I address you in a somewhat unclear capacity. Unlike the other foreign participant, here. I do not bring you expert views on legal service, program abroad. I do not .hare my compatriots' Immersion In the American scene or yours In the Indian. But I have had some opportunity over the past twenty-five years, to observe the law In India and to study the situation of the untouchable, and other vulnerable groups. I want to use my in-between position to view the Indian scene from the middle distance In the hope that it provides a perspective that is illuminating to those who are deeply involved in it. It is a commonplace observation that the law in action does not correspond to the law on the books. This is especially so with laws favorable to "have not" groups. India has an abundance of law. Which purport to favor labourers, untouchables, tenants, and other disadvantaged groups. Such laws are often unenforced. We speak about the failure of Implementation. Typically this is accounted a failure of the government: the la- has flaw, or the administration has the wrong priorities or the court, are too lenient, indeed, in most instances it is not difficult to discover such deficiencies. But I would like to tan today about another aspect of this "failure of implementation" - the failure of the putative beneficiaries to extract possible benefit, from such laws. I shall do this by referring two case studies. The first of these 1. the enforcement of anti-disabilities. legislation, the second Is Implementation of measures for compensatory discrimination in favor of backward classes. I have chosen these two because they are studies that I happen to have done. I would be interested in knowing ii you regard them as atypical in respect of my concerns here.
Bibliographic Citation
Missed Opportunities: The Use and Non-Use of Law Favourable to Untouchables and Other Specially Vulnerable Groups' in R.F. Meagher (ed.), Law and Social Change: Indo-American Reflections. Bombay: N.M. Tripathi pp. 183-204 (1988)
