A new form of untouchability

News: Lately, a video appeared online, in which people in a religious assembly were taking oath of an economic boycott of a minority religious section.  

Constitutional protection against economic boycott 

Limits of the scope of untouchability under article 17 has been contested from the beginning. In the Constituent assembly, it was argued that the scope of untouchability should be restricted to practices related to religion and caste, however it voted against such restrictive definition. While the conservatives restrict it to caste-based discrimination, the progressives argue that it includes other forms of untouchability as well. 

However, there is consensus that only those acts which are motivated by the ideology of purity and pollution are considered within the ambit of untouchability. These include social and economic boycotts. 

Issues associated with untouchability laws  

Mere provision to protect rights have been insufficient to prevent marginalisation due to the untouchability practice.  

For instance, 2 laws i.e. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and Maharashtra Protection of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2016, explicitly make social and economic boycotts punishable. But, the scope of both is restricted to criminalising caste-based discrimination and boycotts. 

Thus, limiting scope of anti-boycott or untouchability laws to the tenets of purity and pollution and caste-centric boycotts makes them ineffective to counter the calls of economic boycott.  

Source: This post is based on the articles “A new form of untouchability” of The Hindu, Published on 7th Feb. 2022.