Special articles

Affirmative Action in India:

An Alternative Perspective
Explanations provided for the necessity of affirmative discrimination are basically
fleshed out in two approaches, i e, forward-looking and backward-looking. A critique of both
these approaches is made in this paper followed by the construction of an alternative
perspective from ideas derived from recent ethical theories which emphasise cross-time
values, narrative perspective, historical context and organic unity.
AMARNATH MOHANTY

nce again, affirmative action for the marginalised has

acquired salience in India, and is caught in the throes
of controversy. Very recently, the discourse of reservations that has attuned the political class to thinking about the
welfare of disadvantaged communities has rejuvenated those
same old oft-asked questions, though not entirely irrelevant,
regarding the basis and rationale of reservations. However, the
discourse of reservations in India from the beginning has been
surrounded by certain misconceptions and severe controversies.
Much of the controversies in India, and outside, regarding affirmative action programme loom up from the familiar arguments,
for or against them, based on significantly different moral
perspectives. The explanations provided for affirmative discrimination often do not succeed to answer convincingly the whys
and wherefores, or fail to justify it adequately in its own terms.
As with most human affairs, the quest to rectify historical wrongs
has triggered new and unanticipated social tensions. Negative
social reactions against affirmative action programmes mostly
emanate, though not exclusively, from the inadequate justificatory perspective(s) and messages provided in support of it. Social
convulsions in the present context provide us the most opportune
moment to rethink it seriously.
Even if it is widely presumed that action speaks louder than
words, there is also probability of different consequences of same
act, depending on the way we decide to justify it. In other words,
the same act done with different intentions or moral reasons will
have different consequences. Contrary to common presumptions,
social policies cannot be settled either by entirely debating on
the rights involved or by assessing the consequences separately.
They are not to be narrowly conceived as separate from the
messages/rationale that we want to give and those that are likely
to be received. The moral justification/message of an act alone
is inadequate to rationalise the policy, and not the means adopted
alone exonerate them from all shortcomings; nevertheless, it
is definitely a relevant factor in the moral evaluation of the
policy and its consequences. Moreover, the underlying rationale
not merely influences the efficacy and consequences, but also
determines the structure of policy, the reflective decisions, and
the means of realising it. To be precise, the moral perspective
and justificatory logic is a constitutive part of both the
structure of the policy, means adopted for executing it, and its

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July 28, 2007

consequences. Specifically this is more relevant in case of

affirmative action.
It is beyond dispute that Indian society has for ages been
horizontally and vertically split and stratified on the basis of caste;
and caste system has bred a structure of cumulative inequality,
which keeps on producing and perpetuating itself with some
adjustments. Like any other system of inequality, it has procured
a structure of differential privileges on an ascribed system of
social stratification. Realising the structural problem of hierarchic society the Indian leadership devised the mechanism of
positive discrimination to retrieve the disadvantaged sections,
specifically the scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs)
(for different reasons) from the cul-de-sac. Affirmative action
programme in Indian context is to be viewed as a compelling
liberal response to the deprivations of adequate opportunities and
the consequent failure to have decent human existence by large
sections of underprivileged population due to their victimisation
by a long history of repression, discrimination, and marginalisation.
Special privileges were essential for retrieving them from deep
sense of injustice, prejudice, and existential marginality, and
enabling them for decent human existence. The Indian Constitution, notwithstanding its liberal framework, with the provisions
of affirmative action programme in specific historical context
represented a significant deviation from the then prevalent
mainstream liberal philosophy.1 Affirmative concessions in
association with democratic egalitarianism in one way undermined and delegitimated some of the open and overt forms of
unequal privileges based on caste.
There was almost a consensus in the constituent assembly on
discourse of reservation. All members after a series of deliberations consented to special provisions for safeguarding the interests of the weaker sections of society, and more specifically of
the SCs and STs, for redressing the historic impairments inflicted
on them through various disabilities in the past. The underlying
rationale proffered in support of affirmative action in India is
primarily based on backward-looking argument, (i e, reparations based) that focused predominantly on historic or past
injustice. The thrust of the justificatory arguments and moral
perspectives offered in favour of it in the constituent assembly
clearly reveal this. The whole series of debates in the constituent
assembly for affirmative action almost were centred on the

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reparations-based logic highlighting the historic injustice done

against the underprivileged sections of India. Nehru, and other
members like K M Munshi [CAD, Vol VII: 697], N G Ranga
[CAD, Vol II: 280], K T Shah [CAD, Vol VII: 655-56], G B Pant
[CAD, Vol I: 333] irrespective of their ideological differences,
unequivocally endorsed affirmative action based on backwardlooking moral perspective.

Two Approaches
Since the rationale of affirmative action and the message it
conveys determine considerably the outcomes, it is necessary to
reflect on its underlying principle. Generally, there are two kinds
of major conventional approaches for justifying affirmative action:
(i) forward-looking (i e, utility based), which appeals exclusively
to the good result expected from such programme; and
(ii) backward-looking (i e, reparations based), that focuses on
past injustice and demands reparation. In India, affirmative action
for the marginalised sections is essentially rooted in approach
based on past injustice and reparations. Positive discrimination
expresses wrong messages when they are based exclusively or
primarily on either of these two arguments. The analysis of these
two arguments uncovers certain inadequacies entrenched in them.
Due to the problems structural to these two conventional arguments, there is the need to look for an alternative perspective
to rationalise affirmative action programme.
This article analyses two major approaches to affirmative
action, and the justificatory arguments and logic given in favour
of it. The major thrust is to flesh out an alternative perspective
to affirmative action. It is divided into two sections. The first
one deals with an analysis as well as critical appraisal of the two
major conventional approaches to affirmative action, i e, forwardlooking and backward-looking. In the second part, an effort has
been made to develop an alternative perspective in brief to look
at the issues of positive discrimination. The arguments stressed
here is founded on the ideas derived from recent ethical theories
that emphasise cross-time values, narrative perspective, historical
context, organic unity.

I
Different kinds of rationale offered in favour of affirmative
actions intended for the underprivileged sections can be broadly
categorised into two major approaches forward-looking and
backward-looking. Each one has its own structural logic for
justifying the actions and its own limitations.

Forward-Looking
(i) The thrust of the forward-looking argument is that what
has happened in the past is not itself relevant to what should
we do and to what is reasonable from humanitarian perspective
[Nagel 1973]. The aim of affirmative discrimination is not to
compensate anyone for harm caused by past wrongdoing, but
rather simply to promote certain highly desirable forms of social
change to break endlessly continuing cycle of poverty and
subservience. It tries to avoid extremely complicated causal
connections between the past wrongs and current positions of
certain individuals. At best, it presents clues as to what acts and
policies are likely to generate the best future. The philosophical
argument linked with this is primarily utilitarian [Dworkin 1977:
223-39], which argues that the morally right act is whatever that
yields the best consequences. For instance, protagonists of this

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strategy contend that affirmative action will eliminate inequities

in income distribution, remove caste/racial prejudice, reduce
caste/racial tension, and enhance self-esteem of the marginalised.
Of course, these considerations are significant and relevant for
the larger responsibilities of states.
However, the problem arises when affirmative action programme
is based only on such forward-looking assertions. Critics raise
reasonable apprehensions about whether the special privileges
are necessary and adequate to accomplish these admirable
outcomes. Consequentialism attempts to determine what ought
to be done at present by fixing attention entirely on future results.
When the advocates defend affirmative policies on utilitarian
grounds, and argument is carried forward in utilitarian sense, it
runs into greater difficulty. For example, the defenders of reservations justify caste- and race-based reservations obstinately to
an unyielding length and argue that it would improve the collective welfare of the community in the end. This utilitarian perspective even validates segregation on the ground of improvement
of average or collective welfare. However, the advantage gained
here may be more apparent than real, and more problematic than
it first appears to be. For Sher it is merely a logical accident that
the principle of utility now dictates practices, which favour
victimised group members instead of victimisers. Because utilitarian principle does not tell us why we should restrict our
attention to the members of particular groups, it is reasonable
to seek the justification for this restriction in some further premise,
which has hitherto been suppressed [Sher 1979: 87]. When read
with all their nuances and intricacies this argument does not
appear to be entirely wrong in detail but misplaced in principle.2
This framework has its own structural limitations.3
Consequentialism always tries to resolve what ought to be done
at present by fixing attention exclusively on future results.
Consequentialists take help of the past or consults history in a
very limited sense, i e, only for predicting the future results, but
the past never plays a fundamental role in final evaluation of
the project. For them, what must be evaluated at each shifting
moment is the story from now on or hereafter independently
of what has already been written. This strategy is founded on
the principle of motivated forgetfulness of wrong doings with
the assumption that victims would soon forget past sufferings.
Waldron rightly reminds us that the forgetfulness being urged on
us is seldom the blank slate of historical oblivion. Thinking quickly
fills up the vacuum with plausible tales of self-satisfaction, on
the one side, and self-deprecation on the other [Waldron 1992: 6].
This approach delivers the message that the perpetrators of
injustice gain due to superior status of their race or caste or culture
or gender, and can inflict such injuries in future without any
resistance; and the misfortune of the victims is primarily due to
their inherent inferiority and lowliness. Stimulated forgetfulness
buttresses loss of self-esteem and fossilises demoralisation in the
victim, and promotes wrong acts. In these circumstances, to erase
the slate clean or start anew definitely work in favour of practitioners of injustice. When a person is wronged, she/he receives
a message of her/his marginality and irrelevance or worthlessness.
This approach obviously fails to restore self-esteem among the
past victims because the perpetrators of injustice demean the selfesteem of the victims through this message.
Within an exclusive forward-looking framework one fails to
take into account sufficiently possible negative consequences
temporary increase of racial, ethnic and communal tensions, caste
or racial segregation, accusations against lowering of the academic and service standards, damage of the respect of really
deserving and meritorious members of the reserved category,

Economic and Political Weekly July 28, 2007

doubts about the abuse or misuse of the selected categories for

unjust purposes. Indian scholars have amply highlighted the
problems of forward-looking (as well as backward-looking)
approach to affirmative actions [Gupta 1997; Beteille 1991].
Of course, some of the apprehensions (though not all) are
misconstrued, and well-designed affirmative action
programmes can diminish these negative and depressing effects.
The fundamental problem with the forward argument is that the
case is not based minimally on a delicate balance of costs and
benefits. When we stress certain values and we want them to
be enduring we have to look for different probabilities for
realising it with minimum social cost. It is a hard reality that
in a democratic set up we cannot continue to realise our values
without minimum social approval. Moreover, this argument,
because of its insistence on certain good results in the future,
is not strongly founded on principle of intrinsic rights, and do
not generate enough confidence in the abilities of the beneficiaries. It becomes highly problematic when we consider a value
as an exclusive instrumental to accomplish something else other
than itself. It not only undermines the intrinsic worth of the value,
also affects and devalues the achievement of other objectives.
Specifically in the absence of structural transformation, uncertainties loom large about the desirable outcome in future.
Thus, exclusive stress on this argument gives a wrong message
and fails to base the reservation discourse on an adequate and
a sounder foundation. The concern is not to entirely ignore its
possible future benefits, but rather to acknowledge them as part
of a larger project rooted in more reasoned and adequate base.
Hence the raison dtre and the justifications (explicitly conveyed) must be specified unambiguously. The distinctions must
be drawn between the validations: improvements of society in
a utilitarian sense, and in an ideal sense.

Backward-Looking
(ii) Backward-looking argument, a very different framework
from the first one, focuses on injustice of the past, and stresses
that because these past events occurred, we have certain duties
and responsibilities now [Sher 1975]. The modern philosopher
who has most persuasively validated such argument is W D Ross
(1930). The Rossian principle that is often appealed to in positive
discrimination debates is the principle of reparation, i e, those
who have wronged others owe reparations. Even if one has
negligently wronged another, Rossian principle considers this
past event as generating a duty to pay reparations hardly matters
whether doing so would result in nothing good. The argument
involves an essential reference to the unjust actions of the past.
This principle is to bring in certain duties to respond to certain
past events in specified ways. The Rossian principle tries to
evaluate specific cases in the light of self-evident general
principles stressing that specific past events tend to generate
present or future duties. Except for the acts, like paying debts,
keeping promises, and returning favours, paying reparations for
injuries, niceties and subtle nuances of historical contexts are
not adequately taken into consideration. The obvious objections
are instantly raised: for instance, both victims and victimisers
are long dead; not every upper caste member is guilty of caste
oppression; and not every member of the target group was a victim
of such oppression. Rather Bernard Boxill (1984) and Parekh
(1998), present a more sophisticated version of this approach
to meet these objections. By analogy, present-day higher caste
members owe reparations to contemporary victims, not because
they are themselves guilty of causing the disadvantages of

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July 28, 2007

victims, but because they are in possession of advantages that

fell to them as a consequence of the gross injustices of their
ancestors. Special privileges continue to fall even to innocent
upper caste members because of the ongoing prejudice of their
neighbours. This approach has certain advantages over the forwardlooking arguments, such as, its emphasis on the intrinsic relevance of the past injustice, and attention to the rights and current
disadvantages of the victims (in contrast to its exclusive concern
for future benefits). It does not lay blame on all upper caste
members as the perpetrators of prejudice and injustice. It regards
justice as a fundamental value.
There are nonetheless serious difficulties with this approach.
There is scepticism and apprehension in contemporary debates
about the value of focusing on historical injustice as the most
appropriate means of addressing the claims of the present victims.4 In strict sense of the term, it is too hard to measure the
degree of past advantages and disadvantages or injustice in a
simple and straightforward way. Waldron powerfully argues that
two possible grounds for compensating the present victims for
past injustices, i e, counterfactual and the second more straightforward approach, are superseded [Waldron 1992: 13-19]. It
is the impulse to do justice now that should lead the way, stresses
Waldron, not the reparation of something whose wrongness is
understood primarily in relation to conditions that no longer
obtain (ibid p 27). This strategy seems to suggest that racial,
caste and sexual oppression consisted primarily in the loss of
tangible goods, or the deprivation of specific rights and opportunities, that can be paid back in kind. Backward-looking
argument concentrates too narrowly on the allocation of blame,
and not adequately on contemporary disadvantages. Compensation and reparation may be due for certain specific wrongs but
cannot by themselves carry the burden of rectifying the kind of
systematic injustice victims suffer from. At best, it asks for
symbolic act of public reconciliation or atonement rather than
substantial justice. For Waldron, genuine or full reparations
are eliminated; nevertheless, something is due, specifically, forms
of symbolic recognition and public remembrance (ibid, p 7).5
Being mainly symbolic, this strategy remains silent on the
demeaning nature of impairments or deprivations. By remaining
silent on the insulting nature of racism and castism or sexism
this strategy, when defended entirely by analogy with reparation,
tends to add insult to insult. The thrust primarily remains as a
metaphorical act of reparation rather than bringing about any
substantial and significant change. Furthermore, the reparation
line of reasoning sometimes sends objectionable message that
the benefits are awarded in response to self-centred demands.
The underlying idea of the affirmative actions by the state appears
to be an acknowledgement of the valid claim of the victims to
these benefits without simultaneously expressing its confidence
in the abilities of the victims. It presents a picture that beneficiaries have developed a sense of selfishness in grabbing the
limited goodies, and a sense of dependency on external props
and in asserting a right to them.
Moreover, affirmative discrimination within liberal framework
is confronted with additional problems. Despite apparent concern
for historic injustice, the liberals have verged on appealing less
to the compensatory logic of historical entitlements and more to
the value of equality in the present to do the real work. Liberalism
tenders excessively limited and cramped mode of ethical responsiveness to difference; and possibly strikingly slender even for
its own explicit ethical commitment, such as to the norms of equal
respect for others [White 2000]. Liberal notion of affirmative
action is a sophisticated variation on the difference-blind equality

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argument meant to address the persistence of inequality and social

subordination despite the entrenchment of formal equality. Insistence on individualist framework, priority to formal and
procedural conception of equality and liberty, ignoring the concern
of differential needs, concept of neutrality and stretching too far
the deontological approach have undermined the importance of
substantive justice for the least advantaged. Even the concept
of rights and obligation is highly problematic for effective execution
of affirmative action programmes. The affirmative discrimination
is viewed more as a charity than a right. Even Waldrons analogy
of symbolic recognition and public remembrance refers to
the idea that addressing historic injustice falls outside of the
register of liberal distributive justice proper.6 Liberal conception
of justice tries in a disingenuous manner to bring an artificial
balance between the conflicting claims and interests without
structural transformation. Since the relations between powerful
and powerless are often administered by coercion, a genuine
commitment to the principles of justice necessitates a structural
transformation to diminish powerlessness and vulnerability.
Powerlessness and vulnerability are the reciprocals of others
power: a commitment to enlarge capacities of the most vulnerable
logically warrants reduction or containment of the extractive
capacities of the most powerful agents. A commitment to minimise
both economic and political inequalities thus trails from a serious
action guiding commitment to justice among unequal. It is an
irrefutable fact that the powerful and the rich set the basics of
economic life for the poor and powerless by limiting activities
and possibilities in various ways. The rationale of both forwardlooking and backward-looking justice is much more difficult to
justify than is usually suggested, specifically when the aim is to
address political, economic and cultural disadvantages.

II
However, the idea of affirmative action per se has not been
totally discarded, and different scholars have championed it from
different perspectives. Given the difficulties associated with the
scheme, there is the need for reasoned and appropriate
rationalisation so that the message it conveys does not create or
can at least minimise misconceptions, social hostility, and tensions among different groups or communities. In order to accommodate the diversity within community existence, and to
instil sense of equality and social belongingness or thick weness, there is a need of an alternative ethical-political ontology:
in which a particular ethical disposition to the world receptiveness or openness to difference orients political theorising
about the public reason suitable for communitarian and crosscultural interactions. Dominant approaches to positive discrimination have not sufficiently taken into account historical perspective, narrative unity, and community values. The approach
developed here puts stress on above values borrowed mainly from
philosophical works of MacIntyre (1981) and Taylor (1989).
It necessitates reflecting first on certain distinct and discernible
but interrelated themes for the development of this perspective.
First, what we really profoundly value is coherent view of
history in which the past, present, and future cohere or fit together
into a life and an episode of articulated history a seamless web.
We are not concerned with either past or present or future in
isolation; and in our appraisal, present moment is not quarantined
from the past and the future because a bit of present lies in the
past, and will be passed into future. Thus holistic sense of life
and history give meaning and worth to some of our enduring
values, which are cross-time wholes, with past, present, and

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future components blended in specific ways. Secondly,

deliberation on stretches of lives and histories necessitate evaluative concepts that are drawn from narrative literature. Narrative
perspective of life and history is often more useful for drawing
evaluative concepts we use in our lived experience. MacIntyre
offers a strong version of narrative history. Narrative history
of a certain kind turns out to be the basic and essential genre
for the characterisation of human action; and man is essentially a story-telling animal [MacIntyre 1981: 194, 201]. The
value of a specific moment often relies on what preceded and
what we expect to follow. In community existence, our lives are
so entwined with each others life that we share a common history.
We live out our lives, both individually and in our relationship
with each other, in the light of certain conceptions of a possible
shared future, a future in which certain possibilities beckon us
forward and others repel us, some seem already foreclosed and
other perhaps inevitable [MacIntyre 1981: 200]. One is a self
only amongst other selves [Taylor 1989: 34].
Third, evaluation requires contextualisation of acts. The judgment of specific act has to be positioned in particular historical
context including cultural, national and ethnic traditions, and the
actual actors involved in it. Narrative history of certain kind is
the basic genre for the characterisation of human action. Since
action has a basically historical character, our lives are enacted
narratives in which we are both characters and authors; and a
person is a character abstracted from a history. Evaluation of
specific act has undeniably social (or relational) disposition/
dimension, and it is densely entwined with social practice. In
other words, it is context-dependent.7 Ontologically social structures are praxis-reliant, and substantially geo-historical and spacetime specific. Contextualisation of particular act provides us
added advantage to judge its appropriateness, and helps articulate
universally valid premises supporting the judgment. Moreover,
distributive (or social) justice is primarily product of historical
and cultural particularism or specificity [Walzer 1983: 6]. Fourth,
in the holistic perspective, lives, interpersonal relations over time
and histories constitute, what G E Moore calls, organic unities,
i e, the value of the whole is not necessarily the mere sum of
the values of parts. Evaluation of certain unities cannot be done
by appraising different parts in isolation from one another and
then summing up all the values. The partial view of history seems
to inform more about parts and less about the whole, but ultimately we risk grasping very little even about the parts because
their context and conditions of existence in the whole are obscured.
In a holistic framework, we can attempt to make reasonable
choices concerning the conflicting demands of different practices.
These ideas together provide a more reasonable alternative to
both the forward-looking method of evaluation and the standard
backward-looking alternative. This perspective, contrary to both
the consequentialist and Rossian approaches, regards history as
an integral part of the valued unities rather than as a mere source
of duties (Rossian) or as only an instrumental for calculating
future outcome (consequentialist). This approach evaluates
(partially in narrative terms) lives, relationship, actions, reciprocal desires [Nagel 1969] considering the past, present and
future as intrinsic parts of temporal and spatial whole (organic
unities) of a commonly shared history.

Indian Context
Coming back to Indian context the values that give affirmative
discrimination its meaning, purpose and rationale are to be
viewed as cross-time values, which is not confined to but goes

Economic and Political Weekly July 28, 2007

beyond the purview of forward- and backward-looking

approaches. The remedy for injustice arising out of caste and
racial relations are to be looked at through the ideals of mutual
respect, trust, toleration, fraternity, and fair opportunity for all.
Part of developing a conception of good life for human beings
lies in working out a conception of how one might evaluate and
criticise ones attempts to enact and extend that conception; and
just as the former is open to revision and redefinition, so the
standards by which such revisions are justified and rendered
intelligible are themselves open to reshaping. We can no longer
rationalise the worst form of injustice based on caste system as
a part of tradition by taking recourse to historicist argument.
What matters most for our present concerns for eliminating the
worst form of caste-based injustice is that the particular tradition
as a whole should be subjected to reasonable assessment.8 Present
Indian scenario, i e, specifically after independence, provides a
relevant context of ever-increasing recognition and progressive
understanding of democratic values and the ideal of equal dignity
of all human beings, which had been flagrantly abused in the
past. It is incontrovertibly accepted that the untouchables were
systematically treated in an inhuman and demeaning way by the
people, public institutions, and society in general.9 Even now,
few could confidently claim that the prejudices against the
untouchables have been completely wiped out.
It is true that the present victims claim to justice lies upon
the recognition of the historical injustices carried out against them
by various social forces. Discrediting the relevance of historic
injustice for consideration of their claims risks misidentifying
the nature of moral wrongs at stake, and thus conceivably the
legitimacy and effectiveness of those institutions and distributions meant to address them. If the institutions within which the
benefits and burdens of society are to be distributed are themselves said to be unjust then it remains obscure how the imposition
or perception of that injustice has been superseded in the way
argued by Waldron. If the past remains unaddressed, the moral
rupture that occurred in the past persists in the present. The
consideration of past injustices not merely decides about possible
compensation, but also apprises the normative structure of relation
in the present. If we are really interested in making our present more
meaningful and egalitarian we have to reflect upon the past wrongs
and try to rectify it for creating more propitious conditions for
equal and effective development of all. The present context has
provided us the best opportunity to reconstruct the relative worth
or cogency of our tradition, and to overcome the epistemological
crisis by developing new sets of concepts or new synthesis.
Moreover, no tradition as such can be immune from the possibility
of crises that require it for their valid and rational resolution.
In this suggested relational model, collective responsibility
inheres in our being as a member of a community and having
certain obligation towards it by virtue of that relationship. I have
an obligation to try and to address the past given its effect in
the present pertaining to matters of basic justice in the community.
The aim is to generate norms of cooperation that are acceptable
to all, and to instil social ideal of mutual respect and trust among
citizens. When the history of our caste and racial relations is
definitely not a pleasant story of mutual trust and respect, our
prime concern is to how we can appropriately express the social
value of mutual respect and trust that we want, and how to
characterise our history. It is true that we share the same territory
and a history of interaction upon it however unequal and unjust
it has been. The perpetrators of injustice and the victims share
a common history though not a shared view about the normative
consequences of that history. Even we cannot afford to forget

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July 28, 2007

the institutional and affective dimensions of the proximity between

different sections of people. It is part of our obligation as citizens
and as members of same society to accept the responsibility for
the way the norms, practices, and institutions we inherit have
been marked and shaped by a specific history. The argument that
we have not preferred them, or would not have chosen them in
a given hypothetical choosing situation does not acquit us from such
responsibility. In any way, motivated forgetfulness or dehistoricisation is definitely not the possible remedy to the problem.
The concern with the worth or meaningfulness of our lives
is best thought of as a concern with how we are situated or placed
in relation to others and goods. The concepts of orientations
towards the good, and concepts of the narrative unity or quest
structure of a life are mutually implicating and internally related
[Taylor 1989: 51-52]. It is true that we cannot change our past,
and cannot also convey the message of full respect for those
present individuals living in its aftermath if we disregard it. What
is really needed is not only reparation of tangible debts incurred
by past injuries and injustice, but also a rationale and message
to counter the deep insult inbuilt in casteism, racism, and sexism.
These problems do not have easy solution deduced from selfevident moral generalisations. Not all the members of the higher
castes, probably, were indulged in the debasing injustice inflicted
to the untouchables, but their scorn for the untouchables was
such that most would have considered these crimes insignificant.
Nevertheless, the most awful offenders have died and so have
the victims of the most contemptible crimes. Majority attitudes
have somewhat changed, thanks to the modern Indian state,
though often from open hatred to passive disregard. Despite the
success and overall development of certain members of the
untouchable, the majority of them are still apprehensive and
submissive, and the younger generation is openly resentful and
suspicious of official proclamation of democratic ideals.
An ahistorical and timelessly applicable mode of practical
reasoning to which all individuals can or must commit themselves
is no more intelligible and acknowledgeable than the idea that
there is a timeless essence of the selves. Our participation in such
a shared project, acceptance of communitarian and historically
determined standards can initiate us into forms of life in which
human judgments of worth are immune to the threat of past
fallacies. If we are to make sense of our past and present action,
we have to relate them to the setting of our actions. We can face
present challenges by embracing narrative unity of life. Neither
the mere suggestion that forget about the past, and time would
heal the injuries is appropriate to resolve the problem; nor even
a more legalistic approach to pay off the debts is feasible due
to the serious complexity involved in finding the guilty. These
strategies are inadequate to address the many subtle losses of
opportunity caused by past institutional injustice. Given the
sensitivity and complexities of the problem, the governing ideal
should be based on the values of mutual respect, trust, and
equality, and the message should be to acknowledge and condemn
the regrettable past, to affirm an obligation and committedness
to promote mutual respect and trust in future, to invite and greet
wholehearted participation and reciprocation with the victims,
and to insist them to initiate the risk of surmounting their
understandable apprehensions by contributing to a common
endeavour of fulfilling the ideal. This would plausibly address
the damage of the victims and also the insult embedded in our
history. Moreover, to help disadvantaged groups has to do not
with their suffering but with the moral interest of all including
the privileged one.10 The source of the duty to help the underprivileged is more specific in nature and historical in its origin.

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The predicament of the disadvantaged is primarily an upshot of

the past actions and practices of the privileged group. In these
cases, the dominant and the privileged groups systematically
exploited the dominated groups and caused them much moral,
material, and psychological harm. They therefore bear a special
responsibility for the plight of their victims, and have a duty not
only to end the harm but also to heal their wounds and help them
become whole human beings [Parekh 1998: 384].
Battling with an imperfect past not entirely of our own making,
and not of our choice, in view of ideals we hold ourselves by
is a form of ethical reflection that can be occasioned by feelings
of, according to Bernard Williams, shame or regret. It is a kind
of moral emotion that activates a specific form of self-reflection
connected to certain shared ethical attitude or ideals and forms
of life.11 Since our lives are entangled in a common shared
history, we have to care about how our lives cohere with others
life stories. If not a shared view about the normative consequences
of that history, it is our obligation to accept the responsibility
for the way the norms, standards, practices, institutions we
succeed to have been constructed by a specific history which
we all share. It is a form of moral responsibility tied with who
I am as much as it is with what I have done. What I am is partly
constituted by the historically and culturally formed frameworks
of articulation that I find myself amongst and draw upon for
articulating what I think of as good or valuable [Taylor 1989:
26-30]. Certain embodied arguments [MacIntyre 1981: 207]
about values and practices are shared, including registers of
justice and injustice. The very possibility of sustaining rationality
in the arena of moral and political evaluation relies on situating
individual and their arguments with other individuals within an
overarching and nested set of inherently social matrices. In other
words, one is a self only amongst other selves [Taylor 1989: 34].
We as a political community are responsible for the past and
its effect on the moral character and shape of our society both
good and bad. Historical injustice does not simply warrant
regretting but it needs a response. History has to be constitutive
of political community in such a way that citizens owe obligation
to each other with whom they share special relations. The basic
thrust is to value certain states of affair qua our membership in
a community. Obligations we have through our membership of
a political community and embodied arguments inhere within
itself not only our affective relations with others but also the
practices of arguments and contestations which reflect upon and
criticise these relations. Thus, in a relational model, a public
version of moral responsibility or collective responsibility is
intrinsic to our membership of a political community, and we
owe certain special obligation towards it in virtue of that membership. I have an obligation to address the past not merely
because I am a beneficiary/victim of injustices done in the distant
past, but also because the past has its effects in the present in
relation to matters of justice in my community. Ideas of who
we are (both individually and collectively), and who we want
to be, are linked to our ethical attitudes about what we owe to
each other. We require an idea of public reason that has the ability
of recognising the facts of historical injustice. The needs and
claims of victims of injustice are related essentially to consideration of the specific social, cultural, and historical contexts of
their relation with the rest of the society. In other words, commitment to equality will necessarily entail acknowledgement of
facts of historic injustice.
Appreciating/valuing particular relations with others provide
an important source of reasons for fulfilling certain special
responsibilities in relation to them [Scheffler 1998: 191-92, 202].

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Specifically in the present context, the aim must be to generate

norms of cooperation based on equality, liberty, and rights in
the public sphere acceptable to all the parties with an historical
awareness of how public values have been invoked in the past
to discriminate against the victims. The substance of reasonable
should be considered as a function of the organisation of public
reason itself. We are to create social, cultural and political
conditions based on social trust and individual dignity, which
is crucial for mutual coexistence in deeply diverse social structure,
under which all members of our political community could even
begin to feel at home amongst its practices and institutions.
The most pressing problem is how to convey such rationale
and message meaningfully and with marked honesty in an atmosphere already vitiated by the past. Mere words unless translated
into effective action or accompanied by concrete action-plan
(strategy of transition) are just like the pious wishes, and are
inefficacious on changing the situation. The immediate resolution
lies in more constructive actions and substantial measures to attest
commitments, to combat relapsing, and to triumph over reluctance on both sides. Thus, positive discrimination in favour of
the marginalised sections of India acquires relevance and significance. When persons have been disadvantaged by social injustice, having had their initial chances diminished by the network
of public institutions themselves, formal equality of opportunity
does not serve the purpose of removing past injustice. Positive
steps or affirmative actions are needed in favour of the disadvantaged to equalise their opportunities over time. The possible
answers to questions regarding distributive justice entail an
interpretative grid, which depends on the understanding and
explanation of the principle of affirmative action itself.12
Parekh argues that the myriad forms of suffering are only
accessible to a sympathetic imagination. It is our inescapable
moral commitment to help disadvantaged groups, and morality
remains an impotent rhetoric unless translated into a collective
political commitment.13 Since personal/individual actions are
too disjointed and episodic to handle the problem of such an
enormous magnitude whole state, the sole available instrument
of collective action and most effective vehicle for realising
our moral aspirations, can reach areas inaccessible to individuals
and accomplish activities impossible on the part of individual
effort. The target of such programmes is not any assignable
individual but any members of an assignable group (the class
of X-persons) who are qualified for the special benefits offered
to the group as a whole. The perpetrator of the original injustice
was the whole society (other than the class of X-persons) and
the class of X-persons as a group was the collective target of
an institutionalised/organised social practice of unjust treatment.
To deny the existence of the group is to deny a social reality.
Any attempt to rebuff the application of affirmative action policies
to organised social practices and whole class of persons with
respect to whom the goals and methods of the practices are
identified and pursued, according to Taylor, completely disregards what, morally speaking, is the hideous aspect of the injustices of human history: those carried out systematically and
directed toward whole groups of men and women as groups
[Taylor 1973: 182].
The narrative perspective, contrary to the forward- and backward-looking approaches, considers the past as an integral part
of the valued unities that we aim to bring about, not merely as
a source of duties, and is based on mutual respect and fair
opportunity. The message of narrative perspective is not just a
means to future good relations or dutiful payment of a debt
incurred by our past. It is called for by the ideal of being related

Economic and Political Weekly July 28, 2007

to other human beings over time, so that our histories and

biographies reflect the responses of those who deeply care about
fair opportunity, mutual trust, and respect for all. It is an opportunity and a responsibility offered not as a charity, but rather
as part of effort to welcome and encourage victims to participate
more fully in the life-world. In this united sense of historical
perspective the project one has undertaken, the commitments one
has made, the hope one has knitted, what one has shared with the
loved ones, and the injuries one has afflicted significantly determine
ones satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the present as well as the
plan for the future. In this perspective of shared history, the
individualistic assumptions do not have much space; hence, the
past is comprehended more than mere calculation of accumulated
debts and assets, and future is visualised more than an opportunity
for reinvesting and cashing in assets. A moral outlook that focuses
on cross-temporal narrative values (such as mutually respectful
egalitarian social relations) suggests a more appropriate account
of what affirmative action should try to express.14
Nevertheless, the rationale or perspective for the conception
of affirmative action has to have additional note of caution. When
affirmative discrimination proceeds without commensurate structural transformation, it fails to bring about substantial justice to
the victims. Identification of the beneficiaries, i e, the target
groups, the basis or rationale of selecting the target groups, and
the scope of positive discrimination, i e, what is to be done and
how much, are the major problems of affirmative action policies.
Hence, affirmative action policy in order to make it work requires
practical reasoning and imagination, reflection on circumstances
of politics and historical pressure, deliberation on limited
generosity and civic virtues in the context of bounded
rationality [Simon 1983: 17-23]. EPW
Email: amarnathmohanty@gmail.com

Notes
1 Much later it was realised within the mainstream liberal philosophy that
the language of inequality and injustice is too feeble to capture their
feeling of superfluity and marginality, and no amount of legal and political
equality is able to overcome or even significantly reduce that feeling
[Parekh 1998: 381].
2 This has been elaborately dealt by Dworkin (1977: 223-39).
3 Rawls 1972; Dworkin 1977; Sher 1979.
4 A sizeable part of the philosophical literature concentrates on the problem
with entitlement theories in general. Only to name a few for elaborate
discussion, see Sher 1981; ONeill 1989; Waldron 1992.
5 However, Waldron is mistaken to propose only two extremes, i e, full
and symbolic payments, without looking for the valid options in
between. Furthermore, while he thinks that the historical injustice is
superseded what is the need of an apology.
6 It is the impulse to do justice now that should lead the way, argues
Waldron, not the reparation of something whose wrongness is understood
primarily in relation to conditions that no longer obtain [Waldron 1992: 27].
7 MacIntyre argues that for intelligibility of the action consists precisely
in it falling under a description which assigns (almost always implicitly)
some purpose to the action. And descriptions are always public property,
just as and because language is public property (1969: 58). Similarly
Taylor asserts that since meaning exist in a field and common language
is rooted in its institutions and practices, there is the necessity of
contextual interpretation (1985: 22, 37).
8 In this context of reasonable assessment of tradition, MacIntyre has
suggested: It is in respect of their adequacy or inadequacy in their
responses to epistemological crises that traditions are vindicated or fail
to be vindicated [MacIntyre 1988: 366]. A tradition can only overcome
the epistemological crisis by developing a new set of concepts or a
new synthesis.
9 The problems of the SCs and STs are significantly different. However,
here the case of both SCs and STs has been discussed by general relevant
moral reasoning.

Economic and Political Weekly

July 28, 2007

10 In short, humanity is indivisible. Either we all grow together or none will.

It is not possible for one group to develop its moral, intellectual, emotional
and other distinctively human capacities at the expense of anotherDeeply
inequalitarian and exploitative societies exact a heavy psychological and
moral toll from all involved. These permit no winners; all alike are losers,
albeit in different ways and degrees [Parekh 1998: 383-84].
11 Shame is more closely connected to a sense of ones own destiny of
who we are and what realistically we want ourselves to be. For Williams,
the internalisation of shame does not simply internalise an other who
is representative of the neighbours. The internalised other is conceived
of as one whose reactions I would respect, and one would respect the
same reactions if directed at him [Williams 1993: 83, and 92-93]. Thus,
in this case regret is preferred to shame.
12 One should also take into account the fundamental distinction between
the right to equal treatment and right to treatment as an equal, i e, which
principle is to be considered as fundamental and which is derivative,
and which is to be given priority in case of restoring the balance
of justice [Dworkin 1977]. Moreover, the consideration of the distinction
between equality as a policy and equality as a right, which has hitherto
been virtually ignored by political theory (ibid), is equally relevant
for social justice.
13 Morality and politics are so intertwined that morality lacks power and
efficacy unless it finds adequate political articulation, and politics lacks
depth and significance unless it becomes a medium for realising socially
relevant moral values [Parekh 1998: 383].
14 The argument developed here is of course very brief and skeletal.

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