Affirmative Action

This paper seeks to contribute to greater mutual understanding of positive discrimination in India and the US by describing and reviewing some important empirical work that has recently been carried out to evaluate the effects of affirmative action in the US higher education. Until recently the debate on the wisdom of positive discrimination policies has been largely theoretical, appealing to ethical considerations and political-philosophical values. Now, however, systematic empirical evidence on the long-term consequences of affirmative action policies in admissions to US colleges and universities has at last been made available and can be brought to bear on the discussion.

The pattern of historical development has been different for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes with the latter never having been an integral part of mainstream society. How effective has been the policy of protective discrimination in removing the disabilities suffered by the scheduled tribes? This paper attempts a comparison between the relative benefits to the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes as a result of the policy of protective discrimination. Following upon this, the author examines why one category has fared better than the other.

Caste reservations have been available in educational institutions for the last four decades in India. What has been the impact of this policy on the target groups? An attempt is made here to assess the costs and benefits of the policy through examining enrolment ratios by caste categories and the number and amount of expenditure on post-matric scholarships. The author also examines the employment status of educated scheduled caste and tribe candidates.

Marked progress has been made by the scheduled castes in education, as is manifest from the rise in their literacy rates, enrolment co-efficients and the proportion of their numbers in Class 1 and 11 categories of jobs in Central and state services.