RIGHT TO EQUALITY IN INDIA VIS-À-VIS RESERVATION IN FAVOUR OF BACKWARD CLASSES

ABSTRACT A common debates in Indian is to equate affirmative action with the reservation of seats in academic institutions and the reservations of posts in public employment. This popular misunderstanding was entrenched in the 1990s with the intense media focus on the Mandal Commission’s Recommendations. Marc Galanter’s socio-legal study of affirmative action programmes in India – titled ‘Competing Equalities’ 3 – provides us with a broad typology of the nature of programmes being pursued to advance the interests of the lower and weaker castes. These programmes range, besides the current reservations model, from the preferential allotment of petrol bunks and other state assistance to scholarships and the construction of hostels for lower-caste students. Debates on affirmative action often ignore the reservation of seats in different levels of government for women and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, which are arguably the most important programme currently in operation