Orient BlackSwan

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This book discusses the various forms of social and economic exclusion (discrimination and marginalisation) that persist in contemporary India, and how they may be remedied.

It argues that a welfare state can be created by securing social, economic and political justice for the socially and educationally backward classes of citizens.

It argues that inclusive growth and human development can be achived only by ensuring equality of status and opportunity for the vulnerable sections of society.

It suggests affirmative action/positive discrimination—reservation of seats in education institutuions and reservation in jobs—that may be adopted to build a more inclusive society.

This proposition is examined with reference to nine excluded social categories—Dalits, Adivasis, subalterns, religious and linguistic minorities, women, migrants, the poor, and the disabled.

T. K. Oommen is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Introduction : From Social Citizenship to Social Inclusion

1. Exclusion/Inclusion in Colonial India: Ideological Predilections and Conceptual Confusions

2. Dalits: Congenital Victims of Attributed Low Ritual Status in Caste Hierarchy

3. Adivasis: Denial of Territorial Autonomy and Cultural Marginalization

4. Other Backward Classes: Partial Exclusion Leading to Status Incongruence

5. Religious Minorities: Inclusion Which Undermines Identity and Exclusion Which Imperils Equity

6. Linguistic Minorities: Marginalisation in the Process of Building the `Nation-State’

7. Inclusion of Women: Distinctive Physiology or Persisting Patriarchy?

8. Towards a Category-wise Approach to the Inclusion of the Excluded

9. The Poor: Inclusion through the Shifting Poverty Line?

10. The Disabled: Inclusion sans Dignity?

11. Refugees, Foreigners, Outsiders and North-East India: Need for Differing Approaches for Social Inclusion

Release Date: 13-01-2015 Venue: India International Centre, New Delhi