The Sidelining of Social Justice by the Neoliberal Political Economy

In a Right to Information (RTI) reply last year, the government informed that around 90% of the faculty positions in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) were held by the general category. The data presented in the Parliament in 2023 showed that in the civil services, the Other Backward Classes (OBC) representation was only 15.92%, and SCs and STs are only 7.65% and 3.80%, which are far below their population in India.

Indian political parties cutting across all ideological orientation have incorporated the idea of social justice in their political discourse. Their understanding of the concept of social justice varies and gives different meaning according to their ideological position. This term has become a political attraction to bring in all vulnerable/discriminated sections like Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), OBC, Women etc., within the framework of social justice politics.

Those who really champion the social justice politics are also shallow in their understanding and over a period made it a political rhetoric than making it a political reality for majority of population in Indian context. This article explores the philosophical basis of social justice in Indian and international context and discusses its relevance and significance in contemporary neoliberal political economy to understand it better for any political engagement for having fair representation.

The politics of social justice demands fair and equitable distribution of resources and opportunities for the benefit of all sections of the population. It believes in moral equality of human beings and further demands equal starting point for all individuals. Social justice becomes more relevant in unequal society, where due to historical reasons; many sections of the population are denied opportunities to participate and denied resources to accumulate, compared to other privileged sections of the society.

The politics of social justice

The outcome of the politics of social justice is not to create an equal society, but an egalitarian society. An egalitarian society believes that all human beings being equal deserve equal opportunity within the society. It strives to reduce inequality in a long run, but not create an absolute equal society. The Socialist or Communist politics insist in equality of output, but social justice politics, within the liberal framework insist on equality of opportunities to reduce inequality. Whatever inequality that emerges after providing initial equality should be tolerated. The policies of affirmative actions emerged all over the world based on this liberal framework of social justice.

Historically, Indian society has witnessed various movements demanding social justice. The Shramanic tradition like Jainism and Buddhism are classical examples, which challenged the hierarchical and discriminatory Brahminical social system, based on the principles of social justice. It challenged the birth based discrimination and exclusion of the majority based on the principle of moral equality of all human beings.

The later religious reformation movements like Sufi and Bhakti tradition also challenged the ritualistic exclusion of majority and glorified the transcendental divine unification based on personal devotion in the form of art, music and other means. All these protest traditions emerged observing the inequality and discrimination that was embedded in the Brahminical Vedic tradition. Even though, they believed in human equality and against any form of discrimination, their focus was more on protecting the dignity of individuals.

Social justice after enlightenment period

The Renaissance period in Europe that started during 14th century played an important role in transforming the earlier feudal ideology of fatalism, towards humanism, the Renaissance ideology. Humanism believed in the human potentiality for transforming based on rationalism. The rationalism and the emerging requirements of capitalist political economy laid the foundation for enlightenment period, where the modern scientific discoveries led to major transformation in the production and increased the profits manifold.

The modern idea of social justice emerged in Europe after witnessing the extreme form of inequality and social evils during the industrial revolution period in Europe. The classical liberal framework believed in individual liberty, as it would enable an individual to realise his potentialities. The physical, mental, emotional and other potentialities can be realised in a free environment, without any interference of the state.

Such free environment in an unequal society will lead to more widening of inequality and might lead towards dissent and revolt. To stop such discontent, the enlightenment philosophers supported limited state intervention for bringing social justice. But the classical liberal framework believed in infallibility of markets and any form of intervention will lead towards instability. But, the frequent failure of markets this period has defied the infallibility of markets and every time, the state intervention saved the market during its failure.

For example, there was a great economic depression during the 1870’s, which threatened the major economic powers of Europe. Between 1875 and 1900, almost whole of Africa was colonised except Ethiopia and Liberia. This provided the required markets, raw material and cheap labour for the emerging capitalist European powers to come out the crisis.

The great depression during the inter-war period is another example to show the weakness of markets managing themselves without state intervention. This resulted in emergence of welfare liberalism after Second World War based on the welfare economics of John Maynard Keynes. The welfare states in Europe post-war developed many affirmative interventionist policies based on the politics of social justice to bring all sections of the society on par to create an egalitarian society.

Social justice in Indian context

In the Indian context, even though the social justice politics has challenged the dominant ideologies historically, it was realised in terms of demand for material equality only in 20th century. Kolhapur, Mysore and Madras presidency were the pioneers in introducing reservations in their respective states based on the principles of social justice. The Constituent Assembly debates show the intensive debate on social justice, which became part of the Indian Constitutional framework after independence.

The Indian Constitution was based on the ideology of positive liberalism, which enabled the state to play an interventionist role to create an egalitarian society. Liberalism believed in individual liberty for realising the potentialities. But in an unequal society, individual liberty will work towards the betterment of the powerful sections, discriminating and ignoring the weaker sections of the population. Thus in positive liberalism, the state plays a positive interventionist role, to create equal opportunities for all section in creating an egalitarian society.

The affirmative actions including the targeted reservations system forms the core policies for implementing social justice in Indian context. Since the caste and gender has been the major axis point of discrimination and exclusion, the affirmative action in the form of reservations majorly included the social discrimination in providing relief for the majority in India. The affirmative action policies all over the world are enabling policies for the excluded sections to be included in the development process.

For example in US, the affirmative action policies insist on fair representation of racial minorities. It did not reserve any specific positions for the racial minorities. Under the Trump regime, the affirmative policies are being slowly discarded in USA. But in Indian case, we included both affirmative policies and reservation policies to ensure social justice. The affirmative policies enable people to participate in the open competition.

The government has introduced many financial schemes for SC, ST, OBC and women to enable them to participate in the competition. But, mere affirmative enabling policies are not enough in Indian context as caste and gender based discrimination are entrenched deep rooted, that the government has to introduce specific targeted intervention in the form of securing places through reservations for the excluded sections of the population. Article 15 and 16 of Indian Constitution ensures prohibition of discrimination and providing equal opportunities in the public sector.

Thus, even though the people are economically empowered, the caste and gender based discrimination does not allow them to equally occupy the positions based on merit in Indian system. For example, a research study conducted by Prof.Thorat and Attewell in 2007 showed the structural discrimination against the Dalits and Muslims compared to upper caste Hindus in Indian private companies.

They had sent an identical resumes to private companies, where the only difference is in the names, which indicated upper caste Hindu, Dalit and Muslim. The call for interview has been more in favour of upper caste Hindus showing that social identity than merit as eligible qualification in Indian context. Thus the constitution makers to make sure of equal and fair representation included reservations for SC and ST, which was later extended to OBC after the Mandal judgment.

Neoliberal political economy

The formal adoption of neoliberal political economy has completely transformed the social justice politics in Indian context. Even though politically, the demand for reservations emerged very strongly after 1990’s, the withdrawal of state has created a precarious situation for vulnerable sections of Indian population. This has led to more identity based political groups demanding share as the state slowly weakened the social justice by privatising the public sector.

The neoliberal political economy, similar to classical political economy, insist on complete non-intervention/withdrawal of state and trust the market to play a significant role in the development process. The market needs free and competitive environment, which is against the politics of social justice, where the state plays a positive interventionist role. But the difference between classical and neoliberal political economy is that in the classical liberalism, the state plays a passive role by not intervening and giving the market complete freedom.

But the neoliberal political economy, which also believes in state non-intervention and the superiority of markets, the state, will play a positive role in creating markets, wherever there are no markets. So, the withdrawal of the state goes along with creating market for the private players in all areas including education, health and other essential services like water, sanitation etc.

As we witness in India, the share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for education and health is hovering around 3-4% and 1-2% from 1990’s without any substantial increase in line with population increase. Further the privatisation of education and health sector has excluded the majority from the benefits of reservations. Around 90% of the labour force is in informal sector, where there are no reservations or any other social security protections.

In the remaining 10% labour force, only around 5-6% is in government sector that are eligible for reservations. The continuing privatisation and not implementing reservations in private sector is defeating the idea of social justice, which we envisaged in Indian constitutional ideology of positive liberalism. In this context, the government introduced the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) reservations, which was in principle against the idea of reservations in Indian Constitution.

The reservations, not being a poverty alleviation programme, are a specific targeted intervention to overcome the structural discrimination embedded in Indian society. Extending reservations solely based on economic criteria, which is not based on structural discrimination, is to weaken the philosophy of reservations and in a longer run discard it.

The EWS category can be addressed through various affirmative action policies in the form of financial assistance than with reservations, which is a specific targeted intervention for structural discrimination. This dilution is in favour of both neoliberal political economy and Hindutva, which doesn’t want any social justice politics to challenge the traditional Varnashrama philosophy.

The attack against reservations reeks of casteism and market based classicism

In spite of implementing reservations for SC/ST from the time of adoption of Indian Constitution and for OBC’s after 1993, we were not able to fill the reserved positions. Still the ‘Group A’ positions at Union level are dominated by upper caste whereas the Dalits are still long way to occupy the higher positions at national and regional levels. Without implementing the policy fully, the attack against reservations reeks of casteism and market based classicism which is against the principles of social justice.

In the present context, the politics of social justice, in spite of being given an important place in political rhetoric, has been sidelined by the neoliberal political economy. According to the study of Picketty and others, the inequality levels are being worse than the pre-independence period, and further there is a class and caste overlapping in this structural inequality.

With 90% of the billionaires belonging to upper caste and 10% to OBC, we are perpetuating the structural hierarchy under the neoliberal political economy. The state withdrawal is visible in government budget as we see in 2025-26 Union budgets, which projected around Rs. 47,000 crores disinvestment.

Moreover, it insisted on more public-private partnerships and establishment of urban challenge fund to increase more privatisation. These actions are further going to reduce the opportunity for the vulnerable sections as no reservations are there in private sector.

While the constitutional framework of social justice is in place, the reality is much different and works towards strengthening the existing social and economic hierarchies under the neoliberal political economy. There needs to be a clear and united political action against the discriminatory neoliberal political economy based on the constitutional framework of social justice to create an egalitarian society as envisaged by our constitutional makers.

Venkatanarayanan S. is Associate Professor, Department of International Studies, Political Science and History at CHRIST University in Bangalore. The opinions expressed are his personal.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.