The Karnataka legislature has passed a bill proposing that 50% of seats at the National Law School of India University (NLS), Bengaluru, be reserved for students domiciled in Karnataka. If implemented, this will destroy the NLS’s defining national character.
The NLS gave me my first education in diversity. When I joined in 2003, I was assigned to a dormitory with an Odia, a Kannadiga, a Bihari, and two U.P.-ites. I learnt to mimic a Bihari accent, heard endless tales about growing up in small-town U.P., and discovered the Odia word for ‘stupid’, which came in handy more often than you might think. We used to return from vacations to regional diversity of the edible variety — shami kebab s, plum cakes, Dharwad pedha s, and besan laddoo s. I made friends from Allahabad and Jaipur, from Hyderabad and Lucknow, and from Kottayam and Shillong. Classmates from Bengaluru made the city feel like home.
On my first visit to Mumbai, I stayed with a Maharashtrian classmate’s family, and saw the city through the eyes of her parents, witnesses to its many transformations. When I visited Chennai last year, eight years after graduation, my husband and I were graciously invited home by a Tamilian classmate’s parents. We spent a wonderful afternoon talking about Mylapore, Chennai’s heat and its history.
I have a photo from “Ethnic Day”, which was observed at the NLS every year. I’m wearing a Kerala saree. There are a few classmates in mundu s, some in kurta-pyjamas. There’s one in a ghaghra , another sporting a parandi and yet another in traditional Mizo gear. It is one of my many fond memories from the NLS. My time at the NLS remains one of the most significant foundational experiences of my life. My peers and I learnt that although different, we are also the same in so many ways. More than ever, our students need that understanding today.
The NLS was not without flaws. If anything, it needs more diversity, not less. Many of us represented a thin sliver of India — English-speaking, urban, upper class. Even more troublingly, in a class of 80, there was not one Muslim.
The NLS owes its genesis to visionaries from Karnataka who acknowledged the need for a national institution dedicated to excellence in legal education. At least during my time at the NLS, I don’t believe the student body gave enough of its time and energies to the local community. This must be addressed, but not at the expense of what lies at the very core of the institution. As you might expect, my fellow alumni are up in arms on social media. I hope this debate sparks a broader conversation around domicile-based quotas, particularly in the context of institutions defined by their national character.
There are critically important, unresolved questions relating to the new quota. What is clear is that it will irredeemably dilute the student experience at the NLS, to the detriment of precisely those whom it seeks to serve.
Simi George is a lawyer and public policy professional
