Meritocracy is myth

Merit is simply a good quality or feature that deserves to be praised. Merit and justice play a crucial role in ethical theory and political philosophy. Some view justice as allocation according to merit. Others view justice as based on criteria of its own, and take merit and justice as two independent values. Merit and justice are strongly linked in the human perception of social order. Spoils system, also called patronage system, is a practice in which the political party winning an election rewards its campaign workers and other active supporters by appointment to government posts and by other favors. A change in party control of government necessarily brings new officials to high positions carrying political responsibility, but the spoils system extends personnel turnover down to routine or subordinate governmental positions. Although spoils system is an American political term, it is common in many other countries as well.

• The merit of all things lies in their difficulty. Everyone agrees that justice must be in accordance with some kind of merit.
• Meritocracy has been presented as a means of breaking down established hierarchies of privilege.
• Merit systems is an uniform and impersonal employment and advancement policy based on evaluation of abilities and achievements, instead of on favoritism or politics.
• It is not hard to see why people find the idea of meritocracy appealing. It carries with it the idea of moving beyond where you start in life, of creative flourishing and fairness. But all the evidence shows it is a smokescreen for inequality. 
• The fact is, meritocracy is a myth. Social systems that reward through wealth, and which increase inequality, don’t aid social mobility, and people pass on their privilege to their children.
• Meritocracy contradicts the principle of equality, no less than any other oligarchy. Meritocracy is the great delusion that ingrains inequality.
• Our leaders sell meritocracy as a utopian system of fairness, but merit has been manipulated to privilege the wealthy. Merit is a malleable and easily manipulated term. 
• Meritocracy was a term of abuse, describing a ludicrously unequal state that surely no one would want to live in. Why would you want to give more prizes to the already prodigiously gifted? Instead we should think about how to give those doing difficult or unattractive jobs more leisure time, and share out wealth more equitably so that we all have a better quality of life and a happier society. 

It is better to be an eminent person than to be a prominent person.

Unequal growth is a threat to democracy. Meritocracy that promotes unequal growth and is also in conflict with the 'Preamble to the Constitution of India' which confers and guarantees equality of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all. The sooner we disband this myth called 'meritocracy' and replace with widely acceptable, efficient and equitable criterion for distribution of scarce resources and facilities, it is better.