Reimagining EWS with justice and equity

A truly just EWS policy must transcend bureaucratic checklists. It must reflect India's lived realities—rural, female, and marginalized—and be rooted in data, not assumptions.

- DHARMENDRA SINGH RATHORE

Justice and equality are not ceremonial ideals—they are the living commitments of our Constitution. These principles, born of the freedom struggle, are enshrined in the Preamble and realized through the fundamental rights and directive principles aimed at dismantling social hierarchies. But when public policy fails to reflect India's complex social fabric, these constitutional promises ring hollow. The current framework of the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota exemplifies such a failure.

At first glance, the EWS policy appears to extend opportunity to the economically vulnerable among the so-called "unreserved" categories. Yet, it rests on a mistaken notion of equality—one that treats unequals the same. As Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and India's judiciary have long argued, substantive equality requires acknowledging historical disadvantage and unequal starting points. The EWS model, as it stands, reinforces inequality rather than correcting it.

A LEGACY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE BY CONGRESS India's affirmative action journey began with Pt. Nehru, who introduced reservations for SCs and STs in 1950. The Kalelkar Commission (1953) constituted by Pt. Nehru expanded this vision to OBCs. In a landmark speech in Parliament on 6 September 1990, Rajiv Gandhi passionately supported SEBC reservations as a necessary instrument of justice—while also calling for support to the poor and vulnerable in the "general" category, especially farmers, women, and minorities.