Affirmative Action for Muslims? Arguments, Contentions and Alternatives

Mohd. Sanjeer Alam
Additional contact information
Mohd. Sanjeer Alam: Mohd. Sanjeer Alam, Assistant Professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. E-mail:sanjeer.alam@gmail.com

Studies in Indian Politics, 2014, vol. 2, issue 2, 215-229

Abstract: India is one of the most unequal societies of the world. At the same time, it has the distinction of having the longest history of affirmative action programmes for alleviating socio-economic inequalities. Currently, three social groups—the Scheduled Castes (SCs), the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs)—enjoy the benefits of affirmative action programmes, of reservation in particular. However, the demands to get acknowledged as ‘disadvantaged’ and for inclusion in the system of affirmative action have not stopped. Of late, the demands for reservation for disadvantaged minorities, Muslims in particular, have ignited intense and polarized debates. All this has not only complicated the politics of ‘recognition’ and ‘redistribution’ but also affected the discourse on and capacity of existing affirmative measures to tackle the issue of group-based disadvantages. Against this backdrop, the objective of this article is two-fold: ( a ) to get into the complexities underlying the idea of affirmative action for Muslims; and ( b ) to move the debates on affirmative action beyond ‘one policy fits all’ perspective.

Keywords: Affirmative action; backwardness; disadvantage; equal opportunity; minority; Muslims; OBCs; reservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2321023014551877 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indpol:v:2:y:2014:i:2:p:215-229

DOI: 10.1177/2321023014551877

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Studies in Indian Politics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().