POLITICS AND ETHICS OF RESERVATION IN INDIA
Keywords:
ethics, context, liberation, politics, reservation, dalitsAbstract
This paper is an attempt to give ethical reflections on the ‘politics and ethics of reservation in India’ viewed through the prism of liberation paradigm. The ‘liberation perspective’ is the perspective of ‘various subaltern groups of India’ who are the victims of caste based social order of our society. Their victimization on the basis of caste has been perpetuated by religion on the one hand, and implemented by various political powers at different stages of our history, on the other hand. The ‘reservation’ or reservation policies, meant for the benefit of the subalterns, has developed in the past under the same ‘social order’, and carried on today by those people or groups who wield political power. It is important therefore to understand religio-political equation behind this ‘social order’ that ultimately influences the reservation policies. This equation has been understood from the perspective of the ‘subalterns,’ particularly of Dalits. The special focus is laid on both the politic and ethics of ‘reservation’ with a reference to the 1950 Presidential Order and the Backward Classes Commissions
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