Affirmative action

From the beginning, the government of independent India adopted the policy of affirmative action. This led to reservation of jobs in government departments and seats in schools and colleges for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), separately in proportion to their population. Also right from the beginning there was a feeling that there are many other castes/groups which do not come under either SC or ST but are lagging behind and require special assistance. This led to formation of two commissions to examine the conditions of castes other than SCs and STs and make recommendations for their welfare. In 1980 the Central government finally accepted the reality of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and the recommendations of the Second Backward Classes Commission (Agrawal and Aggarwal, 1991) were adopted. Then 27 percent jobs in the central services were reserved for the OBC. Some years later it was followed by reservation of seats in the colleges, universities and professional institutions. In this backdrop, the Eleventh Five Year Plan went for the concept of inclusionary growth (Planning Commission, 2008). The Eleventh Five Year Plan emphasizes the following groups/regions/sectors need special schemes for inclusion: social groups divided into four categories of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Others; minorities, particularly Muslims; eleven special category states comprising of seven North Eastern states, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand; women and children; agriculture sector; old population; street children; physically challenged; and drug addicts. The plan aims at promotion of education and health among all the social groups, equal participation of all in the government jobs, meeting special needs of each group, and reducing inequalities. A serious reading of the draft shows that the concept of social groups has become most crucial to the whole development plan.