Protective discrimination helps to protect from social discrimination
Answers
Answer:Our society has always been full of inequalities. It was a caste ridden, stratified hierarchical society, and a particular segment of the society had been denied the bare human rights. Their education, wages, living conditions, social status was dictated by the whims of upper strata of society, reducing them to destitution. The economic backwardness brought social awkwardness which consequently made them downtrodden and thus depriving them even of the dignity of life. In a society compartmentalised on caste basis, upper castes controlled the levers of power enabling them to run their whips, prejudicial to the interests of lower segments of the society. Lower castes had to serve the upper castes without having any say and grievance redressal mechanism. This inhumane and barbaric condition perpetuated for centuries, till "we the people" realised the malady impelling the framers of our constitution to think.
Any democratic society faces the challenge of harmonising two essentially contradictory political concepts--one, equality before the law irrespective of religion, caste, creed, race, and gender, and the other, social justice at the cost of the same commitment for equality before the law. Even a developed democracy like the United States is no exception to the rule and has taken recourse to affirmative action to ensure justice for the less privileged sections of the society at the cost of individual merit and equality of all citizens before the law. In India large numbers of people have experienced social discrimination through centuries on account of its peculiar institution called the caste system, efforts have been made to provide redress for these under-privileged sections, through the policy of reservations or quotas for them in jobs, seats in educational institutions and legislatures, and in governmental aid, loans and other developmental assistance.
In all, four under-privileged categories have either received benefits under the scheme or have been seeking such benefits, namely the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), the religious minorities or sections thereof, and lately, the women. This project discusses these categories from a political perspective. Its scope however, is limited to assessing the schemes both under operation as well as under consideration, only at the national level. The experiences of different states have been referred to only occasionally to provide an example or to make a particular point.
Meaning and Background
Protective discrimination is the policy of granting special privileges to the downtrodden and the underprivileged sections of society, most commonly women. These are affirmative action programs, most visible in both the United States and India, where there has been a history of racial and caste discrimination. The practice is most prominent in India, where it has been enshrined in the constitution and institutionalized.
The need to discriminate positively in favour of the socially underprivileged was felt for the first time during the nationalist movement. It was Mahatma Gandhi, himself a devout Hindu and a staunch believer in the caste system, who was the first leader to realise the importance of the subject and to invoke the conscience of the upper castes to this age-old social malady of relegating whole communities to the degrading position of “untouchables”. He also understood the political logic of inducting this large body of people into the political mainstream in order to make the freedom movement more broad based. By renaming these untouchables as “Harijans” (people of God) he tried to give this policy a religious sanction so as not to disturb the traditional sensitivities of the caste Hindus more than was really necessary.
The Constitution of independent India which largely followed the pattern of the Government of India Act, 1935, made provisions for positive discrimination in favour of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs & STs) which constituted about 23% of the divided India’s population. Besides reserving parliamentary seats for them they were given advantages in terms of admission to schools and colleges, jobs in the public sector, various pecuniary benefits for their overall development, and so on. The constitution indeed guaranteed the fundamental right of equality of all citizens before the law but it also categorically laid down that nothing in the constitution “shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Schedules Castes and the Scheduled Tribes”.
Explanation:
Protective Discrimination: In the contemporary debates about equality, we do not talk of legal equality only in the sense of equality of opportunity but also ‘equality of conditions’ and ‘equality of outcome or results.
Since the son of a millionaire and the son of a laborer do not get equal opportunities, justice as fairness demands that the social environment must be changed if equal start for every one is to be provided. This can be achieved only through collective action. Also the ‘equality before law’ and ‘equal protection of law’ demand that everyone, should not be treated alike.