Vidhu Verma

Social Justice is a concept familiar to most Indians but one whose meaning is not always understood as it signifies a variety of government strategies designed to enhance opportunities for underprivileged groups. By tracing the trajectory of social justice from the colonial period to the present, this book examines how it informs ideas, practices and debates on discrimination and disadvantage today. After outlining the historical context for reservations for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes that began under British colonial rule, the book examines the legal and moral strands of demands raised by newer groups since 1990. In addition the book shows how the development of quota policies has been significantly influenced by the nature and operation of democracy in India. It describes the recent proliferation of quota demands for reservations in higher education, private sector and for women and religious minorities in legislative assemblies. The book goes on to argue that while proliferation of demands address unequal incidence of poverty, deprivation and inequalities across social groups and communities, care has to be taken to ensure that existing justifications for quotas for discriminated groups due to caste hierarchies are not undermined. Providing a rich historical background to the subject, the book is a useful contribution to the study on the evolution of multiple conceptions of social justice in contemporary India.

Contesting Boundaries of Social Justice

Non-discrimination and Equality in India

Martha C. Nussbaum

Zoya Hasan

Aziz Z. Huq

All known societies exclude and stigmatize one or more minority groups, frequently employing a rhetoric of disgust to justify this stigmatization. In this volume, interdisciplinary scholars from India and the United States present a detailed and theoretically pluralistic study of the varieties of stigma that pervade contemporary social and political life. These include prejudice along the axes of caste, race, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, disability,religion, ethnicity, and economic class. Looking forward the authors present legal and policy-based remedies aimed at eliminating pervasive stigma in all of its diverse forms.

Vidhu Verma

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