Break chains of inequality, historical injustice

Neera Chandhoke

Political Scientist

ON September 22, the Supreme Court questioned the wisdom of the government in allotting a quota to the economically weaker sections. The measure has been justified on the ground that it caters to the poorest of the poor. Why should, asked the court, the claims of doubly disadvantaged communities, which have suffered historical injustice and continue to do so, be ignored?

Members of the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes have been excluded vide the 103rd Constitutional Amendment from the 10 per cent quota carved out of the 50 per cent allotted to the general category. Forty per cent of the ST population is the poorest of the poor, but its overall reservation is just 7.5 per cent. “Is it a good idea for an egalitarian Constitution,” asked Justice S Ravindra Bhat, “to say to the poorest of the poor that they have exhausted their quota, and that additional reservations would be given to other classes?” The Bench suggested that the idea of economic backwardness was nebulous; it might be a temporary phenomenon.

The Supreme Court Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India has made an interesting argument that can be expanded to lead to equality. For, the norm of equality has disappeared from our political discourse, although the extent of inequality is truly staggering.

According to the World Inequality Report-2022, authored by Lucas Chancel and coordinated by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the top 10 per cent and the top

1 per cent of the population hold 57 per cent and 22 per cent of the total national income, respectively, while the bottom 50 per cent possesses just 13 per cent of the income.

Statistics on who owns what indicate the magnitude of inequality. Statistics are important, but they might well skim the surface of two sorts of structural problems in our society — inattention to redistributive justice and reparation for historical wrongs. Economic backwardness signifies the former and double disadvantage characterises the latter. Let’s not mix up these two categories. Both involve redistributive justice, but the justification for each form and the reasons for different strategies are specific.

Take the statistics on income inequality that indicate the extent of wealth and poverty in our society. Poverty and wealth are not parallel processes; they are relational. A woman is poor when she does not possess access to resources that enable her to avail healthcare, education, skills, employment, housing and other basic amenities that make for a life of dignity. That is, she is not just poor; she is also unequal to others. The poor are demeaned because they are subjected to impertinence through the practices of everyday life. Inequality intensifies marginalisation and political insignificance and diminishes people. To be poor is to be denied the opportunity to participate in social, economic and cultural transactions from a plane of equality. Equality allows us to stand with others because we too count. Inequality intensifies inadequacy or the conviction that we simply do not matter.

A just society tackles inequalities in different ways. The first way is distributive justice. Resources have to be transferred from the well-off to the worse off through deliberate political intervention, such as progressive taxation, land reforms, ceiling on property and employment opportunities. All that egalitarians ask for is that all human beings should be given an equal chance to access opportunities available to some and the recognition that social, political and economic institutions systematically disadvantage many persons.

Within redistributive justice, special provision has to be made for those who have suffered historical injustice. Dalits and Scheduled Tribes are doubly disadvantaged. They are socially discriminated on the basis of birth and also denied opportunities. Affirmative action policies are designed to guarantee the physical presence of Dalits in state-run educational institutions, public employment and elected bodies. This is necessary because caste-based discrimination continues to relentlessly stalk the political landscape of independent India. Till today, what caste we belong to continues to profile our social relations, codify inequalities and govern access to opportunities and privileges. Society has wreaked harm on a section of our people for morally arbitrary reasons. Since double disadvantage continues to track lives, we have to repair the harm. This is the least we owe to fellow citizens who continue to labour under historical injustice.

The mix-up between economic ill-being and historical injustice illustrates the complexity of redistributive justice. Reservations are not a job-guarantee scheme. They are meant for the doubly disadvantaged.

Finally, is that all we owe the victims of poverty? Should we not be working towards the creation of a political consensus that poverty fundamentally violates the basic presumption of equality? Should we not, as partners in this shared project, concentrate on thinking through what a just society based on equality should look like?

The job of the egalitarian is not to design reservations for every disadvantage. The task is to break the chains of inequality of access to resources and historical injustice and to move towards a shared vision of the egalitarian democracy where people can live fulfilling lives, instead of remaining mired in notions of minimal reparation or remedies. We have to strengthen the desirability of foregrounding the value of equality of essaying obligations to people whose rights have been seriously hampered and persuading other citizens to participate in debates on what constitutes a just society. 

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