Policy Issues

Equal Opportunity Commission

An Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) will soon roll up shutters to institutionalize affirmative action in the private sector and tackle all stubborn inequalities in economic activity faced by minorities across the country – ranging from sexual to religious minorities.

“It will cover all who think they are being denied equal opportunity due to their minority status,” says MN Madhava Menon who was assigned to head an expert group to determine the structure and functions of the EOC.

The EOC is expected to cover all private employers, state and local governments, and education institutions that employ a sizable number of individuals. Any discrimination based on sex or marital status (this includes family status, responsibility for dependants, sexual orientation and gender); colour or race (this includes ethnic or national origin or nationality); disability; religious or political beliefs, or trade union affiliation; other unjustifiable factors, for example language difficulties or age, will be examined by the panel. Individuals and groups can approach the panel for remedial action.

The Commission may make it mandatory for industrial houses and corporates to ensure diversity of employees from all religions, castes and other sections to get government contracts and support. “This will prove to be a better way to ensure affirmative in private sector without forcing job reservations,” says Menon. The Commission’s thrust will be to ensure that economic opportunity comes to all sections of society.

Menon says his first task will be to study EOCs functioning in other countries, especially the US and the UK, and see how best practices can be employed in the Indian situation. The Commission is expected to have constitutional powers, so that its directions are binding on all, including the private sector and the economic ministries.

“This is not just about addressing minority Muslim issues. People from areas like the North–East and islands like Lakshdweep can rest assured that they will not be discriminated against due to their geographical remoteness,” says Menon.

Prof Javeed Alam, Prof Satish Deshpande, Prof Yogendra Yadav and Prof. Gopal Guru are members of the task force. The Government has also set up an expert group that will recommend an appropriate diversity index in living, education and work spaces. This group will have Prof. Amitabh Kundu as chairman and Prof. Sugata Marjit, Prof. Md. Abdul Kalam, Dr. Ashwini Deshpande and Dr. Hasib Drabu as members

Source: Shafi Rahman. Commission set up to tackle inequality, http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?
ID=IEH20070906140036&Page=H&Headline=Commission+set+up+to+tackle+inequality&Title=
Top+Stories&Topic=0 7 September 2007

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Comment

In an effort to put on the fast track implementation of Sachar Committee recommendations, the Government has decided to set up an expert group to look into grievances regarding alleged discrimination against Muslims. The five-member committee, to be headed by eminent jurist N R Madhav Menon, will be under the Equal Opportunities Commission, announced last week by the Government as part of the Action Taken Report on the Sachar Committee recommendations. The Menon Committee will draft a charter for the Commission and legislative framework for the Commission.

Interestingly enough reactions from some media savvy Indian Muslims have been cynical of the Government’s latest move. The move to setup this commission is accompanied by another equally strange decision by the Government to issue guidelines on recruiting Muslims for Government jobs in Muslim majority areas.

Offstumped compares and contrasts the Government ’s move to setup a EOC with similar commissions that has been around in the United States and other countries. The popular definition of Equal Opportunity is an approach intended to provide a certain social environment in which people are not excluded from the activities of society, such as education, employment, or health care, on the basis of immutable traits.

So what do we mean by immutable traits? race, age, or disability?

Note there is no reference to religion.  Now the Equal Opportunity Commission in the U.S. came about during the JFK regime primarily to enable bringing suit on behalf of alleged victims of discrimination against private employers primarily on account of race, age and disability. A similar government body in Belgium and UK have gender discrimination and racial discrimination on their charter but not so much so religion. The Australian commission has a slightly broader charter with aspects like pregnancy and marital status.

In sharp contrast the Indian Government’s move to specifically moot the setting up of such a commission in the context of alleged discrimination against a specific religion raises questions on what kind of Equal Opportunity the government is aspiring to achieve.

Now there is an interesting angle to the Equal Opportunity debate in contrast to Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is about factoring one’s identity (be it race, gender, or in the Indian context caste, religion) and determining if past discrimination was limiting present participation. Now Equal Opportunity is really about preventing present discrimination by ensuring that differences are purposefully minimized and policies such as hiring don’t take into consideration race, gender or in the Indian context religion.

If the Government’s recent advisories on hiring more Muslims in Muslim majority areas is anything to go by it appears that this distinction is blurring.

So thanks to the UPA we are now headed towards communal Affirmative Action in the name of Equal Opportunity. But for the BJP there seems to be no political challenge to this perverse interpretation of Equal Opportunity.

Bottomline: With elections in the air the politics of Social Justice and its underlying Culture of Entitlement have taken a decisively communal tone. To moot the need for a Commission in the context of sops for a specific religious community means this is neither about Equal Opportunity nor about Inclusion. It will further perpetuate the Ghetto.

Source: Yossarin. Sachar Fallout - Commission for Equal Opportunity Communalism?
September 8th, 2007.
http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2007/09/08/now-a-commission-for-equal-
opportunity-communalism/#comments.

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The new aviation policy

Ananth Krishnan of the Hindu (see below) reports on positive developments for air travelers in and to India as theoretical distinctions made by disability scholars find their way into public and governmental discourse.

In the ongoing controversy over civil air regulations in India the definition of disability has been somewhat clarified. Distinguishing between permanent disability and illness, the regulations begin to extricate themselves from the Medical Model of Disability. In so doing they provide clarity for air transport providers while capturing distinctions in passenger functionality relevant to air travel.

Such campaigns for human rights as C. Mahesh, Rajiv Raman, the Community–Based Rehabilitation Forum and Vidyasagar are an ongoing necessity. Often they attract censure when they appear to raise the level of conflict beyond "polite" levels of acquiescence. Unjust regulations, inadequate infrastructure, preemptory expulsion from aircraft, or forced sedation will simply never be tolerated by the community of persons with disabilities.

However, the worldwide disability community now hopes that, with an inkling of the positive social benefit available in adopting the Social Model of Disability as a basis for policy, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation will affirmatively pursue policy that enables the airline industry to profit from the untapped financial resources of travelers with disabilities to the mutual benefit of that community and the tourism industry.

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Revisions made by Directorate General of Civil Aviation

Following objections from disabled rights groups, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has revised the civil aviation requirements for disabled passengers that were put into effect on August 15.

Disabled rights organisations had voiced their protest against the implementation of the guidelines stating that they were not clear enough in their definition of disability. The requirements also made it necessary for disabled passengers to be accompanied by escorts. The disabled rights groups claimed this was discriminatory. The revised requirements define a disabled person or a person with reduced disability as “any person whose mobility when using transport is reduced due to physical disability (sensory or locomotor, permanent or temporary), intellectual disability or impairment, or any other cause of disability, or age, and whose situation needs appropriate attention.”

The requirements also state that airlines “shall not insist for the presence of an escort,” acknowledging that “many persons with disabilities do not require constant assistance for their activities.” If a passenger declares “independence in feeding, communication with reasonable accommodation, toileting and personal needs,” he or she will not have to travel with an escort.

Welcome relief: “The revised guideline is a welcome relief,” C. Mahesh, advocacy coordinator of the Community–Based Rehabilitation Forum told The Hindu on Thursday. “The earlier version was draconian and would have greatly hampered independent air travel for persons with disabilities.”

Mr. Mahesh said that the earlier requirements had not made a distinction between disabled passengers and those with a medical condition. “Thankfully, this has been done away with,” he said. “This distinction is very important because not all disabled persons have a medical condition. Disability is not an illness but a condition that is more or less permanent in nature.”

Mr. Mahesh added that the DGCA had written to the disabled rights groups for feedback on the revisions. The revised requirements will come into effect on October 1. The issue of aviation requirements for disabled passengers has come under the spotlight following the prevention of Rajiv Rajan, a cerebral palsy patient, from boarding an Air Sahara flight in Chennai on June 18 for failing to produce a medical certificate. Mr. Rajan was also forced to take a sedative pill before boarding a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to Chennai two years ago.

According to the new requirements, airlines will no longer have the authority to take such steps. Disabled passengers who require assistance only in embarking or disembarking, or needing “reasonable accommodation” in flights, cannot be asked by airlines to produce medical certificates.

Right to travel: For the disabled rights groups, the revisions are a welcome measure. Mr. Rajan, also an activist with the disabled rights non-governmental organisation Vidyasagar, told The Hindu that the earlier requirements, in particular the demand for escorts, infringed on a disabled person’s right to travel. “If the August 15 draft were to come into effect, it would affect my right to movement,” he said.“I travel at least three times a month, so it is very difficult for me to find an escort on my own. It is a violation of my right to be independent.”

Source: Ananth Krishnan. Aviation norms for disabled passengers revised. The Hindu, 7 September 2007.

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