Transgressing Caste Indignities through Reservation in Education: Debunking Myths on Systemic Equity and Fairness in India
| Author | Devarshi Mukhopadhyay |
| Published date | 01 January 2015 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2322005814552758 |
| Subject Matter | Essays |
Military-Madrasa-Mullah Complex 67
India Quarterly, 66, 2 (2010): 133–149
A Global Threat 67
Essay
Transgressing Caste Indignities
through Reservation in Education:
Debunking Myths on Systemic
Equity and Fairness in India
Devarshi Mukhopadhyay1
Abstract
The sociological and political issues of caste and the rule of law in the annihilation of its victims continue
to be the reasons behind a surge of scholarly literature that has existed within the domains of public
discourse.
The researcher seeks to explore Amartya Sen’s conversion handicap thesis in the context of
reservation strictly in higher education, followed by a brief relevance of Nussbaum’s human rights
perspective in light of India’s international obligations as signatory and ratifier of the International
Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) as well as the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), in 1979. This section makes way for an empirical
enquiry into the failure of the governance initiatives towards capability building, by governance initiatives
failing to provide for the gradual introduction of these communities into the social mainstream. The
second section shall examine how the design and the model of implementation of the present reser-
vation system fail to provide for adequate social justice. The third and final section shall sum up the
major fronts where the government initiatives at ensuring substantive equality have failed, with a con-
clusion speaking about possible alternatives. The very purpose of this article is to debunk certain myths
about the equity and as the degrees of equality that exist within the current reservation regime and the
average disadvantage that a scheduled member faces today.
Introduction: Deconstructing the Current Policy Regime in India
Issues surrounding caste intricacies and related policy initiatives have been the central theme of
long-standing argumentative discourse in India, with several lines of argument being propounded in
favour of increasing the percentage of seats reserved in public educational institutions in this country,
in order to compensate, to whatever degree possible, for the atrocious human rights violations against
an average member of the scheduled community, even today.2 While the Justice Punnaiah Commission
1 LL.B student at NALSAR, India.
2 Ranjit Sau, Reservations and Minorities, 35(4) Econ Polit WEEkly 4158–288 (2000).
Asian Journal of Legal Education
2(1) 67–77
© 2015 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2322005814552758
http://ale.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
Devarshi Mukhopadhyay is LL.B student at NALSAR, India.
E-mail: mukherjee.devarshi@gmail.com
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