Development of SCs and STs in Globalised World: Legal Issues and Livelihood Challenges

I am bit excited to write this prologue on a subtle subject which is socially relevant and at the same time controversial in nature because number of issues are associated with its application. I should also admit my little bit of hesitation in the first step as this is my first attempt to assimilate and arrange papers in a collection on an important subjects contributed by different Academicians, Researchers, Teachers, Policy Makers and Writers. This cannot be possible without the guidance of my mentor Prof. Jayanta Mete. We live in a free country and this freedom is a gift of democracy to us. Our constitution gives us the right to freedom and most importantly to exercise this freedom in an equitable manner. At the same time it is incumbent on the part of the state to ensure that equality prevails in all sections of the society. However in today’s time one of the major roadblocks to this equality is the Reservation System. India being a developing nation is currently facing many challenges and the reservation system being one of them. The biggest question that lies in front of us is whether implementing this reservation system has really helped the downtrodden? The current scenario clearly depicts that the ‘lower’ castes are still discriminated in their daily lives. To uproot casteism it is important that we fight the reservation system which alone will lead us to development, competency, equality and unity.…