Reservation policy or the policies of affirmative action or preferential treatment and compensatory justice are one of the many tools adopted to promote positive equality.

What was the idea envisaged by the constitution regarding the idea of reservation as a tool of social justice :-

• The policy of reservation was a measure for the emancipation of the socially and economically backward people of the nation known as Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and the hugely debated Other Backward Classes (OBC).
• It was conceived and advocated not as merely a tool for allocation of few seats or a percentage based quota, which it was in fact, but a mission to evolve a strong and powerful nation based on social harmony wherein every citizen of the nation, irrespective of caste, creed, religion, sex etc. could have an open, impartial and abundant opportunity.
• The policy is often explained as positive or protective or compensatory discrimination in favour of the backward classes for the purpose of mitigating inequalities and ensuring justice.
• Compensatory justice aims at providing counter-balancing benefits to those individuals who have been wrongfully injured/ deprived in the past so as to bring them up to the level of wealth and welfare which they would have had if they had not been disadvantaged.
• The three concepts, that of equality, individual and group, are central to the debate on reservations.

What has been the shift regarding the idea of reservation over the years :-

• Unlike in the late Sixties and again in the late Eighties, when the reservation discourse originated in a deep sense of unfairness of the social system, today’s reservation discourse draws its strength from unfair development policies.
• Reservation is increasingly seen as a remedy for the adverse effects of ill-thought out development policies.
  • In both Gujarat and Maharashtra, in spite of their economies being relatively better, three things have been worrying the people i.e.., acute agrarian distress, stagnation in employment growth and distortions in the development trajectory. Hence even forward and dominant castes have been demanding reservation
• It is seen as against upper castes:-
  • Reservation is also called ‘Discrimination in Reverse’ or Reverse Discrimination. This terminology connotes that reservation, which works as a protection to the reserved categories i.e. scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes, acts as a reverse discrimination against the upper castes.
• Reservation topic is being misused:-
  • For political parties reservation discourse is convenient because it allows them to keep subscribing to the consensus over economic policies, avoiding a critical approach to the root causes of the problem.
• Now economic backwardness is considered as demand for reservation:-
  • For the agitators, reservation appears as a more immediate remedy compared to long-term structural repair and reform.
  • Social backwardness was the prime indicator earlier,educational backwardness the secondary indicator and economic disadvantage the third and probably only a concomitant indicator.
  • But arguments in favour of privileging economic backwardness continue to be aired forcefully. The formula propounded by former leaders to diffuse the controversy included 10 per cent quota for the “poor” from other communities and this idea has received much traction of late.
  • Increasingly, claims for OBC reservation have come to stand on the logic of contemporary economic backwardness more than backwardness shaped by traditional social injustice. Both in the Patel and Maratha agitations, the central anxiety has been about current economic tribulations. Thus, a claim for reservation on grounds of economic backwardness is seen as justifiable.
• Political strength:-
  • The more effective justification for claiming reservation is the logic of political strength.
  • In Karnataka, the Lingayat demand for reservation was declined by commissions appointed to determine backwardness, the decision ultimately took place considering the clout the community enjoys in the state. 
• The post-Mandal demands for reservations often reverberate with the politics of the dominant castes in various states. This development has altered the context and texture of the reservation debate.
• The new logic of reservation revolves around the question of how much to whom:
  • Questions of the share of concerned communities in the population, extent of reservation and division of reserved seats among different communities occupy the central space in debates.
• On the extent of reservation, a growing political consensus appears to be shaping that the 50 per cent limit set by the court need not be upheld in practice. The reason is that reservation is a right of groups to a proportional share, rather than an enabling provision to make way for equal opportunity.