Protective Discrimination and Tribal Welfare in India

Abstract:     
India has a composite population. The Indian society lacks homogeneity in sop for as there exist numerous religious, cultural and linguistic groups. There are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Paris, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and others. The pattern of culture varies from place to place. There are Anglo Indian based on racial religious and linguistic factors. Besides there are sections of people like the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes who not only need protection from exploitation but even positive help from the state for amelioration of their miserable lot. Even before India became independent there was a demand from many of the weaker sections of society for special provisions in the Constitution for the benefit of weaker sections based on the promise that these sections had been socially and economically discriminated against during the British times and therefore special steps were called for to help and improve the condition of these people vis-à-vis the forward communities, The framers of the Constitution tried level best to safeguard the interest of the various minority groups whether based on religion or language, culture or socio-economic factors so as to give them a sense of security. The scheduled tribes who live in certain areas of the country like the north-eastern regions, large parts of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and the hilly regions of most states are those sections of the Indian population who still live in their tribal ways and observe their own peculiar customs and cultural norms. Hence special provisions were for the development of these tribal groups made and they were classified as scheduled. Now the concern of us is how to keep a balance that on the one hand that their identity is their culture is not eroded and on the other hand bring them in to the main stream of national life.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 14

Keywords: reservation, protective discrimination, caste reservations, inequality in opportunity

JEL Classification: J78, J79

working papers series