Redesigning Affirmative Action
Arguing for better policy design in affirmative action, this paper presents an illustrative model of a feasible alternative to caste quotas. The proposed model is evidence-based, addresses multiple...
View ArticleDemocracy, Disagreement and Merit
At this juncture, even before we discuss what effective access policies should look like, we need to clear some space and ask: How will we handle disagreement in this domain? For fundamentally, the...
View ArticleCase for Caste-based Quotas in Higher Education
The roots of discrimination in India go so deep that social and economic disparities are deeply intertwined, although in increasingly complex ways. We still need reservations for different groups in...
View ArticlePaying the Social Debt
It is necessary to recognise the exclusionary and discriminatory character of our society and economy, a creation largely of differences arising from caste, ethnicity, religion and other group...
View ArticleAssumptions and Arithmetic of Caste-Based Reservations
There is reason to be cautious in the use of affirmative action policies to achieve equality in access to higher education. There appears to be considerable heterogeneity within the broad social...
View ArticleExclusive Inequalities
This essay suggests that questions of merit, caste and discrimination in Indian higher education can be usefully analysed in a framework defined by "exclusive inequalities". Beginning with a discussion...
View ArticleThe Eternal Debate
Caste still remains an indicator of disadvantage as distribution of both income and wealth are skewed along caste lines. Though the data on OBCs is scanty, there exists a clear disparity between these...
View ArticleMerit of Reservations
Upper caste youth are not willing to tolerate the sharing of government educational facilities with youth coming from historically oppressed communities. But reservations and nation building are not...
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