In her recent book- Politics of Inclusion: Caste, Minority, and Representation in India, Zoya Hasan has presented a strong case for revamping the affirmative action policies in India to include socially and economically backward classes that fall outside the majority fold. Admittedly, affirmative action in India is based on theory of reparation that aims to set right the centuries of historic injustice meted out to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Relying on Sachar Committe Report , she has argued that there is no need for historic exclusion and discrimination against Muslims and Christians to become beyond repair before it can be set right. To quote her, "... focus on discrimination and disadvantage in official policy in India has been disproportionately on the past and not enough on the discrimination in relation to present disadvantage. The remedial goals that are required must include giving careful attention to current discrimination also.... However the real tasks are, first, to ensure that this important challenge of broad-basing affirmative action policies, so as to include in their ambit focus on groups facing disadvantage and deprivation in the present context, becomes compelling political issue; and second to initiate a reasonable debate on it" (@237) .
Amongst other issues, there is an interesting analysis of electoral system in India, party politics, implications of reservation politics in electoral outcomes. A book review of her book is available here.
On a similar note, EPW Editorial in its current issue discusses the issue of reservation for reservation for religious minorities. Zoya Hasan's article on the same issue is published in Seminar is available here.
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