In Search of Inclusive Policy : Addressing Graded Inequality
Contents: Foreword. Preface. Introduction: graded inequality and inclusive policy: an overview/Sukhadeo Thorat and Narender Kumar. I. Discrimination, deprivation and inclusive policy: 1. Paying the social debt/Sukhadeo Thorat. 2. Caste, inequality and affirmative action/Andre Beteille. 3. Caste indignities and subjected personhoods/A.R. Vasavi. 4. The eternal debate/Ashwini Deshpande. 5. Reservation and social justice/Ambrose Pinto. 6. Positive discrimination: a political analysis/Partha S. Ghosh. II. Size of OBCs: 7. On backwardness and fair access to higher education/K. Sundaram. 8. Identifying other backward classes/A. Ramaiah. 9. Underrepresentation in colleges: what do the data tell us?/Rana Hasan and Aashish Mehta. 10. Assumptions and arithmetic of caste-based reservations/Rohini Somanathan. III. Alternative equal opportunity policies: 11. Redesigning affirmative action/Satish Deshpande and Yogendra Yadav. 12. Three myths about reservations/Neera Chandhoke. 13. Affirmative action: experiments in the former Soviet Union, Japan and America/Dipak Basu. 14. Indian toiler should reject the framework of reservation/Kranti Kumara and Keith Jones. IV. Why reservation for OBCs?: 15. Case for caste-based quotas in higher education/Jayati Ghosh. 16. Reservation without reservation/T. Pradeep. 17. Equality with social justice/R. Arun Kumar. 18. Merit of reservation/Kancha Ilaiah. 19. Why reservation for OBCs is a must?/V.B. Rawat. V. State and equal opportunity policies: 20. Moments in the history of reservation/Bhagwan Das. 21. Equality in higher education: the impact of affirmative action policies/S. Srinivas Rao. 22. Reservation and casteism/C.P. Bhambhri. VI. Debating merit: 23. Exclusive inequalities: merit, caste and discrimination in higher education/Satish Deshpande. 24. Merit is my mother tongue/Kancha Ilaiah. 25. The question of merit/Sandeep Pandey. 26. The sociology of merit/Amman Madan. 27. Democracy, disagreement and merit/Pratap Bhanu Mehta. VII. Better-off, worse-off and creamy layer: 28. Examining the creamy layer principle/S. Subramanian. 29. Creamy layer principle: a comment/K. Sundaram. 30. Demystifying the anti-creamy layer/K. Ravi Srinivas. 31. A reply to Sundaram and Ravi Srinivas/S. Subramanian. Index.
"Addressing the problem of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) through the policy of reservation of seats in the higher educational institutions by the government and subsequently passing of an act by the parliament has renewed the debate on reservation and related issues. This volume brings together selected and exceptionally insightful papers appeared in the journals, newspapers etc., dealing with every conceivable dimension of the reservation policy in general and for the OBCs in particular.
In their long and crispy introduction to the volume, familiarizing the lay reader with the long drawn-out and complex debate on OBC reservations, the editors have contextualised the issues of social exclusion in Indian society associated with multiple group identities like caste, ethnicity, religion, gender and other forms of exclusion. They have also indicated the theoretical framework for developing inclusive policies to deal with the consequences of historical exclusion, as well as the safeguards against continuing discrimination in the present. In the end, they have proposed that, given the multiple forms of exclusion associated with group identities, the nature of inclusive policy should be such that it addresses the group specific problem, depending on the nature of discrimination and resultant educational, social and economic situation." (jacket)
