Race, caste and affirmative action: US verdict raises the right questions

This week’s US Supreme Court verdict that has ruled against race/ethnicity-linked admission quotas in elite institutions like Harvard University has come at the right moment for both US and India. It makes sense to examine occasionally if not frequently the pros and cons of quotas and affirmative action to support underprivileged sections and communities to see what works and doesn't -- and test it against the underlying principles for which they were brought into force.

The US verdict came in a week during which I have been engaged in an online debate of sorts on affirmative action after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US that triggered questions on the state of minority Muslims in India. I had remarked that it is perhaps more appropriate to compare India's Muslims with America's blacks though one is a religious minority and the other a racial one.

But that can only apply in terms of numerical minority and how much they are integrated in mainstream society based on current ideas of discrimination and equality. If one is to look at affirmative action to make up for historical injustice then it is more appropriate to compare the African Americans of the US with the Dalits of India. Dalits have been victims of untouchability as well as restrictions that confined them to menial work in a caste system that resembles America's slave system.

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The problem is that the current political movement for affirmative action (wokeism, if you will) often demands quotas and access not as corrective aids but as some sort of entitlement. That gets trickier when you ask if a government job is a means to an income, a position of power or a public service responsibility.

When it comes to education it gets murky. We can think of scholarships, fellowships or freeships to boost education but isn't it asking for too much if the highest centres of learning such as Harvard University are dictated by political criteria that reek of what one might call ‘revenge entitlement’? More important, what is the ethical content in affirmative action and how do you measure it?
 
Imagine America's whites demanding quotas in NBA basketball teams or jazz bands that make blacks look so good. I am saying all this only to emphasise that there are no easy answers to some questions in a world in which merit and recognition can be of various types and aptitudes. (Er, why are female supermodels larger in number than men and why do they tend to get paid more?)

This is why we need judicial intervention to assess concepts in which political overkill can upset some common ideas of justice. But jurisprudence itself is a political idea based on ethics and values and tends to vary with time and space. You can go around in circles on this.

India's constitution is more progressive than that of the US as it promises social justice. In the US, affirmative action is a current fashion driven by recent political awakening whereas India has baked it into the Constitution. When India’s equality-prone Constitution was alive and kicking in the 1950s, America’s blacks were still fighting for civil rights like sitting in a bus next to a white man.

India's definition of 'other backward classes (OBCs) includes both non-Dalit Hindu communities (castes) as well as socially and educationally laggard Muslim communities. India's Supreme Court has already ruled in favour of OBC quotas but cautioned against its "creamy layer" usurping it. 

How does one measure creamy layers? That is where the executive administration needs to strike a balance between the principles of the legislature (political) and the judiciary. In simple terms, we need to revisit the idea of affirmative action time and again to calibrate policies and measure outcomes.

Former US president Barack Obama has come out against the Supreme Court verdict but was candid about the limits of affirmative action when he said in an interview that the political problems with turning the argument for reparations into reality were manifold.

 “If you look at countries like South Africa, where you had a black majority, there have been efforts to tax and help that black majority, but it hasn’t come in the form of a formal reparations program. You have countries like India that have tried to help untouchables, with essentially affirmative-action programs, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed the structure of their societies. So the bottom line is that it’s hard to find a model...'

Personally, I believe in what I call the Staircase Principle: One step at a time. If a larger number of blacks or Dalits are given free and compulsory state-funded junior school education with incentives to study, it helps more people move up in society as a whole. Individual spirit, excellence and hard work always play a role in upward mobility. Broader interventions at the bottom of the social and economic pyramids work better than top-level quotas that reek of entitlement while touching the lives of fewer people. When a whole community needs affirmative action, why should only a few from it benefit? 

A broader intervention at the lower levels also works better to gain votes in a democracy. The wider the field of action, the more the number of people that benefit from affirmative action and the higher the electoral endorsement for the party or group that does it.

Freeships, scholarships and special education programmes seem a better choice if you regard administration and management jobs as a responsibility when it comes to work.

However, caste discrimination in India and racial discrimination in the US also involve the denial of opportunities by prejudiced incumbents in positions of responsibility – and are cited as the reason for diversity-based inclusion at the top level. That also requires separate treatment and social reform involving elements of empathy and fair access to resources and ethically strong administration. That's another story.

Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.