merely emotionally palpable, but never culpable. That is, one can feel the occurrence of wrong, but he is in no good position to blame the wrong doing on someone.

 All Discriminations (whether gender based, caste based, religion based, region based, or professional lobbies based) are supposed to be seated in acts of Unfairness. Individual acts of Unfairness are not possible to be proved. Individual can only feel the unfairness happening with him. He has seldom scope of accusing or blaming the unfairness, because evidencing is not easy. More so, if the evaluation process involves Subjective evaluation. The only way to detect a suspected case of unfairness is when the disproportionate results become too large scale or heavy to reveal out by themselves, and the human conscience is left with no choice but to admit it the existence of act of unfairness.

 This is how the revelations of the RTIs help in detecting the unfairness.

In the law courts, Unfairness is seen more commonly during malpractices in labour handling, and during competitive laws aimed at preventing wrongful loss or wrongful gains.  Unfair Labour Practices, or the ULP, is a term we all have heard during our lectures of Labour Laws. Similarly, there are issues in Competitive laws which come under the ambit of unfair competition rules.

Were it not for the revelations of the RTI, imagine how the act of unfairness would have slipped of as.

The teachers lobby would have been accusing the modern students as undeserving, inept, incapable of passing the exam upon a strict evaluation and marking. The teacher lobby would put the students in the light of being beggar, unable to accomplish things without seeking grace, by his own merit.

   We all should be thankful to the RTI maker and its revelation which have shown to the world the fault may perhaps not be in the quality of learner, but in the quality of examiner, not in the answer script, but in the evaluation.