Equality

Equality means that every person matters equally and deserves a fair chance in life. A person's caste, religion, gender or family income should not decide what they are allowed to become.

Many people think that equality means treating everyone in exactly the same way. That is not what it means. Equality means that no one's future should be fixed in advance by the family they are born into.

Here is a simple example. Imagine two students who are taking the same examination. One of them can see, and the other is blind. If both are given the paper in the same way, the blind student is clearly at a disadvantage. The blind student needs a screen reader and some extra time. Treating the two students differently is what makes them equal. The real question is not whether everyone is treated the same. The real question is whether everyone gets a fair chance.

The Indian Constitution treats every citizen as equal. The same laws apply to all of them. The President of the country and a daily-wage worker stand equal before the law. A great deal of inequality still remains in everyday life. So equality in India is best seen as a goal we keep working towards, not a result we have already achieved. Laws and government schemes move us closer to it. The efforts of ordinary people do the same. At the centre of the whole idea lies dignity. Dignity means being treated as a person who is worthy of respect.

Three simple ideas help to explain equality.

The first idea is equal opportunity. Everyone should get the same chance to develop their talents. People will still grow up different from one another, and that is perfectly fine. A society becomes unfair only when some people cannot take part at all. That happens when they have no good school, no health care or no safe place to live.

The second idea is the difference between natural inequality and social inequality. Some differences between people come from natural ability. Other differences are made by society. Caste is one example, and unfair ideas about the roles of men and women are another. The line between the two kinds is not always clear. People have often called social unfairness natural in order to excuse it. So today we ask a clearer question: does a gap come from the choices a person makes, or from the situation they were born into? We must work to reduce the second kind of gap.

The third idea is dignity. Equality in the end is about treating every person as worthy of respect. When someone is looked down upon because of caste, disability, gender or poverty, that is what inequality feels like in real life.

This topic is asked very often in examinations. The Right to Equality is a Fundamental Right that is made up of five articles (Articles 14 to 18).

• Article 14: Equality before law and equal protection of the laws. It carries two distinct guarantees. "Equality before the law" is a negative idea borrowed from the British rule of law. It means the absence of any special privilege in favour of any person and the equal subjection of all to the ordinary law. "Equal protection of the laws" is a positive idea borrowed from the American constitution. It means equal treatment in equal circumstances and allows reasonable classification. Note that Article 14 is the widest: it protects every person, citizens and foreigners alike, not only citizens.
• Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. It is available to citizens only. Article 15(2) throws open shops, hotels, wells, tanks, roads and other public places. It binds even private individuals. The State may still make special provisions for women and children [Article 15(3)] and for socially and educationally backward classes, SCs and STs [Article 15(4)]. The 93rd Amendment (2005) added Article 15(5) to allow reservation in educational institutions. The 103rd Amendment (2019) added Article 15(6) for the economically weaker sections (EWS), up to 10%.
• Article 16: Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment. Also confined to citizens only. Article 16(4) permits reservation of posts for backward classes inadequately represented in State services. Article 16(6), added by the 103rd Amendment (2019), allows up to 10% reservation for the EWS.
• Article 17: Abolition of untouchability. Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. Enforcing any disability arising out of it is an offence. Article 35 empowers Parliament to fix the punishment. Parliament did so through the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955. That Act was widened and renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 in 1976. This right is enforceable even against private individuals.
• Article 18: Abolition of titles. The ban operates only against the State, which cannot confer any title. The exceptions are military and academic distinctions. National awards such as the Bharat Ratna and the Padma awards are not "titles" and do not violate Article 18. However, the recipient must not use them as a prefix or suffix to their name (settled in Balaji Raghavan v. Union of India, 1996).

There is a simple way to remember the five articles. Article 14 is equality before the law. Article 15 is the ban on discrimination. Article 16 is equal opportunity in jobs. Article 17 is the end of untouchability. Article 18 is the end of titles.

A fair society has to work on three fronts at the same time.

The first front is political equality. It means that every citizen has the same basic rights. These rights include the right to vote and the right to speak freely. The Constitution guarantees them to everyone. On their own, though, they are not enough to make people truly equal.

The second front is social equality. It means giving everyone a basic minimum such as health care, education and food. It also means removing customs that treat some groups unfairly. Only then can people from every group take part on equal terms.

The third front is economic equality. It means reducing the wide gap between the rich and the poor. The most harmful gap is the one that stays fixed from one generation to the next.

The first step is formal equality. A key implication of equality is the absence of special privileges: no group may enjoy advantages denied to others by reason of birth, rank or custom. So formal equality means putting an end to privileges that are protected by law or custom. The Constitution does this when it bans discrimination and abolishes untouchability.

The next step is to accept that people sometimes need different treatment to enjoy equal rights. A ramp for a wheelchair user and maternity leave for a working woman are good examples. This kind of special treatment supports equality. It does not work against it.

The strongest step is affirmative action. In India it takes the form of reservations. The State gives extra support to groups that have been held back for a long time. Reserved seats and scholarships are examples of this support. Some people defend reservations as a fair way to correct old injustices. Others feel that they are unfair to the rest of society. The argument is usually not about the goal because almost everyone agrees on equal opportunity. The real argument is about the method.

Different thinkers explain equality in different ways.

Socialism wants the government to control key areas such as health and education. The goal is to reduce inequality. The Indian thinker Rammanohar Lohia called this idea the Sapta Kranti or the seven struggles.

Marxism says that inequality grows out of the private ownership of important resources. That ownership also gives the owners political power.

Liberalism trusts fair and open competition to share rewards among people. It worries mainly about the kind of inequality that becomes fixed and shuts people out.

Feminism says that the gap between men and women comes from patriarchy. It also comes from confusing two different things: sex and gender. Sex is biological. Gender is a set of roles that society assigns. Because society creates this gap, society can also remove it.