Introduction

This part, consisting of five chapters, will look at discrimination based on caste, tribe and religion. The three chapters on caste (chapters 4, 5 and 6) will examine in turn the sociological and historical scholarship on caste, the jurisprudence on caste-based reservation as emblematic of discrimination based on caste, and the constitutional category of untouchability as the quintessence of the problem of liberty where the caste system is concerned. In drawing the connection between discrimination and liberty, these three chapters map the linkages between discrimination, exclusion and atrocity, or, in constitutional terms, between articles 15, 17 and 21.