June  2005 
Year 11    No.108

Dalit Drishti


Affirmative action needs refocus

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) must come up with an affirmative action package
for the private sector that addresses present-day caste inequities as much as historical discrimination

BY SUKHDEO THORAT

On May 25 a group of like-minded industrial houses issued a statement spelling out an affirmative action
policy for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes. For the first time, the private sector recognised the historical denial of equal opportunities to SCs/STs for social, cultural and economic reasons.

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.

(This article was first published in The Economic Times. Sukhdeo Thorat is director, Indian Institute of Dalit Studies)

 


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