Revisiting Reservation: A Tool For Social Upliftment Or Political Strategy?
- IJLLR Journal
- May 1
- 2 min read
Abhay Jha, Bennett University
“Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy.”
— Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Constituent Assembly Debates, 1949
In the vast constitutional landscape of India, few provisions have oscillated so violently between moral grandeur and political manipulation as the policy of reservation. Conceived as a social justice instrument to dismantle historically entrenched caste hierarchies and ensure the substantive participation of the most marginalised, the reservation policy has traversed a complex trajectory. It has evolved from a principled attempt at affirmative action into a political commodity frequently exchanged for electoral dividends. The central question that this essay explores is whether reservation, as it exists and operates today, continues to function as a legitimate tool of social upliftment—or whether it has metamorphosed into a political strategy, distanced from its ethical roots. Through an interdisciplinary lens spanning constitutional law, social theory, political practice, and judicial interventions, this essay argues that while reservation remains a constitutionally indispensable corrective, its over-politicisation risks diluting its emancipatory core.
Reservation, at its conception, was rooted in the philosophy of distributive justice. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the principal architect of the Indian Constitution, consistently stressed that political democracy must be complemented by social and economic democracy. Formal equality, in his view, was insufficient to address the deep inequities borne from centuries of caste oppression. In his speech to the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949, Ambedkar warned of the contradiction between political equality and social inequality, stating that “those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy” unless the contradiction is resolved. The Constitution, accordingly, embedded provisions such as Articles 15(4), 16(4), and 46 to ensure that the State may undertake affirmative action1 for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes. These provisions are not mere policy options— they represent a normative commitment to substantive equality.
