Notes: Social Justice and the Marginalised | Social Studies & Pedagogy Paper 2 for CTET & TET Exams - CTET & State TET PDF Download

Introduction

Understanding marginalisation is an easy as well as a complicated concept. In a broad sense, we are all marginalised in some way or the other because we share different ideas, perspectives, personality traits, culture, and so on. When we try to understand marginalisation in its political sense, it carries a different meaning altogether. Margins refer to the area left blank or ignored, like when we write on a note book, some space is left on all sides of the page. This left-out page is called a margin. Similarly, in a society, there are people and groups that are left out from the main stream and pushed or left at the margins in the process of various kinds of development—whether it is education, social, economic, and political reforms. Their participation is made negligible in various sectors. 

Overall, people left aside from the mainstream are called the marginalised. However, the ideas and discourse of marginalisation do not end here; rather, it begins here. It is important to see marginalisation in the framework of diversity, inclusion, and mainstreaming with reference to equality as a right and as a value simultaneously.

Exploring Marginalisation

Have you observed or can think of some marginalised group around you? What language do they speak? What kind of festivals do they celebrate? If we take an example of an adivasi, can you explain who they are and how they live near you? The term ‘adivasi’ means original inhabitants who generally live near or in the forest. ‘Around 8% of India’s population comprises adivasis and many of India’s most important mining and industrial centres are located in adivasi areas—Jamshedpur, Rourkela, Bokaro, and Bhilai among others. Adivasis are particularly numerous in states such as Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and in the north-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura.’ However, it is also important to highlight that they have now migrated to various places and regions across India. We also need to understand that the adivasi is not a homogenous category. The total percentage of adivasis in India is about 8 per cent of the total population.

• All marginalised groups have to face stereotypes. For example, adivasis are presented as people who resist development, education, social change, etc. Their clothing styles, thinking patterns, and way of living are presented in a preconceived notion. You must have attended various school programmes where adivasis are presented as a person in a colourful dress, headgear, and a specific kind of dance. Such preconceived notions and stereotypes mislead new learners and they are stuck with such stereotypes.
• It is also important to understand developmental aspects with reference to adivasis in detail. Adivasis are experts in their surroundings. However, the modern definition of development does not allow adivasis’ lives enter in its domain. The whole idea of development has reduced to infrastructural development with huge buildings and fast life. Continuous intervention in the lives of adivasis has created a conflict zone where Adivasis are being exploited. The argument behind doing so is that the government wants to bring them to the mainstream but this very idea goes against the strength of diversity. ‘A recent survey report by organisations working among adivasis shows that 79 per cent of persons displaced from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand are tribals. Huge tracts of their land have also gone under the waters of hundreds of dams that have been built in independent India.
• Thus, the marginalised sections have been classified on the basis of various criteria such as caste, class, language, race, religion, gender, and so on. It is important to know that all these groups may overlap with each other such as an economically backward person can also be a social outcaste or may belong to the minority language group. One person or a group can also be excluded from active political participation.
• We also need to know that there is no need to mix marginalisation and minorities. There are people who may be a part of the minority but many not be marginalised, such as people of any business house. Here, we must conduct tri-fold discussions about marginalisation. First, what is the process of marginalisation and second, whom are we considering as marginalised and why are many groups marginalised? The existing and evolving theoretical perspective such as Marxism, new classical theory of Economics, among others came up with the discourse of social exclusion.
• The base of a new classical Economic perspective towards and about marginalisation is to view marginalisation from an individual point of view which moves ahead to cultural resistance and individualism. On the other hand, the Marxists’ view believes that marginalisation prevailed due to capitalism. According to Marx, the observed agreement and consensus in society is fake and a forced consensus created by the police, army, or illusion is presented by capitalists. Consequently, many people are left out and gradually become marginalised.
• India also has various kinds of marginalised groups but fails to explain who we are considering as the marginalised or minorities. This ambiguity is still present in the Indian context. There is always confusion about it as we call Muslims as a minority and sometimes as marginalised sections too. Similarly, women are considered as marginalised groups as well. Such confusion leads towards faulty policies and poor implementation of such policies. In this globalised world, we need to understand that a nation like India has failed to fulfil the basic needs of its citizens. Marginalisation cannot be understood from a certificate; rather, new dimensions have to be added so that benefits can be extended to the poor and needy sections. There is a need for a strong monitoring process not only to monitor the benefits, rather to find out and locate people who are actually marginalised.
• People and children begging on signals are not hidden. I, you, and the politicians see them and talk in meetings and conferences but do not do anything to take them out from such situations. We argue that we need a system and individual help will not work effectively and keep waiting for a systemic change. Meanwhile, generations of such people have passed by and lost somewhere in their dark worlds. Policies such as right to education and so on are being celebrated. Such dichotomy always hinders progressive change and we keep changing our stand and arguments for debates in conferences. These people have merely become a group of data collection for researchers.
• Further, we must know that the economic system, social structure, and their networking with each other play a crucial role to understand the whole idea of marginalisation. Understanding these two aspects separately will not help unfold the idea of marginalisation. The combined perspective may take us to the reasonable notion of equality, if not, ideal form of equality.
• The liberal world also imposes a special kind of hierarchy in various forms. One such form is a job or a service, where ‘who gets what’ is somehow pre-decided such as who cannot speak good English will hardly get a job in an established private sector and policies will also promote the same. On the other hand, educational policies argue for education in the mother tongue, and this contradictory stand creates huge unemployment among the educated people.

Analysing Marginalisation

After exploring the ideas and a few important concepts related to marginalisation, we must try to understand reason for their poor situation. One may attribute many reasons for this but availability, accessibility, and approachability are the basic concerns which need to be analysed. These three aspects can be analysed with reference to education, rights, and various kinds of services. There is no proper procedurally institutionalised way, process, or structure to make goods and services available, accessible, and approachable to all. The following dimensions help us to understand further problems and concerns about the marginalised:

1. They have been left at the margins and therefore, have become disadvantageous. 
2. They have to face countless prejudices, biases, and preconceived notions. 
3. They face ignorance and rejection and are treated as if they are not human beings. 
4. They face problems in the name of mainstreaming. 
5. They live in the interiors and all development takes place far away from these places; therefore, they do not get immediate facilitation. 
6. They face extreme poverty which forces them to live in the worst situations. 
7. Governmental schemes do not reach these people and groups.

To have a broad perspective on marginalisation, we can take two examples to elaborate. Let us take the example of Dalit women. Later, in the chapter, we will try to understand the issues and problems of the aforementioned groups along with how can we move ahead to facilitate them to have a dignified social, political, and economic life. 

Dalits

We are a socialist nation which ensures rights and equality for all people through the Constitution. However, on other hand, we are also a liberal nation where a majority of things are left in the hands of the market. The very idea of welfare state was evolved as a safeguard for liberalisation and the state changed its role to ensure and provide fundamental things to people in a welfare state, where education—after being a fundamental right—has become a welfare task of the government.

• In such a situation. it will be tough to provide and ensure equality among people. Dalits can be taken as an example, where one can see a huge gap between policy and practicality. They face problems from hunger to sexual abuse and sometimes, it reaches to the level of death. One can find many examples where Dalits face problem even at their own places, which sometimes work as a push factor for them and they migrate to different places. These problems are economic, social, and political. It is known that a majority of people in the Dalit community is poor without proper jobs. 
• Most of them are still working in unorganised sectors or as agricultural labourers. Some are still engaged as scavengers. At one side, we talk about a progressive nation and on the other hand, we fail to provide needful support to people. Their basic needs are water, food, shelter, and clothing; education comes very late in their lives. All programmes launched in this regard hardly reaches them. Though it is important to highlight that within the Dalit community, those who have reached a higher level are not more concerned about the rest of the poor Dalits and begin considering themselves as a separate category.
• There is a great need to break this gap between Dalits and non-Dalits. Attitudinal change is needed than physical transformation. The mindset needs to be changed than clothes and perspectives need to be changed than only demands. Their isolation is not merely economical; rather it is deeply rooted in the conscious and unconscious nature of social life. The main target needs to be changed and should focus on this conscious and unconscious nature of social life.

Women 

• Women are always treated as second-grade human beings, who are subordinate to men in a social system. Women face problems, or rather, discrimination, in many aspects of life. The family starts this discrimination and there is no end to it. The family is a well-accepted hierarchical system. Though, constitutionally, men and women are equal in all spheres of life, reality is something different. Most decisions of a woman’s life are taken by men, whether they are fathers, husbands, or sons. What a women studies, how she lives, what she wears, are all decided by men. However, there are women who are independent and have understood the importance of being free and therefore, are living a free life because they have a sense of achievement which other women do not have. Gradually, there is change happening but not in the required form. Constitutional assurance also somehow failed to provide equal space and justice.
• It is important to know that women have significantly contributed to agriculture and associated fields; yet, they never had control over economic tools. Economic tools refer to productive assets such as land, technologies, and so on. They face a venerable situation because of the prevailing socio-cultural practices, rituals, and traditions. Further, polices and schemes made for women largely fail to deal family-driven biases and practices.
• It is also interesting to know that property rights have been given to women constitutionally and legally but in reality, women are socialised in such a way that they themselves leave the property or transfer it to the brothers in family. Therefore, there is a great need for social policy. The government has to change his attitude about policy-making and policy implementation.
• Certain steps need to be taken by the government to provide space to women to be equal to men. The state has to ensure its policies which are egalitarian not in terms of theory but also in practice. It must ensure that women also have control over assets and not only income. When we refer to women control, it does not mean that everything needs to be taken back from men and put him in a situation of have nots, rather it means to ensure equal rights and responsibilities towards available assets. As has been said earlier, social policies need to be strengthened. Social polices need to be based on in-depth studies of social context so that the root problem can be addressed. Social policy can be seen as a strong base for women empowerment. 
• Finally, the challenge of the government is to develop an inclusive environment where men and women get equal spaces to lead their lives without discrimination, exploitation, and biases. It is important to keep in mind that this inclusion should not be integration and not mainstreaming. Recognising diversity and working towards a cohesive social system should form the base of governmental policy and practice.
• In this discussion, we have seen Dalits and women as marginalised groups and tried to explore and understand their problems along with a few workable solutions; social policy is one of the strong solutions proposed. 
• There is also a need to implement social justice. Social justice means that the issues are emerged from social lives and economic and political aspects utilise them as per their needs. Therefore, there is a great need to work towards social justice, where everyone gets equal space, whether they are minorities of cities, villages, or ethnic groups.

Does Marginalisation Matter

Yes, marginalisation matters because we all are human beings and are born equally and this character of humanness is fundamental to all of us, which entitles us to be equal, and if nothing like this happen, our self, personality, existence and entire life is threatened. We have to work towards optimism where everyone can breathe freely and not be burdened with any baggage of marginalisation. This optimism to live together motivates us to think and work towards abolishing marginalisation and not the marginalised. Therefore, there is a need to address the issues of marginalisation within the various social categories (religion, caste, classes, family, etc.) to go beyond these categories for a just society. The basic thought behind optimism is humanity.

What Needs to be Done for Social Justice

There are many things which can be done to provide space to exercise one’s rights. In this regard, a few broad ideas are discussed. Many sub-points can be merged within these points.

Promoting Fundamental Rights
The Indian Constitution provides various fundamental rights to all its citizens to live with dignity and peace without any kind of exploitation. These fundamental guidelines have compelled states to make laws for the marginalised. Article 17 of the Constitution states that untouchability has been abolished—what this means is that no one can henceforth prevent Dalits from educating themselves, entering temples, using public facilities, etc. It also means that it is wrong to practice untouchability and that this practice will not be tolerated by the democratic government. In fact, untouchability is a punishable crime now.
There are many other Articles and provisions which provide strength to the marginalised community in India as follows: 

• Article 14: Equality before law Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on the basis of caste, class, religion, etc.
• Article 16: Right to equal opportunity of employment The Constitution of India provides equal space and opportunity to all its citizens to seek justice if something wrong has happened to them or if they have faced any kind of exploitation. It is important to highlight that the judiciary system is very complex and expensive and that majority of people are not able to use the judicial process.

Working toward Social Policy
Social policy is a relatively new term which argues beyond political outlook and orientation of rights. It argues in favour of policies based on social need and for social development with social optimism. All these elements of social policy will take policies to a different level to create a humane and peaceful society, where one is not only entitled to use his/her rights but also actually practise those rights. Examples given in the discussion regarding property rights explain this scenario in an effective way. Policies based on social orientation will be able to deal with various kinds of problems related to policies and their implementation.

Promoting Social Justice by Making Laws Especially for the Marginalised
To promote social justice, there is a great need to frame special laws for marginalisation. As we know, there are common rights given to everyone by the Constitution. However, some laws are needed especially for the marginalised to make them equal to all so that they can equally access common rights. These special provisions such as education, economic and political rights excel their ability to exercise their rights. These special rights would be for a certain duration and after the tenure, there should be a review to scrutinise people who have reached a particular level.