Rationale behind Reservation Policy
This article is written for Tnpsc for the topic “Rationale behind Reservation Policy and Access to Social resources“.
This article explains why the reservation is provided to a certain class of people in job and education. Why is not everyone treated equally? Why there is partiality is done by the government?
To get the answer to the above questions one should learn the history and society of India.
Until 20th Century, almost every Philosophical discussion of Justice and equality are just limited to a single society. Also, even Rawls’s theory of Justice mentioned nothing about the distribution of wealth between the societies.
But it in the 1990s, Philosophical discussions was about the distribution of wealth between the developed, developing countries and underdeveloped countries. These philosophers pointed out that there is inequality in the distribution of wealth between the developed countries and others.
Also found out that the poor and developing countries face widespread disease and famines that results in millions of death.
Thomas Pogge, a German Philosopher pointed out that the developed countries are responsible, all the miseries in the developing and poor countries.
Let’s learn about the society of India and why there is a need for reservations? To know about this one should know about the term ‘Social Justice’.
Social Justice
“It is a justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society”.
There is inequality among people in all the societies which have developed due to some negative values or practices of regions and customs.
The inequality includes race, gender, class, color, etc.
Gender Inequality
But the women are portrayed as a weaker one over several thousand. Also, they are suppressed all over the world and this suppression is supported in several religious books.
As a result, women are subjugated and exploited without given opportunities in education and jobs, all over the world. Most importantly the religions all over the world, say Women are inferior to men.
Racial Inequality
The Europeans have developed a superiority complex against the blacks and treated them as mere slaves. They were even treated much worse than animals. The blacks were denied opportunities in jobs and education.
The Europeans considered them as Knowledge-less people.
Caste Inequality
The same racial inequality that is practiced even today in India is the Caste system. This same where people were denied opportunities in the name of Caste. In India, a particular race dominated the entire resources and took absolute control over the lower caste people.
The above-mentioned inequalities are against social justice. The one that preaches and practices equality is called Social Justice
India is a nation where Plural Society and culture exist. Here the dominance of a single community is unfair and it’s against social justice.
These dominant groups trigger racial, caste, lingual, religious, and cultural feelings and create trouble for the rights of other communities. Also, this created never-ending enmity among the groups.
The various struggle taken by the weaker section or groups in order to establish social equality is known as Social Justice.
The Government plays a very important role in establishing Social Justice using several tools and one such tool is called Reservation.
UN Proclamation for Reservation
Salient Features of Race, religion and lingual minorities UN proclamation – December 18, 1992
- All the minorities have the equal right without discrimination and intervention to exercise their freedom in following hereditary values, to cling to religion, to propagate, and to use their language.
- All minorities can make their own organization and has every right to maintain it.
- The Minority has the right to upgrade their knowledge related to their history, conventions, language, and other hereditary values.
- The minorities should be provided with the opportunity to learn about the entire society to which they belong.
- This declaration may not affect the basic freedom which is stipulated in the declaration of the existing rights.
Article 29 (2) may not act as an obstacle in making special policy decisions for socially and educationally backward communities or SC/ST people.
Article 15 (4) of the Indian Constitution
Caste reservation in India
“Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the state.”
Article 16 (4) of Indian Constitution
Concept of equality
People accept equality as an essential phenomenon. But still, inequality and discrimination are serving as distributing factors.
Inequality prevails everywhere like opportunities, comforts, and a working atmosphere. This kind of inequality and discrimination are permanent and unavoidable.
What we are going to do for the people, who do not have opportunities to work for the development of our nation? How far cultural values are responsible for this kind of inequality.
This discrimination happens across the globe, It is for this reason, social equality stood in the primary place in the socio-political principles.
Some common questions arise due to Reservation:
- Equality as a principle indicates what?
- What do you mean by “equal society”.
- How do we assure equality?
- With that assurance, what we are going to achieve?
- Do we try to resolve inequality only in our income?
- What type of equality has to be established?
- To whom do we have to provide equality?
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