Discrimination as defined by Kenneth Arrow is "the valuation in the market place of personal characteristics of the worker that are unrelated to worker productivity." “Personal characteristics” can be physical features such as sex or race, or other characteristics such as a person's religion, caste, or national origin.
The evolution of employment discrimination
Discrimination, of which employment discrimination is a part, has always existed. In nearly every culture and every known time period, some form of discrimination is, or has been present. Discrimination in the workplace stems naturally from this broad aspect of discrimination in general. The fight against discrimination in various forms in India started largely in 1950, when India achieved independence and strove to create a constitution which would hold equally in the eyes of society and law huge numbers of internal cultures and a vast multitude of religious and socio cultural practices.
Treatment of locals by British settlers in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Indian history has a plethora of examples of such discrimination including the treatment of Indian natives of a multitude of different kinds of religions, ethnic groups and local traditions by the British settlers in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this time period, the Indian market was exploited for colonial benefit, Indian economic practices were adversely affected, and in most cases even shut down. The giant companies all had British heads of departments and the higher echelons of power were decidedly British, with the Indian locals being delegated to manual labor and positions of low importance. A “white” worker was typically paid far more than an individual of Indian ancestry.
Current situation:
Following independence, an Indian constitution was drafted in 1950 wherein the right to equality was maintained as one of the most fundamental and essential of basic guarantees provided by the Indian constitution. Laws against employment discrimination were enacted in Article 15, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, or any of them. This right can be enforced against the State as well as private individuals, with regard to free access to places of public entertainment or places of public resort maintained partly or wholly out of State funds and Article 16, which guarantees in matters of public employment and prevents the State from discriminating against anyone in matters of employment on the grounds, but once again only on account of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, and place of residence.
However, it is worthy of note that there are no precedents in the Indian constitution for many of the newer forms of discrimination such as sexual orientation (homosexuality was banned in India until recently), transvestitism and age as well as medical health or physical appearance (disabilities). It may be beneficial for the constitution to be amended to include articles pertaining to these newer forms of workplace discrimination that have pervaded not only India, but the majority of civilized nations in the world.
Women in the Indian workplace
Another outspoken example is the traditional stereotype of women in Indian history, where women were generally regarded as inferior, a class of humans reserved for wifehood, which typically included kitchen work and mothering. Women were also disallowed from any kind of labor, management or other kind of job except those that were traditionally handled by women such as nursing.
Current Situation:
In 1997, the supreme court of India, in a landmark judgment, took a strong stand against discrimination against women in the workplace. Furthermore, The Court also laid down detailed guidelines for prevention and redress of grievances. The National Commission for Women subsequently elaborated these guidelines into a Code of Conduct for employers. One of the most famous female business success stories is the Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad. In 2006, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who started Biocon - one of India's first biotech companies, was rated India's richest woman. Lalita D. Gupte and Kalpana Morparia were the only businesswomen in India who made the list of the Forbes World's Most Powerful Women in 2006. Gupte ran India's second-largest bank, ICICI Bank, until October 2006, and Morparia is the CEO of JPMorgan India.
There is also the case of Kiran Bedi, destined to be one of India’s first women police commissioners, but passed over for Yudhvir Singh Dadwal, a male officer, and her junior. Kiran Bedi was an exemplary social worker and a notable Indian Police Service officer, now retired. In spite of having received a Magsaysay award, (Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize) and numerous other awards, Kiran Bedi hit the glass ceiling in December 2007. This is a clear and extremely high profile example of employment discrimination against women, where a superior female officer is passed over for a more junior male officer.
It is also commendable that Sonia Gandhi has achieved such a high position of power, whilst being a woman. Whilst articles 14-17 do pertain to women and their opportunities in economic organizations, there is no specific law for women, which may need to be corrected, for Indian culture has always been chauvinistically inclined, and the status of women in Indian companies is not very encouraging, for though the numbers of Indian working women is underestimated, it is almost universally acknowledged that the higher paid jobs are generally held by men, though there are exceptions.
The rise of International Ageism
Discrimination based on the age of an employee or job applicant is also considered a form of employment discrimination, and various different steps have been taken to ensure that employers do not promote or hire only individuals that are old or young. According to the head of the Trades Union Congress, Ageism has become the most common form of unfair discrimination in the workplace. Many employers are all for an early retirement of older employees who are unused to, and find it hard to wrap their heads around modern technology. General secretary Brendan Barber said employers should fully use older staff, while the government should give older workers a choice about how and when they retire.
Ageist practices may also adversely affect youngsters, where younger applicants are passed over due to their employers prejudice against youth, who are unfairly deemed to be unreliable and inexperienced despite their oftentimes impressive mental faculties.
Many nations have laws against ageism such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), which prohibits employment discrimination against individuals who are 40 years of age or older in the USA, but no laws against ageism currently exist in India.
Conclusion
It is evident that forms of discrimination in workplaces throughout the world have always existed, and old discriminatory ideas are morphing into newer issues such as transgender and sexual orientation controversies, ageist practices and medical health based discrimination.
Possible solutions include the passing of new laws and edicts, however a fundamental aspect of education needs to be changed or preserved to make sure every individual and future company “boss” or managing staff member is provided with an extremely open minded and universal education without any traditional forms of bigotry. This issue can only end with the mending of cultural, social or other kinds of dislike for specific homogenous groups, genders or other kinds of people.
Bibliography:
Basu 2003- pp 133-134
Basu 1993, pp. 90–91
Kalyani Menon-Sen, (2001). "Women in India: How Free? How Equal?". United Nations. Archived from on 2006-09-11. Retrieved 2006-12-24
. .
Advani, Abhishek (17 November 2009). . Forbes.
by
lightdragonx (student)
