Home > 2009 Issues > December 27, 2009
A study of inclusiveness in Indian polity
By Jayant Patel
Politics of Inclusion: Castes, Minorities and Affirmative Action, Zoya
Hasan, Oxford University Press, Pp 302, Rs 675.00 (HB)
India is one of the few countries in the post-colonial world to have
taken up the challenge of building an inclusive democracy in a highly
diverse, multicultural, multilingual and multi-religious society. The
establishment of democracy and universal adult suffrage in a
hierarchical society characterised by unprecedented social inequality,
deprivation and oppression has been a revolutionary principle, a bold
experiment in political affairs – perhaps the most significant in a
country. Nearly 60 years after Independence, India remains a major
success story in respect of democracy and social inclusion,
essentially due to the importance given to equality and social justice
as the cardinal principles of contemporary political life.
The author says that the government has taken measures like
reservations in government jobs for the OBCs in order to handle the
caste question. But she laments that over the last decade or so,
questions of inter-group equality and minority participation in the
economy and polity within the framework of governance and development
have not been adequately attended to. So she chooses to focus on
comparison of the disparate experiences of lower castes and religious
minorities and how these have shaped the politics of inclusion.
The first chapter of the book also examines the prevailing definition
of social backwardness and the criteria of affirmative action in the
context of evidence of disparity and deprivation of groups beyond
castes. It explores both the historical and contemporary contexts of
the strategies of inclusion. It says that an analysis of the situation
in terms of progress of minorities can be useful in assessing the
effectiveness of existing strategies and policies.
The book explores how the State in post-colonial India addressed the
question of discrimination and exclusion suffered by disadvantaged
groups, notably the Scheduled Castes and religious minorities. In
particular it explains the policy of framework in relation to these
groups and the divergences in policy and consequences of this for the
protection of the disadvantaged. It attempts to delineate the policies
as well as changes in the constellation of policies for these two
groups while arguing that the "well-being of minorities has suffered
due to a greater lack of attention to issues of institutionalised
inequality and deprivation than is commonly supposed."
It goes on to examine the extension of reservation to the OBCs and the
rationale of reservation in relation to the debate over the
desirability and flexibility of reservation to them. The book outlines
the political context of the mergence of the backward-caste
reservation issue in the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in the
implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations on OBC
reservations from 1994 onwards. Another segment devoted to the field
of higher education in the context of the economic reforms and the
growing importance of technical and professional education in the new
economy.
The book concludes asking for a re-examination of the framework of
affirmative action in the context of the demands for substantive
equality of minorities. What the author wants is that since rapid
economic and social changes in the past 15 years along with failure of
economic growth to trickle down has led to increased inequalities, a
revision of the whole system with the Indian State addressing the
issues of under-representation and socio-economic disadvantage of
minorities.
On reading this book one gets the impression that the author is
essentially concerned with offer of greater political and
socio-economic powers to the Muslims, under the pretext of fighting
for the cause of other minorities.
(Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New
Delhi-110 001.)
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