Indian Express
April 14, 2007
So many inequalities
by Niraja Gopal Jayal
A few years ago, there was some contention in Indian society over whether or not minorities deserve special treatment. Now — courtesy a rather ill-considered view enunciated by one high court judge — we have a debate on who is and who is not a minority.
Technically, minorities are specified by numbers and percentages, but it is clear that numbers per se merely quantify and describe the proportion of a group in a population. They do not tell us anything about whether a particular minority group is powerful or powerless, advantaged or disadvantaged. The white minority in apartheid South Africa was clearly not subject to any such disabilities. It is only when disadvantage, discrimination or powerlessness are attached to the identity markers — race, religion, language, caste or gender — that we think in terms of the minority being deserving of special consideration. Such consideration becomes especially important in a democracy, because even the expression of minority preferences through democratic channels can be perpetually trumped by a dominant majority.
Even as they made special provision for social groups disadvantaged in different ways, the founding fathers of the Indian Constitution used the term minority essentially for religious and linguistic groups. This did not mean that they were insensitive to the condition of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes who are also, numerically, minorities. The Constitution sought to redress disadvantage, regardless of numbers, but mindful of where such disadvantage was associated with particular group identities.
The constitutional provisions made for different groups differed according to the prevailing understanding of the nature of disadvantage historically suffered by the groups. Linguistic diversity was accommodated by a federation based on linguistic states. That religious minorities were given chiefly cultural and educational rights is explicable in terms of the immediate context of the Partition, and the defining of India as a secular state. On the other hand, the provisions made for the SCs and STs (such as reservations) were attempts at equalising opportunity and redistributing social resources among groups that had historically been denied these.
The strategies followed for these two sets of groups were thus quite distinct: “recognition” (for their distinctive cultural identities or personal laws or languages and scripts) for religious and linguistic minorities, and “redistribution” for Dalit and Adivasi groups. These strategies were based upon an understanding of the principal form of disadvantage attaching to these groups. This is not to say that other forms of disadvantage — for instance, untouchability — were not recognised. Rather, it was believed that by outlawing such practices as unconstitutional, and providing these groups with educational and economic opportunities, social prejudices of this kind would dissolve over time.
The state of our knowledge about the various groups in Indian society may be far from perfect even today, but it is more wide-ranging than it was sixty years earlier. We know today that both forms of disadvantage — cultural and symbolic, as well as material and economic — may be associated with belonging to Dalit and Adivasi groups, as also to the Muslim community (Parsis, Sikhs and Christians are minorities that are not, on the whole, materially disadvantaged). There is frequently an overlap between cultural and material inequalities; between inherited symbolic or cultural disadvantages of caste or religious identity and of economic disadvantage. Low caste social status is often — though not invariably — accompanied by economic deprivation.
The overlap between cultural and material disadvantage has been decisively demonstrated by official data. The data on human development indicators and poverty amongst various social groups show that levels of deprivation are highest for the SCs, followed by the STs, followed by the Muslims. Not surprisingly, on most human development indicators, the SCs are at the bottom, the STs just above them, and the Muslims just slightly better off than the other two. The Sachar Committee Report has only buttressed this with more details on the Muslim community. On the whole, it is clear that the economic impoverishment of these groups tends to mirror their social marginalisation. Of course, it is obviously not the case that all members of these groups are poor, or that there is no poverty among other groups, but only that there is a high degree of overlap between being poor and belonging to these groups.
From a policy perspective, it is crucial that the attributes of disadvantaged groups are clearly and objectively determined. The interlocking of inequalities — cultural, social and economic — is evident. As such, there is a need for policies that do not put the challenges of recognition and of redistribution into separate boxes, but clearly address the areas of their overlap. A balance must be struck between the claims of sheer identity and those of palpable material deprivation.
The writer is professor, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU and senior fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library
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