Compensatory Discrimination in Political Representation: A Preliminary Assessment of India's Thirty-Year Experience with Reserved Seats in Legislatures,' Economic and Political Weekly 14(7/8): 437-54 (Annual Number, February 1979).
Abstract
Although Indian Intellectuals, including some eminent social scientists, have passed severe judgments on compensatory discrimination policies, it is only in the last few years that systematic research on their effects has been undertaken. And unfortunately very little of it has touched on the subject of reserved seats in legislatures. For purposes of deciding whether reserved seats should be extended or terminated, the collection and analysis of data about their performance is only a first (though essential) step. The policy decision invoices at least three major sorts of questions beyond the estimation of costs and benefits up-till now. First, once a pattern of costs and benefits is ascertained, there is the question of whether it can he expected to continue in the future. Second, since the goals and dangers of the compensatory discrimination policy are multiple, an evaluation of costs and benefits requires that some kind of weights and priorities be assigned to these goals or dangers. These can be supplied only by a vision of a future society that unites the desirable with the possible. Third, evaluation must be comparative. Acceptance or rejection of the package of benefits and costs believed to be associated with reserved seats must be compared with the costs as well as the benefits anticipated to arise from any alternative that is believed to be preferable.
