Is India’s social justice framework built on a concept no one understands? Prof. S.N. Balagangadhara, in Part 4 of his UGC series, makes an electrifying argument that it is.
Opening with the economics of equity, he demonstrates through basic rational decision theory that reservation policy — however well-intentioned — creates perverse incentives for both reserved and general category students not to exert effort. The logical consequence, he argues, is institutional collapse: the Indian education and bureaucratic system is already exhibiting exactly this pattern, regardless of whether Congress or BJP is in power.
He then pivots to political theory, tracing the concept of “social justice” to its actual origin — an 1891 Vatican encyclical, Rerum Novarum, created by a future Pope as a Christian counterweight to Marxist trade unions. India’s Constituent Assembly, Balagangadhara shows, adopted the phrase “social justice” without reading or understanding this document, embedding a theologically grounded Christian concept into a secular constitution. He further argues that Nyaya — the Sanskrit word routinely used to translate “justice” — means reasoning, not justice, compounding the confusion. India, he concludes, continues to copy-paste a word whose only coherent intellectual foundation remains entirely Christian.

About The Speaker:
S. N. Balagangadhara is a professor emeritus of Ghent University in Belgium, and was director of the India Platform and the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap.