Equality, reservation and discrimination in India

In India today the policy of reservation as a means to offset inherited inqualities is seen with increasing suspicion and is frequently debated in public discussions, academic writings, editorials and the mass media. The competing arguments are presented both by pro-reserva tionists and anti-reservationists regarding the benefits and costs generated by the 'quota system.

The book raises a series of highly interesting detail problems such as the controversial issue of the meaning of 'equality' and its compati bility with the idea of compensatory discrimi nation; history of reservations: politics of backwardness; working of various backward classes commissions, the modus operands of the State governments; tests and methods for selecting beneficiary groups, percentage of reservations; adequacy of representation; com partmental reservations and the relevance of the American experience on the Indian scene etc.

The comprehensive methodological approach encompassing jurisprudential, comparative, historical and anthropological considerations raises this study considerably above legal routine exercise. The author's treatment of American cases and literature evinces an immense amount of study and application.

This book is meant as a contribution to the knowledge of the policy makers, legal scholars, sociologists, politicians, and the laymen alike. as to how should the policy of compensatory discrimination be designed so as to minimize hostilities and backlash both among the beneficiary groups and the excluded ones.