ABSTRACT
During the first half of the last century, the Dalit movement had many significant accomplishments under the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar. The most significant one was its successful transition from the traditional religio-social sphere to the modern political arena, which provided it with far more possibilities than before. One of the earliest outcomes was in terms of the Dalit castes being coalesced and frozen into an administrative category of scheduled castes, snapping their ritualistic cord from the Hindu religion. The principle of exceptionality with which the affirmative action policy was instituted in favour of the scheduled castes in colonial times was abandoned to extend it to others, so as to make it open-ended with the implicit criterion of backwardness. Indeed, it was spelt out that the state would identify additional castes for extending these policies in the name of social justice.
