Other Backward Classes and the politics of reservations in India: Past and present

Abstract

This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project Addressing group-based inequalities.

The impact of affirmative action in India and the United States: A systematic literature review

“…In India, AA policies have been adopted to address inequalities originating from the caste system that stratifies the Hindu population (accounting for 79.8 per cent of the total population, according to the 2011 census). While caste is not unique to Hinduism, and similar structures exist within India's sizeable religious minority populations-predominantly Muslims (14.2 per cent), Christians (2.3 per cent), and Sikhs (1.7 per cent)-their consideration in the overall caste structure has been an issue of contention (Ali 2012;Hasan 2022). In addition to the caste system, 8.6 per cent of the population (according to the 2011 census) belong to Indigenous tribal communities.…”