The Hindu : Discrimination at work

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 11, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Discrimination at work

By Andre Beteille

Legitimate discrimination on the basis of ability and performance is obstructed by the pervasive suspicion that all discrimination, at least in India, is at bottom and by its nature invidious.

DISCRIMINATION IN matters relating to work is a cause for growing concern all over the world. The International Labour Organisation has sought to prohibit it through the adoption of a set of Core Labour Standards. These standards are not always easy to apply in all parts of the world, and they become a source of friction between national and international agencies. National Governments do their best to resist scrutiny by outside bodies while international agencies tend to adopt a self-consciously virtuous attitude towards problems that are complex, not to say intractable.

Discrimination, at work and outside work, is widespread in Indian society. Indeed, discrimination on the basis of caste and gender was the rule rather than the exception in India's traditional hierarchical order. The entire division of labour was caste based and gender based. Though discrimination is now forbidden by the new Constitution and the new laws, many of the old practices continue. This does not mean that there has been no change in attitudes and values among Indians. This change, however, has not been uniform, much depending on the nature of work and on its institutional setting.

Without denying the great harm done to economic and social life by the more odious forms of discrimination, one must be careful not to tar all forms of it with the same brush. For many persons working with international agencies and for NGOs, the very word `discrimination' acts like a red rag to the bull, and such persons often lack the patience and the inclination to distinguish between the practice of discrimination and allegations or suspicions of it.

The Indian experience shows how difficult it is to define, to detect and to regulate discrimination at work. Nothing can be more misconceived than the belief that every form of discrimination is invidious discrimination. Discrimination at work that arises from differences of ability and performance is not invidious discrimination. It is in conformity with the law, not only in India but in every modern society, and without it educational, technological and economic advancement would be impossible. Yet those who are hurt by it are inclined to believe that it is, particularly when they belong to sections of society whose members have been regular victims of invidious discrimination.

It is difficult to see how a modern educational system or a modern occupational system could work without a system of rewards and penalties based on ability and performance. It may well be desirable to place social limits on the rewards of success as well as the penalties of failure. But to award rewards and penalties to all alike, without consideration of ability or performance would be both inefficient and unjust.

In India, the law is against invidious discrimination based on race, caste and gender, but it does not regard all discrimination as invidious or harmful. It has, in fact, extensive provisions for benign or positive discrimination in favour of socially disadvantaged groups such as the Scheduled Tribes, the Scheduled Castes and the Other Backward Classes. These provisions have done some good but have also created resentment. Upper-caste men who have been denied appointment or promotion because of rules favouring the weaker sections feel that the rules themselves are unjust and politically motivated, and that they devalue ability and performance. Lower-caste men and women feel that appointment or promotion does not protect them from informal and insidious discrimination practised against them both in and outside work by their superiors, their peers and even their subordinates.

Discrimination at work takes many different forms in India because work itself is organised very differently from one sector to another. Only a small part of the workforce is deployed in the `organised' sector. Outside that sector, it is difficult to regulate discrimination, or indeed the conditions of work in general, through legislation. In much of the `informal' sector, workers are complicit in violations of the law either because they are unaware of the provisions or because their livelihood depends on such violations. Here invidious discrimination is so widespread as to be taken for granted by both employers and employees.

In the traditional economic order, in the farm and the cottage, discrimination on the basis of caste and gender was in conformity with social norms and not against them: men and women and members of different castes were treated not only differently but also unequally. But that did not mean that those who were viewed as socially inferior could be oppressed and abused without any regard for custom or morality. It should not be forgotten that hierarchical societies have their own codes of conduct, however different those might be from the codes acceptable in democratic societies. The sanctions of the family and the community protected individuals from the abuse of discriminatory rules. Traditional sanctions have become greatly attenuated and the new ones are as yet weak and ineffectual.

A great deal of work in the informal sector today is outside the reach of the law and also detached from the sanctions of the family and the community. Here the problem is not so much with the definition or event the detection of discrimination as with its regulation. Discrimination is open and bare-faced, and in violation of both law and custom. The practice of invidious discrimination here is but a part of the larger practice of illegal and extra-legal activities.

We have to distinguish, first, between legitimate and illegitimate forms of discrimination, and, second, between mild and severe forms of it. Discrimination on grounds of caste and gender, no matter how mild, is illegitimate in the modern workplace. This is not to say that mild forms of invidious discrimination at work are easy to detect or to regulate. But the point to bear in mind is that in the organised sector in India there are sanctions against them and mechanisms for their redress, even though these are by no means foolproof.

While it is easy enough to distinguish in principle between discrimination based on caste and gender and that based on ability and performance, it is extremely difficult to do so in practice. The American experience has shown how easy it is to represent discrimination that is at bottom based on race prejudice or gender bias as being based on ability and performance. Where there are legal sanctions against invidious discrimination, the practice of it has to be established case by case. It is by no means easy to establish in each case whether the complainant suffered because of belonging to a dis-esteemed group or because of poor ability and performance.

It hardly needs to be repeated that gender and caste prejudices are widespread in Indian society. But it does not follow from this that denial of advancement to women or to Dalits is always due to social prejudice and never due to poor performance. In a Central Government office, in a public hospital or in an engineering college it is now often difficult to deny advancement to individuals from the weaker sections even when their performance is consistently below the average. Legitimate discrimination on the basis of ability and performance is obstructed by the pervasive suspicion that all discrimination, at least in India, is at bottom and by its nature invidious. Such an attitude tends to put ability and performance at a discount, and to act in the long run as an impediment to economic and social progress.

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