Feb 8, 2020. Updated: Apr 27, 2024.

Part of "Bhārata, that is India" series

Equality in Bhārata

The basic tenable idea of equality is that no individual must have any privilege over others, and each must be equal before law in terms of access to resources and opportunity. Although the Bhāratīya system gives equal opportunity to all, it also gives certain privileges to some citizens on the grounds of religion, jaati and gender. Such inequalities are a result of:

• vote bank or appeasement policies
• lack of common sense, and
• jobs half done.

Appeasement Policies

Politicians perform several stunts to attain the required level of appeal to win votes. Some stunts, such as wearing certain attires can be ignored, for we know why they do it and their financial cost is negligible.

Others stunts, such as using state policies themselves to appease certain sections of the society, are too hard to ignore, for they carry a sense of inequality since a section is favoured, and a sense of economic unfairness since the rest pay for the appeasement.

As an example, take the speech of our former prime minister Shri. Manmohan Singh, where he said that scheduled castes, tribes and minorities, particularly the Muslims, must have the first claim on the resources of the nation in the name of equity.

The component plans for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will need to be revitalized. We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources.

Manmohan Singh

Clarifications were given by his government and his party that the gist of this statement is about the upliftment of the underprivileged (which is true) and does not contain Muslim appeasement (which is false). Since the phrase used is "Muslim minority", it can be said that he is referring to the entire Muslim community as a religious minority, and not minorities within the Muslim community. Had it been the latter, the phrase should have been "Muslim minorities" (plural form).

Given this case, despite the fact that the Muslim community consists of privileged individuals too, and despite the fact that there are underprivileged individuals in other religious communities as well, Shri. Manmohan Singh didn't feel the need to particularly¹ take any jaati's name or tribe's name, or any other religious minority's name, but only the Muslim community's name.

Or, there must be statistical proof that the underprivileged is proportionally more among the Muslims, which they haven't produced. Even if they did, there are no grounds to determine under privilege through the lens of religious community (as discussed in the next section).

Now, for the sake of argument, if Shri. Manmmohan Singh meant by that phrase the minority groups within the Muslim community, and that the singular version "minority" was merely a mistake, then too, the question arises as to why particularly name the Muslim minorities and not Hindu minorities or the Christian minorities.

Considering these reasons, and also considering the history of Muslim appeasement policies and political gimmicks in his party and party members, one can only summarised that the mention of "particularly the Muslim minority" in his statement is nothing short of Muslim appeasement.

Lack of Common Sense

In Manmohan Singh's speech mentioned earlier and even in existing policies of the state, the state of being underprivileged is determined by the community of the individual. Whereas, the entire scheduled castes, tribes, minorities and even Muslims are not underprivileged; only a part of them are, much like a part of non scheduled jaatis, tribes and other religious communities including Hindus is underprivileged.

The state of being underprivileged must be established by one's economic well-being, particularly his access to resources, and not by his community. Wealth, skills, talent and intelligence does not discriminate on these basis. We have the rich and the poor, smart and the dumb, intelligent and the fool, skilled and the unskilled, and the talented and the ordinary in every religion, jaati and gender. Being a minority does not imply backwardness as can be seen in the case of Parsis, who, commanding only about 69,000 as on 2014, are one of the richest communities in Bhārata.

A bigger problem with that statement is the underprivileged having the first claim on resources. Being underprivileged or being eligible for equity does not translate to having the first claim on resources. Such a thought is a result of unsound economic theories. A nation's resources belong to every citizen in the country equally, irrespective of their economical state, caste and religion. Equity is not reserving a resource, opportunity or an outcome for a person in the name of caste, religion or economic status. Equity is the elimination of the hurdles in accessing a resource or opportunity, and using it to compete equally with others. So, if any citizen has trouble in accessing the resources, instead of giving priority for his claim, the hurdles to access the resource must be eliminated. And perhaps, even educate him or her to use the accessed resource judiciously.

Some politicians and activists believe that equality is when the outcome of the system is in proportion to the population share of the subjects they are judging. If a particular caste constitute 30% of the population, and if they only constitute 20% in a particular industry, it seems that the said caste is not enjoying equality and equity. Thus, failing to consider that the disproportion can be a result of free choice, gender characteristics, or some other reasons but inequality, they come with reservations in the socio-political system for that particular group.

The most disastrous side effect of reservations is that it sidelines competence as people are chosen on the basis of their identity. Even if they happen to be competent, they may not be the most competent for the job since the appointment wasn't made through competition with others.

Now, reservations will certainly work for its beneficiaries. But does it actually uplift the community itself — the very reason why reservations were given? If it does, why are their promises for more reservations in the system in the name of inequality and upliftment. If they actually work, should the upliftment come at the expense of some other community's upliftment, since the most eligible person for the post was from another community? The fair answer is no.

Some justify reservations as a mean to represent certain groups. Representation is a mathematical impossibility considering the thousands of ethnicities in Bhārata or the religious population percentage. Even if it is possible, representation is a manifestation of equality of outcome — an idiotic thought that if x is not represented, x does not enjoy equality.

Other justify reservations by saying that bigotry exists in the system exercised by the bigoted people in authority against certain communities or gender. If it is so, don't hire such people in the first place — there are many psychological tests that can evaluate such qualities. Use these tests to evaluate the existing workforce and fire the bigots. Besides, the improve system processes to be less or not at all reliant on such biases of individuals and be more transparent.

A Job Half Done

Sometimes, law makers settle for an incomplete fix to save work. Consider the laws that prohibit land ownership in certain ethnic jurisdictions by outsiders for the preservation of the ethnic demography of that land. But then, such preservation should apply to all ethnic lands and therefore, such laws must be scoped to the entire country. If not, such laws creates a sense of injustice that will at some point manifest in undesirable ways, as seen in the case of 2023 Manipur conflict.

While the Meiti - Kukki conflict have been going on for centuries, the crux of the 2023 conflict was unfair land law where the Kukkis could buy and own land traditionally belonging to the Meitis, while the Meitis could not buy and own land traditionally belonging to the Kukkis.

Such laws are what can be called as a job half done. When the need to protect a particular ethnic demographic was brought to the attention of law makers, the necessary laws were drafted only for that community even when the rationale of such laws apply country wide.

Conclusion

It might seem easy to fix the misplaced sense of equality: just change the policies. It, however, isn't that easy. The Bhāratīya constitution, shockingly, is the first hurdle to ensuring true equality in the nation. This is because, although our constitution professes equality of opportunity, it is also professes equality of outcome.

Take for instance, minority rights, which makes sense on issues that are related to the very nature of that community — such as an exception given to a very small ethnic group to have more children in the interest of ethnic continuity when the state has a one or two child policy. But in issues that are not specific to the community and applicable to all, such as education, there is no ground to give special rights to minorities. For instance, the constitutions states that,

Article 29(1): Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.

Article 30(1): All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.

I understand that the former article is the how factor of former article. But, whatever is the reason for a minority to establish and run an educational institution, when a Bhāratīya citizen has the right to do that, what is the rationale in giving the same right specifically to a person from a religious minority?

If the argument is that the right helps them to preserve their "distinct language, script or culture of its own", well, a religious community has no "distinct language, script or culture of its own". This is because religion is more of a spiritual path than a cultural path — it tells how to speak, but not what language to speak; it tell how to dress, but not what garment exactly to wear. If a religious minority is found to maintain a distinct language, script or culture, it is only because they are either culturally lost or is also a distinct ethnic culture. In the former case, they must be subject to re-education, and in the later case, the minority right and any financial assistances must be issued in the name of that ethnic minority, not the religious minority.

***

Bhāratīya citizens must realise that discrimination cannot be eradicated if the system embraces it. Take the example of jaatis, which are nothing but mere classifications of people without any ethnic substance. Jaatis lack rationale so much so that I can start a new jaati today, and my progeny can create sub jaatis a decade later².

The constitution and law, with good intentions, have legitimised jaatis, giving it legal existence and institutionalising it. Add to this the jaati politics employed by various political fronts and religious groups for their vested interests. Given these, jaatis cannot be eradicated from Bhāratīya society. Even as we move towards a social system where jaatis have less significance, its institutionalisation makes the new generation experience and live the jaati system, although in a different form.

In the long term, because of the unfairness involved in judging the underprivileged purely based on their religion and jaati, such privileges create a sense of uneasiness among the rest of the participants towards the beneficiaries and their communities. What we aimed to eradicate evolves to another form due to our eradication plan.

The fact is, not everyone in the beneficiary communities have asked for privileges, or avails them. Most of them say that they don't want special treatment. But such statements render irrelevant because the system does not honour them and these statements does not ease the sense of uneasiness others feel towards the beneficiaries.

Not giving giving reservations and privileges to the underprivileged must not be confused to not uplifting them. This can be achieved through equity to accessing resources, not equity to the allocation of resources, opportunity or outcome, for if it is so, there will be no difference between equity and equality of outcome then.

To clarify this with an example, instead of reserving jobs to a particular community, use public resources to ensure that people from that community have access to the education system, get educated and then compete with others no levelled ground for the job.