It also recognised the need for affirmative action to wipe out
social and caste discrimination and to ensure equal opportunity for education,
employment and earning a livelihood. This is a bold initiative which needs to be
welcomed.
The proposed action package includes measures for education and
skill and entrepreneurship development among SC/ST youth. This is to be achieved
through scholarships, company-run schools, partnership with government schools,
vocational training – in-house as well as in partnership with ITIs – and vender
development programmes.
This sort of affirmative action assumes that the SC/ST youth
needs to be made more productive so that their employability and entrepreneurial
capacities are enhanced to enable them to make use of economic opportunities.
The education/skill/entrepreneurship-based affirmative action package in a way
includes a few if not all of the basic measures for mitigating the consequences
of historical denial of right to property, education and business to
untouchables.
It does not, however, include measures to provide safeguards
against economic exclusion and discrimination in the present and hence an equal
share and participation in employment, education, business and other spheres.
The reservation/affirmative action policies in India and elsewhere have been
designed not only to build human and resources capabilities of discriminated
groups but also as proactive measures to give a share to them.
Why does the private sector take such an approach? The reasons
are to be found in its understanding of the SC/ST problem. The private sector
does recognise the impact of historical denial. However, it seems not to
recognise the problem of continuing discrimination of SCs/STs in various
markets. It apparently believes that markets operate in a non-discriminatory
manner. It is this understanding which makes them suggest measures to compensate
for historical denial of rights while ignoring measures to ensure equal access
and participation as a safeguard against continuing caste-based discrimination.
The measures suggested by the private sector do not include
definite ones against the present exclusion and discrimination suffered by SCs/STs
in various markets including those for labour and capital. The problem of
untouchables requires dual solution – one, remedies for historical denial of
ownership of capital assets, employment and education and two, remedies to
provide safeguards against continuing market discrimination. Like other backward
sections from higher castes, untouchables need education/skill/entrepreneurship
development to improve employability and access to capital for business.
But unlike others, untouchables facing widespread discrimination
need additional safeguards to ensure fair access to private sector employment,
capital, and services required for business, education and housing in the form
of reservation.
Education, skill and entrepreneurship development alone will not
help, unless it is supported by strategies of fair access and participation in
employment and various other markets. And therefore, what is required is a
definite policy to ensure an adequate share in private sector employment,
capital (agricultural land and non-land assets) and education.
It is precisely because of the prevalence of discrimination and
exclusion that in India and other countries, the strategies of
economic/educational development for discriminated groups are supplemented by
reservation/affirmative action policies to give them fair share and
representation not only in jobs and education but also in capital, agricultural
land, housing as well as in the political sphere.
What is problematic about the affirmative action package
suggested by the private sector is its failure to recognise the adverse
consequences of market failure associated with caste and untouchability-based
market discrimination on the competitive working of markets and thereby on the
performance of the economy. In the economic theory of discrimination, the market
intervention policy in the form of reservation/affirmative action is justified
not only to provide equal access to discriminated groups but also to overcome
the market failures caused by discrimination to improve working of the markets
for better economic outcomes.
Given the pervasive character of societal discrimination,
particularly against low-caste untouchables, we require a reservation policy
with multiple measures, namely legal safeguards in the form of an Equal
Opportunity Act measure to ensure appropriate share in proportion to some
criterion such as population. Compensatory measures for historical denial of
rights, to provide safeguards against the existing practices of economic
discrimination, are also called for. There is urgent need to mitigate the
detrimental consequences of denial of economic and educational opportunities in
the past.
The CII, entrusted with the job of preparing a proposal, must
take into account the insights from economic theory and our own and experiences
of other countries and come up with a package that will enhance
education/skill/entrepreneurship. Access to resources and equal share for
discriminated groups in employment, capital, education, input, product and
consumer markets, must be secured. This would require some sort of legal
provision and mentoring mechanism.