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Can Discrimination be ever positive?

© Prof. Hemant Joshi

Very rarely we muster courage to go against the tide. Anyone with a little sense of equality and justice would agree that for long the world had been unequally divided between men and women. The current awareness of gender based discrimination has led to the reversal of the process. Recently, there was a workshop on Reporting in culturally diverse environment that was organised by commonwealth fund. I was surprised to find that all participating reporters in that seminar were women. However, they had invited a few male journalist and sociologist as speakers in this workshop.

I thought that the bias against gender needs to be removed from the psyche of both men and women and the workshops and seminars on gander issues must have participation of an equal number of both sexes. But what transpired, here, was even worst as the issue of cultural diversity was highjacked by the subjective psyche of our women colleagues who were asked to organise the workshop. It is good to promote women folk, but the issues like cultural diversity, health (unless it is specifically addressing a particular gender), education, etc should be taken more seriously. To hold a workshop in such issues with a positive agenda of gender would be falling in the trap of dominant ideology.

What was even more surprising for me was the fact that the organising ladies knew what they were doing. When I raised that question to them in an informal chat they told me that positive discrimination was the key to understand their behaviour. Well, I have heard of this phrase many a time but had understood its real meaning only then. They may be they having a point. When I tried to analyse their response, I wondered as to how any discrimination could be positive. By doing so we are only reinforcing discrimination, though this time to set the injustice right, instead of eliminating it. We must understand that one kind of injustice does not need another kind of injustice as its response. What has made gender as an issue is the unhealthy male psyche and its response should be healthier. In my opinion, equal opportunity is a better term then positive discrimination, which responds to all kinds of discrimination against gender, race, colour, etc with a clear understanding of equality and justice.

This is one of the issues that need to be debated. I have just opened up the debate and I would ask our friends, the readers to take it to a proper culmination in a healthy and democratic environment. I wish that the readers may debate it out with full vigour in the discussion forum.

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