This empowers some but disempowers many. To quote Beteille (2000):
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If what I have said above holds true, quotas, no matter how extensive, can at best touch only the upper fringes of the redistribution of power in a society as large and complex as ours. The belief that they can by themselves bring about a radical or even a perceptible redistribution of power is no more than a wishful thinking. Such wishful thinking is not without its cost. The cost will be to the Constitution of India which assigns rights and capacities to citizens as individuals, and not to castes and communities or to men and women separately. |
This social group model of inclusion hides the problems of women, children, old and disabled. Healey (2001) says: “To be sure, the future will have conflicts and disputes, and other dimensions of inequality–social class and gender, for example–will continue to divide people into hostile camps. … the boundaries of culture and color that are so significant today–the group affiliations that people daily fight and die for–will become meaningless as humans complete the process of global species consolidation.” The children and disabled are most neglected and they require empowerment most. Unlike America and Europe India cannot develop strong advocacy of the disabled because they are overwhelmed by neo-social-groups. In the same way women and children too must be placed somewhere in the classificatory schemes of neo-social-groups and then claim anything within their respective category. To exist as woman, child or disabled is to exist first as a member of a recognized neo-social-group. This is linked with the approach that reservation for women and physically challenged is part of horizontal reservation while reservation for social groups is part of vertical reservations. This assumes that “horizontal” groups of women and children have to exist within “vertical groups” of SC, ST, OBC and Others.
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