Experiences and Perceptions of Affirmative Action in Higher Education: a Critical Analysis of Dalit and Non-dalit Women in a Central University

Abstract

Education helps to groom and enhance people’s personalities by inculcating in them a desirable set of knowledge, values, and skills. Higher education makes people specialise in a particular set of knowledge, fields and skills. One of the vital functions of higher education in a society is that it serves the demands of the labour market as it leverages individuals with skills and acts as a ladder to achieve upward social mobility, which enhances one’s status in society, especially for the marginalised sections of the population. Because of its significance in establishing equality among all sections of society, the Indian government implemented an affirmative policy, primarily a reservation for disadvantaged castes. The present research paper aims to understand the experiences and perceptions of Dalit women and non-Dalit women studying in higher education toward affirmative policy. It is an endeavour to analyse the government’s efforts to provide social equality through the means of distributive justice by introducing the policy of protective discrimination. Primary data was collected through qualitative means for which the case study method is used. Twenty-four respondents, twelve Dalit women, and twelve non-Dalit women were selected by a purposive sampling method and analysis was done by coding their responses and applying a narrative analysis technique. Secondary data has been collected and analysed from government reports, newspapers, magazines, articles, etc. to substantiate the data.