ABSTRACT
The politics behind such interventions is too significant to be ignored—the decision to extend benefits of reservations and backwardness recognition of Marathas and Jats was taken on the eve of—state legislative elections in the state of Maharashtra in 2014. Indra Sawhney is a critical moment in the shift process as on one hand judicial discourse stops the 10 percent quota for all based on economic disadvantage but on the other hand allows the operation of state lists, which include some dominant groups and are based on non-contemporaneous and outdated data. General theory helps deepen the understanding of Indian substantive equality. Affirmative action policies that solely encompass maldistribution of resources based on purely economic criteria of group identification find no place in equality law. Poverty deprivation is understood through multidimensional substantive equality in Indian discrimination law. Furthermore, the present conception of economic disadvantage is discriminatory, partisan in nature, and exclusive, rendering intersectional disadvantage within general category invisible.
