Protective Discrimination is
the policy of granting special privileges to the downtrodden and
under-privileged sections of society. As the term itself suggests “protective
discrimination” means policy measures deliberately designed to discriminate among
the citizens on the basis of certain specified criteria so as to protect the
interests of the worst-off among them. Ideally, for a state each citizen is equal
and shall be treated equally by it but modern liberal welfare state has acknowledge
an avenue for a differentiated treatment for its citizens hailing from varied
socio-economic backgrounds. In India, this special status to some sects of society
which are economically backward is known as Reservation.
Reservation means setting
up a quota in educational and employment avenues, in proportion to the
population of the targeted group. Protective discrimination is not only limited
to reservation, it may also involve other measures; for example, outreach programs,
sensitization programs, special training programs, financial assistance,
apprentice or tutoring, soft quotas such as compensatory discrimination in
selection process such as higher age limit or giving some bonus points etc.
The issue
of Protective Discrimination has been very emotive, divisive and contentious
throughout its journey. There has been an outcry against protective
discrimination. Those people whose prospects have been adversely affected have
claimed it to be unfair, while those whose underrepresentation has been addressed
by it, support such policies. Whether protective discrimination violates
principles of fairness or not depends upon which notion of distributive justice
we subscribe to. Those believing in “Dessert” may out rightly reject the notion
of protective discrimination. Within “Egalitarians” we may find different
versions and their conditional support to protective discrimination. While
within the “Need” based notion of distributive justice we found full support to
protective discrimination.
DISCUSSION
Protective Discrimination is healthy for our society/country.
It can uplift the economically backward classes. It provides them a good number
of opportunities to involve in social, public, and in political activities and
affairs. It provides a better stage or base to downtrodden and economically weaker
sections from where they can present their talent. History is witness that these
downtrodden sections have been exploited by owners and masters in the past. It
is the protective discrimination that can help them to forget about past
brutalities and be part of modern society. As it is the fact that children of
economically weaker sects and children of owners or rich people are not
comparable in any way, children of rich people get better educational facilities,
healthy and luxurious life. While the children of downtrodden sects are
deprived from these facilities. Children of rich people get more opportunities in
every part of life, while children of economically weaker sections do not get
sufficient opportunities, so it is the protective discrimination which provides
opportunities to economically weaker sections of country. If there will be an
end of protective discrimination then the downtrodden sects will not get sufficient
opportunities. With that every department and office will be dominated by higher
classes or rich people and there will be chances of creation of classes in our
country and society, then country will not prosper as there will be class conflicts.
Through protective discrimination every sect of society is involved in governing
the country, through protective discrimination every sect of society is
involved in decision making policy and process, by these ways protective
discrimination keeps country in a healthy state.
Protective discrimination violates the Principle of
Fairness, and it is unhealthy for a state. Protective discrimination is opposed
and can be opposed by many arguments. Some schools of thought like the “Libertarians”
in America and some extreme conservative Capitalist ideologies do not agree
with the tool of protective discrimination. When some people are asked to
suffer positive discrimination in fovour of others, the same sort of discrimination
is practiced on them. Granting privileges to people by way of protective
discrimination for reason of their being of a particular caste, race or sex in
the procedural sense is as depriving them of opportunities for the same reason.
Further it is unfair to deny present generations of communities opportunities
because of how their ancestors may have behaved is totally unfair. Also such measures
disturb the confidence and initiative of talented and meritorious. Hence there
are moral problems with protective discriminations and equality should be
limited to equality to equality of opportunity.
CONCLUSSION
Protective discrimination is a Democratic concept. In
the democracy, there should be a classless society, as democracy has promised,
there should be an end of casteism, racism and discrimination on the bases of
religion. This is the modern world there is no place of such discriminations
under democracy, but with the emergence of globalization we saw a rise of capitalization,
which we witnessed with centricity of wealth, making a scope of classes in our
society broadly two main classes-Rich and Poor, rich holds the capital while poor
works for them. Thus, there emerged a group of two classes in our society Rich
and Poor. In this means if there is protective discrimination then it should be
strictly based on difference in incomes of the citizens of a country.
Government of country should set a minimum level of income below which the
people should be called as reserved category people and protective discrimination
should be granted only to them, by this way protective discrimination will be
healthy to our society.