Abstract
One of the strangest things I have heard in India is this: ‘caste-based reservation is a socially just policy’. One might ask, ‘What is strange about it?’ In one sense, the answer is obvious. Some in the Indian judiciary, most academic intellectuals and all the Ambedkarites in India attempt to defend caste-based reservation in moral terms. Recently, when the Patels in Gujarat rose up massively, many in India challenged the legitimacy of the demands of the Patel community by saying that they did not morally deserve what they were demanding.
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Notes
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As an example see, Ashwini Deshpande (2006). This stand is reproduced in practically every international report.
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Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD) December 9, 1946 to January 24, 1950, are available online at http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/debates.htm. References to the debate are cited in-text with the date of the Constitutent Assembly proceedings. (All references to the debates, unless otherwise indicated, have been sourced from this website.)
- 5.
For some useful reflections on modes of interpreting constitutional articles, see entry, ‘Principles of Constitutional Construction’ (Constitution Society, www.constitution.org/cons/prin_cons.htm). For a discussion about the various aspects of using ‘legislative intent’, see Nourse (2014) and Powell (1984), an idea that appears to be followed when reckoning with the Indian Constitution.
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He remarks, for instance, thus: ‘If economic justice is to be secured, it can only be, if the means of production come to be owned by the State as such’ (CAD, January 20, 1947).
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The Encyclical Letter ‘Rerum Novarum’ was issued on May 15, 1891 (http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html).
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Balagangadhara, S.N. (2017). Caste-Based Reservation and Social Justice in India. In: Fárek, M., Jalki, D., Pathan, S., Shah, P. (eds) Western Foundations of the Caste System. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38761-1_2
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