Social Justice in India
An Inquiry into the Conditions of Social Justice in India
[Note: 1. This study of justice concentrates on conditions of social justice in India and will not include general issues of criminal justice; the proposal refers mainly to social justice and popular ideas of justice, as linked to, but distinct from rights. 2. This proposal is built on the insights drawn from the previous research programme on autonomy, and thus while this is a new proposal it is also a follow up on the earlier exercise. Similar to the preceding one, it has research, publications, and dialogue segments. 3. The current research plan has developed through a series of consultations; its enunciation here is thus a product of the dialogic approach of our research work. 4. This statement is divided into three sections – (a) Description of the theme, and its context; (b) approach of the study; (c) activities proposed ] A. The Context and the Theme of Social Justice
1. Though the theme of justice has occupied a high ground in philosophical discussions since the beginning of political philosophy, yet in terms of democracy and popular politics its exact meaning and implications have been nebulous, one of the reasons being the fact that justice in reality is a meeting ground of many ideas, situations, concepts, expectations, mechanisms, and practices. Many things intersect to form the context of social justice – ethical ideas of the people, laws, the evolving nature of claims, and the pattern of collective claim making politics, institutional issues relating to the delivery mechanisms of justice, ideas about rights and entitlements, ideas among the citizens about responsibility of the rulers towards them, plus many situations generating many conditions of justice. All these make the social context of justice, also the social form and social site of justice. By social justice we therefore indicate as a beginning: (i) social context of justice, (ii) social content of justice, and (iii) social sites of
[Note: 1. This study of justice concentrates on conditions of social justice in India and will not include general issues of criminal justice; the proposal refers mainly to social justice and popular ideas of justice, as linked to, but distinct from rights. 2. This proposal is built on the insights drawn from the previous research programme on autonomy, and thus while this is a new proposal it is also a follow up on the earlier exercise. Similar to the preceding one, it has research, publications, and dialogue segments. 3. The current research plan has developed through a series of consultations; its enunciation here is thus a product of the dialogic approach of our research work. 4. This statement is divided into three sections – (a) Description of the theme, and its context; (b) approach of the study; (c) activities proposed ] A. The Context and the Theme of Social Justice
1. Though the theme of justice has occupied a high ground in philosophical discussions since the beginning of political philosophy, yet in terms of democracy and popular politics its exact meaning and implications have been nebulous, one of the reasons being the fact that justice in reality is a meeting ground of many ideas, situations, concepts, expectations, mechanisms, and practices. Many things intersect to form the context of social justice – ethical ideas of the people, laws, the evolving nature of claims, and the pattern of collective claim making politics, institutional issues relating to the delivery mechanisms of justice, ideas about rights and entitlements, ideas among the citizens about responsibility of the rulers towards them, plus many situations generating many conditions of justice. All these make the social context of justice, also the social form and social site of justice. By social justice we therefore indicate as a beginning: (i) social context of justice, (ii) social content of justice, and (iii) social sites of