protective discrimination
PROTECTIVE DISCRIMINATION
INRTODUCTION----
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
INRTODUCTION----
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