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Academic Research [in India]

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■ Academic Research
The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) defines
‘research’ as ‘the systematic investigation into and study
of materials and sources in order to establish facts and
reach new conclusions’. A key to creating the wealth of
a nation is applied research, which, in turn, traces back
to academic research. Academic research is typically
conducted in universities (which offer advanced studies
in a large number of disciplines) and research institutes
(which have a narrower interest and focus). Advanced
nations have powerhouse universities and institutes that
developing countries aspire to emulate.
Academic Research in India (Pre-1947)
Modern academic research in India goes back to
1784 when the distinguished orientalist and jurist Sir
William Jones established the Asiatic Society of Bengal
in Calcutta for promoting oriental studies. The English
rulers primarily set up teaching institutions. They were
mainly interested in applied areas and field sciences like
archaeology, botany, geology, trigonometrical survey,
and zoology. The greatest academic recognition for such
endeavours came in 1902 when Sir Ronald Ross won the
Nobel Prize for his work done in India on the life cycle of
malarial parasites.
These efforts spawned the formation of many learned
and scientific bodies in India and paved the way for
academic research. A significant advancement manifested
in the establishment of the Indian Association for the
Cultivation of Science (IACS) in Calcutta in 1876,
A
whose founder Dr Mahendra Lal Sircar envisioned
an institution for ‘pure-science learning and science-
teaching’ (see Ghatak et al. 1976). Supported by private
and government funds, IACS established a library, offered
scholarships, created endowed professorships, and set up
a laboratory where physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata
Raman discovered the ‘Raman Effect’ which won him
Asia’s first science Nobel Prize in 1930. Beginning in
the late 19th century, professors at Calcutta’s Presidency
College, physicist/botanist Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose and
chemist Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray published research that
was internationally recognized.
In the early 20th century, Indian universities started
playing an active role in fostering advanced teaching and
academic research. This was initiated by the legendary
vice chancellor of the University of Calcutta, Sir Asutosh
Mookerjee, who hired outstanding professors in diverse
fields of study, including Sir C.V. Raman and philosopher
Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan whose writings interpreted
Indian thought for the Western world. Graduates of the
university at this time included Professor Satyendra Nath
Bose of the Bose–Einstein Statistics fame (after whom
fundamental particles ‘bosons’ are named), Dr Meghnad
Saha who developed the ‘Saha Ionization Equation’,
and renowned radio physicist Dr Sisir Mitra. All of them
became Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS) of England.
Many other distinguished European and Indian
scientists working in India were elected FRS. The list
includes Professor Homi J. Bhabha (physicist, Indian
Institute of Science [IISc] Bangalore; later founded the
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay with
2 A cademic R esearch
Sir J.R.D. Tata’s help, and subsequently became Chairman
of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission), Sir Shanti
Swarup Bhatnagar (chemist, University of Punjab; later
became Director of the Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research), Sir J.C. Bose (later founded the Bose Institute
in Calcutta), Sir Alfred G. Bourne (zoologist, University
of Madras, IISc Bangalore), Sir K.S. Krishnan (physicist,
IACS, University of Dacca; later became Director of the
National Physical Laboratory), Professor Prasanta C.
Mahalanobis (statistician, Presidency College Calcutta;
later founded the Indian Statistical Institute), Professor
Panchanan Maheshwari, D.Sc., University of Allahabad
(botanist, Universities of Dacca and Delhi), Srinivasa
Ramanujan (mathematician, University of Cambridge),
Professor Birbal Sahni (botanist, University of Lucknow),
Professor T.R. Seshadri (chemist, Universities of Andhra
and Delhi), Sir John L. Simonsen (chemistry, Presidency
College Madras, and Professor D.N. Wadia (geologist,
Prince of Wales College, Jammu; Geological Survey of
India). Professor Simonsen and Professor P.S. MacMahon
founded the Indian Science Congress Association in
1914).1 Many talented academicians, including classical
scholars, social scientists, geographers, historians, linguists,
musicologists, and philosophers, attained name and fame
for their scholarly works.
This was a great start. An active group of academics
got assembled in colonial India who did cutting-edge
research and published articles in the world’s leading
academic journals. They attracted and trained doctoral
students and founded and nurtured institutions to elevate
them to reputed centres of advanced research. Some of
them oriented themselves to applied research and gave
leadership to the government’s research laboratories. With
the devotion of teachers, motivation of students, vision
of institution builders, foresight of creators of learned
bodies, emerging culture of donating money towards
education, and an evolving tradition of quality research
work, India established a huge lead in academic research
and doctoral education over other Asian nations except
Japan. However, India got lost in a quagmire, which is
discussed in the following section.
Academic Research in India (Post-1947)
Independent India achieved significant success in diverse
areas like crop development, space programme, and
1Ramanujan
died soon after returning to India and consequently
did not get an opportunity to train students. The list given here
focuses on scientists in India and excludes Nobel Laureates
physicist Professor S. Chandrasekhar and chemist/biologist
Professor H.G. Khorana who spent their entire academic careers
in England and the United States.
nuclear research. It boasts of a large number of research
laboratories and educational institutions and one of the
world’s largest academic and scientific communities.
Yet India fares poorly in terms of quality of academic
research. A proper understanding of this would require an
examination of publications in top-ranked journals and an
evaluation of all books and monographs written by every
India-based academic in all fields of study. Due to lack
of time and resources for such a study, we rely heavily on
ARWU rankings that are now discussed.
Consider the first global league table of universities,
the highly influential ‘Academic Ranking of World
Universities’ produced since 2003 by China’s Shanghai
Jiao Tong University.2 ARWU ranks institutions in
terms of a composite index based on six objective
research indicators—‘the number of alumni and staff
winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of
highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific,
number of articles published in journals of Nature and
Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation
Index—Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index,
and per capita performance with respect to the size of
an institution.’ Like any ranking system, ARWU has
weaknesses in terms of what is included and what gets
Table 1  Selective Country-wise Statistics of
Number of Universities Ranked among Globally
High-ranked Universities
Rank Country Top Top Top Top Top Top
20 100 200 300 400 500
1 USA 17 54 89 111 137 154
2 UK 2 11 19 30 35 38
3 Japan 1 5 9 10 17 25
4 Germany 5 14 23 33 39
5 Canada 4 8 18 18 23
6 France 3 7 13 18 22
7 Australia 3 7 9 13 17
8 Switzerland 3 6 7 7 7
9 Sweden 3 4 9 10 11
10 Netherlands 2 9 9 11 12
12 Israel 1 4 4 6 7
15 Russia 1 1 1 2 2
18 China 4 13 19 34
20 South Korea 1 4 7 10
23 Singapore 1 1 2 2
33 India 1 2
37 Saudi Arabia 1 2
Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities 2010, Shanghai Jiao
Tong University.
available at http://www.arwu.org/ARWUStatistics2010.jsp.
2See http://www.arwu.org/aboutARWU.jsp for the rankings and a
discussion of the methodology.

left out.3 It has been criticized for neglecting teaching
and focusing solely on research (which wonderfully
suits our purpose) and a heavy bias towards the sciences
and an inadequate representation of many areas of
humanities where book writing is an indication of
academic scholarship. Still, they are preferred over the
two other major global tables—UK based ‘Times Higher
Education World University Rankings’ and ‘QS World
University Rankings’ (which, till 2009, used to provide
the Times rankings). Those rankings are produced by
commercial organizations, which frequently tinker with
their methodologies so that the top rankings rotate,
creating headlines and stories to sell (see Goodall 2009).
Moreover, these rankings use subjective criteria like
reputational surveys by anonymous academics, which
diminish their attractiveness in the eyes of many experts.
Table 1 gives the performance of some countries in
terms of ARWU rankings for 2010. Tables 2 and 3 show
how China and India, which often get compared with
one another, have fared over the years in these annual
rankings. Our findings and some related issues are:
• In 2010, no Indian university or institute was ranked
among the world’s top 300 universities, IISc Bangalore
was ranked between 301 and 400 and the Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur was ranked
between 401 and 500. India’s top research institution
IISc, which was ranked between 201 and 300 in 2003
and 2004, has since moved down. Number of Indian
universities in this top 500 list fell from 3 to 2 and
India’s overall rank declined from 27 to 33.4
• India takes pride in the IITs, which are frequently cited
as peerless institutions in the world. ARWU has also
created similar league tables for several subject areas. In
the ARWU in Engineering/Technology and Computer
Sciences (2010), no Indian institution ranks among the
top 75 (IISc and IIT Kharagpur were placed among
76–100) but 11 Chinese universities (which comprise
of institutions from People’s Republic of China, Hong
Kong, and Taiwan) rank among the top 75. Recent
expansion (2008–10) in the number of IITs (and Indian
Institutes of Management) is very unlikely to improve
academic research output from these institutions.
• It is hardly surprising that no Indian institution
appears in the ARWU in Economics/Business (2010)
list (China has two in this list). Indian School of
3See Enserink (2007) and Goodall (2009) for a discussion of
these issues.
4Times 2005 rankings placed the Indian Institute of Technology
as 50th, Indian Institute of Management as 84th, and Jawaharlal
Nehru University as 192nd. But no Indian institution appears
among the world’s top 200 in the Times 2010 rankings.
A cademic R esearch 3
Business (Hyderabad), which boasts of a star-studded
list of visiting professors and has resident faculty who
were trained at some of the world’s best universities,
is yet to make its mark in academic research. Indian
Institutes of Management (IIMs), where a vast number
of professors have very weak and sometimes zero
academic research record, have emerged as centres
of teaching and consulting. The recent governmental
policy of granting autonomy to the IIMs (in their
current setting) is very likely to do long lasting damage
to academic research in management areas; mediocrity
will be perpetuated because weak professors have no
incentive to hire talented researchers.
• India is viewed as a global powerhouse in computer
science and information technology. But ARWU in
Computer Science (2010) does not list any Indian
institution in the top 100 but places 13 universities
from China. Top academic researchers in computer
science are unlikely to be found in India.
• ARWU rankings were originally created to find out
‘the gap between Chinese universities and world
class universities, particularly in aspects of academic
or research performance’. Over the years, China has
moved up in the rankings while Indian performance,
already miserable, has further declined (the ARWU
website notes that China and India respectively
have 19.8 and 17.1 per cent of the world population
but 6.8 and a mere 0.4 per cent of world’s top 500
universities). Enserink (2007) noted that France’s poor
showing in the ARWU rankings (just two universities
among the top 100) led to ‘a national debate about
higher education that resulted in a new law...giving
universities more freedom.’ No debate or attempt for
development has taken place in India.
Table 2  Performance of Chinese Universities in Academic
Ranking of World Universities (2003–10)
Year Rank among Top Top Top Top
nations 200 300 400 500
2003 21 1 5 12 19
2004 19 1 6 13 16
2005 19 2 6 15 18
2006 18 3 9 15 19
2007 18 2 11 16 25
2008 18 1 10 16 30
2009 18 1 12 17 30
2010 18 4 13 19 34
Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities 2003–10, available
at http://www.arwu.org/.
Note: Chinese universities include universities and institutes in
People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
4 A cademic R esearch
Table 3  Performance of Indian Universities in Academic
Ranking of World Universities (2003–10)
Year Rank among Top Top Top Top
nations 200 300 400 500
2003 27 0 1 1 3
2004 29 0 1 1 3
2005 33 0 0 1 3
2006 33 0 0 1 2
2007 33 0 0 2 2
2008 32 0 0 2 2
2009 33 0 0 1 2
2010 33 0 0 1 2
Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities 2003–10, available
at http://www.arwu.org/.
What caused this decline (or failure to take-off) in the
ability of Indian institutions to generate high-quality
academic research?
Probable Causes of Poor Performance
Developing and leading top-flight universities is a highly
complex activity that eludes simple descriptions and
easy generalizations. Hence, we begin with a cautious
discussion of several important factors that we believe are
preventing Indian universities and institutes from excelling
in academic research and suggest some possible remedies.
(1) The faculty. Before 1947, most Indian academics
were employed in India. In 2006, by contrast, an
overwhelming majority of top- and medium-level Indian
academics worked in foreign universities. Of course, many
distinguished academics studied abroad, came back, and
built successful careers in independent India. But many
more could have returned.
The reasons behind this migration are complex and
multifarious. Commonly cited causes like poor academic
environment, dearth of academic resources, low salary
(compared to a person’s potential global salary after
purchasing power adjustments; stagnation vis-à-vis
industry salaries), same salary regardless of academic
merit, and dearth of potential collaborators and Ph.D.
(Doctor of Philosophy) students of high academic calibre
need to be carefully examined and appropriately remedied.
There are no plans for luring the faculty back. Instead, it
has become progressively harder for expatriates to return:5
• Since the late 1970s, India does not recognize medical
qualifications acquired in the UK or the USA because
they do not recognize Indian qualifications; this
‘patriotism’ argument raises hurdles for talented doctors
and medical school professors contemplating return.
5See Chatterjea (2004) for a discussion of these issues.
• Only Indian citizens can work for the government
(exceptions are rare), which makes it difficult for
expatriates who have adopted other citizenships to
come back and work at premier universities and
institutes, a majority of which are government owned.
• Returnees used to be exempt from paying Indian taxes
on foreign-sourced income for nine years. Since 2003,
the Indian government suddenly reduced this period to
two years, making it expensive for potential returnees
who have accumulated a nest egg abroad or would
like to supplement a relatively meagre Indian salary
by teaching, doing research, or consulting elsewhere.
Moreover, this jeopardizes tax planning—investors
now have to pay 30 per cent Indian tax.6
Thus, a typical US-based medical/business/law/
engineering school professor will make less than 15 per
cent of his or her existing salary in India and will surrender
lifetime employment for a job that requires retirement at
the age of 62 years. Policies for granting extension are ad-
hoc; a governmental policy of granting extensions on the
basis of academic research talent is yet to evolve.
Let us look at the experience of some other Asian
nations. Japan has long focused on applied as well as
academic research. Although a majority of the students
study in private universities, Japan’s public national
universities (now partially privatized) are its strongest
institutions. At the apex of the system are seven major
research universities (formerly, imperial universities),
which ARWU ranks among the top 200 in the world;
Japanese professors rarely settle abroad these days.
Overall, Japan is ranked third in the ARWU list.
Paradoxically, India is tightening the noose at a time
when other Asian countries are reaching out and taking
active steps to build great universities:
• Realizing that they cannot pay their professors ‘world
market’ salaries, Israel grants them generous leaves
of absence to spend time abroad and even hold
concurrent positions at American and European
universities. Israeli doctoral students get less actual
hours but spend more ‘quality time’ with their
professors and greatly benefit from academic networks
that their mentors maintain with overseas support.
This is intelligent policymaking—basically, others
are subsidizing Israeli universities and helping them
to excel. Israel is ranked 2nd in Asia and 12th in the
overall ARWU list.
6Enacted
in 2003, the Overseas Citizen of India programme grants
certain benefits to people of Indian origin (and their offsprings)
who have become citizens of other nations. However, it is a
‘citizenship’ without the rights to vote, run for constitutional office,
and hold government jobs.

• Top-ranked Asian universities seriously encourage
high-quality research publications and even offer cash
rewards for papers accepted in world class journals.
Some Indian institutions have started doing this.7 Such
incentives can help scholars turn away from chasing
consulting money and lucrative teaching assignments
and focus on high quality academic research.
• The New York Times reported that China wants to
transform ‘its top universities into the world’s best
within a decade’ (28 October 2005). The model is
simple:
‘Recruit top foreign-trained Chinese and Chinese-
American specialists, set them up in well-equipped labs,
surround them with the brightest students and give them
tremendous leeway. In a minority of cases, they receive
American-style pay; in others, they are lured by the cost
of living, generous housing and the laboratories. How
many have come is unclear.’
Singapore and South Korea are strengthening their
universities by making similar efforts.
(2) Doctoral students. A majority of high-quality Indian
students go abroad for their Ph.Ds. The problems with
doctoral education are discussed in a separate entry in
this volume (see ‘Doctoral Education’ by Chatterjea).
(3) Financial resources and research support. It is expensive
to attract, retain, and nurture scholars.8 In the United
States, it typically costs half a million dollars to support
an assistant professor and a million dollars to support a
full professor in laboratory sciences—the costs include
faculty salary, Ph.D. student and post-doctoral researcher
stipends, price of chemicals and samples, cost of machines
and equipments, cost of laboratory space, expenditures for
conference attendance, journal subscriptions, and so on. It
is costly to add buildings, research labs, lecture halls, and
campus facilities for academic work.9 The NewYork Times
story reports that China sharply increased expenditure on
higher education and spent more than Rs 46,000 crore
($10,222 million) on it in 2003.
By contrast, India spent a paltry Rs 1,748.37 crore
($388.5 million) on higher education during 2002–3,
which is less than 5 per cent of the Chinese amount.10
7For example, IIM Ahmedabad pays ‘Rs 5 lakh for research
papers published in frontranking journals’ (see ‘The Cutting
Edge’ in Business Today, 9 October 2010).
8See Cornell University professor Ronald G. Ehrenberg’s work
(2002) for a discussion of different factors that contribute to
rising costs of higher education.
9India spends significant amounts on building faculty and staff
quarters. Such expenses are either absent or form an insignificant
part of the total expenditure of US universities.
10Available at http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2003–04/eb/sbe57.pdf
(accessed on 26 January 2006).
A cademic R esearch 5
Resource-starved Indian institutions need more money. In
the 2009–10 Union Budget, Rs 7,952 crore was allocated
under the heading of Department of Higher Education,
a fraction of which went to directly support academic
research.
A series of stories in a 2006 volume titled Indian
Science Rising: Chemical & Engineering News report that
the government and the private sector have reached
a consensus about strengthening India’s research and
development (R&D) potential by harnessing the talent
of Indian scientists, living in India and abroad, by
providing them with lucrative employment and necessary
infrastructural and other facilities (see Yarnell 2006).
Research institutions and pharmaceutical industries had
shown interest in participating. The central government
had proposed the setting up of a fully autonomous
agency, the National Scientific and Engineering Research
Foundation (NSERF, fashioned after the National
Science Foundation of the USA), for providing financial
support and other help to such ventures. This is a ray
of hope—if these plans materialize, they would spawn
applied research, and subsequently, hopefully, academic
research in the future.
(4) Academic administrative leadership. Selected through
a rigorous screening process, heads of top-ranked US
universities are extraordinarily talented individuals who
typically possess high academic distinctions, leadership
skills, pleasing personalities, fund-raising abilities, strong
prior administrative records, and a long list of other
accomplishments; political appointees are rare. These
qualities are increasingly being sought among the heads of
high-ranked universities in other nations.
By contrast, leaders of Indian institutions lacking in
real talent are exempt from extensive scrutiny, and often
end up being political appointments. Consequently,
academic leaders in leading universities abroad are much
more successful in raising money, and far more likely
to support academic research and seek and retain good
scholars, than their Indian counterparts.
(5) Governing bodies. If you look at the history of
Harvard University, it began under church sponsorship in
1636, came under political control over the next two centuries,
and finally in 1865, the university alumni began electing
members of the governing board (see Harvard University
2011). Eventually, governing bodies of US universities
came to have an overwhelming representation of alumni
members who would like to see their alma maters flourish
because then ‘the value of their degrees will go up’.
Because they have respect for ‘the place and the people’,
they are unlikely to indulge in activities that would hurt
the institutions. Some alumni trustees are nominated
6 A cademic R esearch
while others are voted into office by alumni members.
This is a wonderful combination of democracy and
enlightened self-interest.
By contrast, the boards of trustees in Indian
universities and institutes are often selected in an ad-hoc
manner with little consideration of trustees’ stake in the
institution (for example, Ministry of Human Resource
Development appointed one of India’s most distinguished
business leaders chairman of ITC Limited Mr Y. C.
Deveshwar as chairman of the Board of Governors of IIM
Calcutta; a better decision would have been to request
him to chair the board of a much larger institution, IIT
Delhi, his alma mater). Moreover, heavy interference by
politicians tends to blunt a trustee’s incentives to govern
independently and effectively. As a result, academic
research and reputation of the institution take a beating.
Recent Changes and Some Policy Recommendations
Since the first version of this article was published in
2007, there have been some positive developments. The
Honourable Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has
announced that foreigners can work in Indian educational
institutions. The government is granting funds to many
researchers. A panel headed by Professor N. R. Madhava
Menon has explored ways of granting more autonomy to
higher-education institutions and recommended to the
Ministry of Human Resource Development that the vice-
chancellor, who is a university’s executive head, should
be ‘a person of academic excellence’ (see report in the
Telegraph, Kolkata, dated 10 May 2011).
However, deep problems, as documented in this
article, remain. For a start, we provide the following
recommendations:
• Indian universities have a tremendous shortage of
talented researchers—the nation needs to nurture
existing researchers and attract researchers from
elsewhere.
• Faculty members should be hired on the basis of
academic merit and no other criteria.
• In particular, institutions should not be breeding
grounds and resting places for political supporters.
Whenever that happens, costs and benefits get
misaligned—a political party reaps small benefits but
damage to the society is enormous.
• The power in superior universities rests with faculty
members who have distinguished themselves in
research—this needs to be instituted in India.
• India needs to rethink how the boards and governance
structures of Indian universities and institutes need to
be optimally structured. As the world’s best universities
have shown, alumni members, if properly engaged, can
do an excellent job taking their alma mater forward.
Most of the education bureaucrats that serve on
Indian boards need to go. So should businessmen and
industrialists who serve on boards but have no real ties
to the institution.
• Academic leaders such as vice chancellors and
directors need to be selected from ranks of proven
scholars who would dedicate themselves to taking the
institutions forward in terms of academic research.
Their task is simple: ‘Hire scholars who would raise
the average quality.’ But, it is not easy to implement
this in practice.
• Creation of great universities takes much more than
salary increases. For example, ISB Hyderabad’s
resident faculty members enjoy some of the world’s
highest salaries among business school professors
on a purchasing power adjusted basis—but, their
research output trails far behind that of professors in
the world’s top 20 business schools. Currently, Indian
professors are paid good salaries, but where is the
research and academic output?
• Accountability is needed for money that is currently
given by the government to support research. It is
difficult to ensure that the research is of excellent
quality and wastages and slippages are minimized.
• India has over 50 billionaires and many more wealthy
people. The government can play a broker’s role and
help engage them with academic institutions where
they would provide patronage.
What would it take to change the Indian academic
waste land? Our tables and text illustrate that the existing
model has failed to deliver and complete rethinking is
needed. There are people who have good understanding
of Indian higher education but do not know how to
build great multiproduct research universities. There are
people who know how great universities function but do
not know the Indian situation. There is an urgent need
for leadership that would combine both to build superb
research universities and create a culture of academic
excellence as Sir Asutosh Mookerjee managed to do a
century back.
Arkadev Chatterjea And Satya Priya Moulik
References
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Ehrenberg, Ronald G. 2002. Tuition Rising:Why College Costs So
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Enserink, Martin. 2007. ‘Who Ranks the University Rankers?’
Science, 317: 1026–8.
Ghatak, U.R., S.C. Mukherjee, A.K. Chaudhuri, S.B. Banerjee,
S.N. Bhattacharya, S.P. Ghosh, and M.N. Bagchi. 1976.

Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science: A Century,
Calcutta, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science.
Goodall, Amanda H. 2009. Socrates in the Boardroom:Why
Research Universities Should be Led by Top Scholars, Princeton,
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■ Affirmative Action
The affirmative action (AA) programme in India is
primarily caste based (there is now some affirmative action
for women in local self-governments). The caste system
in India is believed to be over 2500 years old. The ancient
manifestation of the system, the varna system, divided
the population into first four, and later five, hereditary,
endogamous, mutually exclusive, and occupation-specific
groups: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Sudras, and later
Ati-Sudras. The latter did the most menial jobs, were
subjected to complete untouchability, in that even sight
of them was considered polluting, and thus were victims
of highly degrading segregation, discrimination, and
exclusion. Over the years, this system metamorphosed
into the contemporary jati system (also translated into
English as caste), that has the same basic characteristics
as the varna system. However, jatis (estimated to number
between 2000 and 3000) are regional categories and are
not clear subsets of the varnas, thus leading to claims
and counterclaims of varna affiliation and the attendant
status. In addition to the caste system, India is home to
more than 50 million adivasis (indigenous tribes) who are
subjected to extreme deprivation and discrimination.
Even before Independence, the British administration
introduced a policy of AA for the untouchable castes
and adivasis (called the ‘depressed classes’). After
Independence in 1947, the policy of reserving 22.5 per
cent of seats in educational institutions, government
jobs, and electoral seats at all levels was enshrined into
the Indian constitution. The jatis and tribes entitled to
these quotas were listed in a government schedule and
are therefore called scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled
tribes (STs). These are official terms; the term dalit
(meaning oppressed) is often used as a term of pride for
these groups. The reservation programme for SCs–STs is
comparatively less controversial and, being constitutionally
guaranteed, cannot be challenged completely.
View publication stats
A ffirmative A ction 7
Since 1991, a further 27 per cent quota has been
introduced for other low castes (called other backward
classes, or OBCs) that, however, is not constitutionally
guaranteed. The assignment of OBC status to jatis is
fraught with difficulty, given the fluidity of the jati–varna
link. The position of the OBCs in the caste hierarchy
represents a situation of ‘graded inequality’, rather than a
sharp distinction vis-à-vis upper-caste Hindus. Both the
extension of the reservation system to the OBCs as well as
the designation of jatis as OBC have been moves that are
politically highly contentious. OBC lists typically comprise
a range of jatis: some that are very close to SCs–STs in
social and economic position, but also some jatis that are
believed to be much more prosperous. Despite this mixed
composition, latest national data (for instance consumption
expenditure surveys from the National Sample Survey
[NSS]) reveal clear disparities between the OBCs and
upper-caste Hindus in 1999–2000. Also, since 1993, 33 per
cent of seats in local self-governments have been reserved
for women. In addition to the reservation policy, AA in
India also takes the form of a provision for preferential
treatment of SC-ST groups in other government schemes
that are meant for the general population.
The case for a caste-based AA (particularly for
SC-ST groups) is based on the following set of
factors. One, continuing inter-caste disparities in all
spheres: monthly per capita expenditure, educational
attainment, occupational distribution, landownership,
asset ownership, health indicators. There is evidence
to suggest that this is not simply a hangover from the
past, but that inequalities are being perpetuated in
contemporary India. The evidence on trends in monthly
per capita expenditure over the last twenty years (from
the NSS) indicates that the gap between SC-STs and the
‘others’ is not closing. Two, dalits continue to suffer from
a ‘stigmatized ethnic identity’ due to their untouchable
past and there is corresponding social backwardness.
Three, given the objective of equality of opportunity
between castes, AA is needed to provide a ‘level playing
field’. Four, AA is needed to compensate for the
historical wrongs of a system that generated systematic
disparity between caste groups and actively discriminated
against certain castes. It should be noted that unlike
the much more radical Malaysian AA programme, AA
in India does not really aim to rectify the disparities
in wealth ownership that are directly the outcome of
the caste system that prevented the untouchables from
acquiring property. Thus it is a much weaker programme
of compensation than what would be construed fair,
given the magnitude of wealth disparities. Five, there is
evidence to suggest that caste-based discrimination in
labour markets continues in both urban and rural areas,