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| Published: August 17, 2024
Exploring the Experiences of Inequality by the Ethnic Groups from the Reserved Category in Higher Education
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DIP: 18.01.113.20241203
DOI: 18.01.113.20241203
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to examine the educational inequality with relation to reservation policy for ethnic groups within the Scheduled Tribe category in Siliguri Sub-Division. Existing scholarly writings have focused on reservation policy as an “inclusive policy” for historically marginalized groups; but, in reality, reservation in the field of education has also created new social identities, like OBC, SC, ST and so on, based on one’s caste/tribe/class certificates. The new identities come with certain privileges and those who benefit use them as a means to social and economic development and social mobility. However, belonging to a privileged identity doesn’t guarantee the equal distribution of resources to all. This can be established by examining the disproportionate participation of the “reserved categories” in education and employment. Despite the policy and practice of protective discrimination for decades, a large section of the Indian population remains marginalized and even the “reserved categories” are unequally placed to take advantage of reservation. The participation rate in higher education and employment for reserved categories has shown some improvements over the decades but in some recent studies it has been found that some sections of these reserved categories manipulate their social network and resources to lobby for benefits, keeping the ones without “social capital” behind, and this has resulted in new inequalities within the reserved categories. This article looks at how the Adivasis are subjected to educational inequality as compared to other ethnic groups in the region of North Bengal. Based on the primary data, the present paper aims to explore the grounds of academic challenges and the areas of discrimination faced by the ethnic groups within the reserved category. The question of who participates and why will also be dealt with.
Keywords
Reservation, Caste, Inequality, Identity, Reserved Categories, Social Capital
This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2024, Gupta, P.
Received: July 01, 2024; Revision Received: August 13, 2024; Accepted: August 17, 2024
Article Overview
ISSN 2348-5396
ISSN 2349-3429
18.01.113.20241203
18.01.113.20241203
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Published in Volume 12, Issue 3, July-September, 2024