March 2008 
Year 14    No.129
Editorial


The right to equality

The preamble to the Constitution that ‘We, the People of India’ gave ourselves nearly 60 years ago promises to secure to all its citizens "equality of status and of opportunity". In the ‘Right to Equality’ subsection on Fundamental Rights, Article 14 guarantees "equality before law" and "equal protection of law" to all citizens while Article 15 says "The state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them". Part of the section on Directive Principles of State Policy, Article 46, mandates: "The state shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation". Article 38 (2) directs the state "to strive to minimise the inequalities in income and endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, not only among individuals but also amongst groups of people residing in different areas or engaged in different vocations".

Clearly, the Constitution of India envisages a state that promotes equality, equal opportunities for all citizens and categorically prohibits discrimination between them on grounds only of religion, caste, gender and so on. Yet, six decades later, the reality on the ground remains one of widespread denial of equal opportunities, the practice of discrimination. The Sachar Committee report on the socio-economic and educational status of India’s largest religious minority, its 150 million Muslims, is one clear pointer to this grim state of affairs.

The report is a detailed documentation of the fact that Indian Muslims have been left behind in the development process. Admittedly, the Sachar Committee was not required to and it has not provided irrefutable evidence of discrimination. However, logically speaking, there can only be one of two reasons why Muslims have been left far behind in the field of education, employment, including in government services and the public sector, access to credit and infrastructure. Either this particular socio-religious community is itself uninterested in improving its socio-economic status. Or the institutions of India are guilty of subverting the vision of the very Constitution that created them by effectively denying equal opportunity to and discriminating against a section of our citizens. While hard evidence must be painstakingly collected to establish the fact of discrimination, the lived experience of weaker sections of Indian society, Muslims included, is a clear pointer to where the problem lies.

Institutionalised discrimination is not only an Indian problem. In the last few decades, an increasing number of democracies have come around to honestly admitting that the minorities in their midst have been denied a fair deal and have passed new laws and created appropriate institutions to promote equality and prevent discrimination. For example, on June 29, 2000 the Council of the European Union issued a directive to all member states laying down "a framework for combating discrimination on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin, with a view to putting into effect in the member states the principle of equal treatment".

It is in this context that the Sachar Committee’s recommendation for an Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) for India is considered to be one of its most important recommendations. It is understood that the seven-member expert committee appointed by the union Ministry of Minority Affairs has submitted a draft bill for the establishment of the EOC. What the draft proposes and what the government does with it remains to be seen. But the questionable conduct of the UPA government vis-à-vis the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill 2005 and the poor record of existing commissions – the National Human Rights Commission, the National Commission for Minorities and others – are proof that unless civil society groups are actively engaged in the process we will, at best, be landed with one more "toothless tiger". That is the subject of our cover story this month.

The harsh remarks by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of India, Justice KG Balakrishnan, against Teesta Setalvad in response to an article by her on judicial delays published in the Malayalam weekly Matrubhumi, the remarks of the president of India, Pratibha Patil, also on judicial delays (without reference to the article or the chief justice’s castigation of it) within days of this, followed by an interview with the speaker of the Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee where he expressed "surprise" over the chief justice’s remarks against Setalvad have, among other things, once again brought to the fore the issue of judicial delays and judicial accountability. In this issue we reproduce the piece by Setalvad that was published in Matrubhumi as also an article by Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer who is part of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability & Judicial Reforms.

The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) was quick to respond to the union budget, pointing out with facts and figures how Dalits in India have been short-changed year after year. We are publishing their report here as an example that civil society groups engaged with other marginalised and weaker sections of society would do well to learn from.

— EDITORS

 


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