Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2025

Abstract

In modern constitutional democracies, achieving equality has long been a challenge. In recent years, theorists have focused on understanding the meaning of discrimination and determining when and how discrimination becomes problematic. One critical issue that has long animated discussions on both the general guarantee of equality and the specific goals of anti-discrimination law is the relationship between individuals and groups. If a constitutional order aims to take equality seriously, how should it address the experiences of specific groups historically subjected to discrimination? Indeed, questions of equality and discrimination often converge around the issue of affirmative action, sometimes at the expense of a deeper understanding of discrimination itself.

This Article studies the evolution of reservations in India. It argues that the reservations scheme has, over time, come to embody a distinct kind of formalism, namely caste formalism. To understand the emergence and implications of caste formalism requires attending to the development of legal doctrine, the forms of sociological change and political mobilization, and the nature of identity and citizenship.

Disciplines

Comparative and Foreign Law | Law | Law and Politics

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