Legal Protection of Scheduled Castes & Tribes: Constitutional Safeguards and Social Justice

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The framers of the Indian Constitution were conscious of the prevailing miserable and appalling living condition of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, who have remained far behind and segregated from national and social life and have continued to be socially oppressed and economically exploited for centuries due to various types of disabilities. The framers of the Indian Constitution took care to safeguard the interests of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes and to give them a sense of security, to protect them against any discrimination and to help them to get integrated in the main stream of the national life.
The book basically focuses upon the various legal provisions which provide safeguards and protection to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. The plight and conditions of these people are vividly analysed and discussed. How judiciary is giving recognition and enforcing Constitutional rights and protections to the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes is also elaborately discussed. The book also presents judicial strategies for securing social justice to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes as enshrined in the Constitution of India.
It is hoped that the book will be of immense use and help to students, teachers, researchers, lawyers and judges.
Contents of this book include: Introduction; Dimensions of Social Justice; Historical Perspective and Origin of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; Causes for Degradation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; Pre-Constitutional Measures for Upliftment of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; Safeguards under Constitution of India; Conclusion and Suggestions; List of Cases.

Dr. Deepak Kumar Srivastava is at present Assistant Professor (Law), Hidayatullah National Law University, New Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Prior to joining, he worked as a Lecturer with the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University, Meerut (U.P.). He has done his LL.B. and LL.M. from D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur and D.Phil. (Law) from Allahabad Central University, Allahabad. He specializes in Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. At Hidayatullah National Law University, New Raipur, Chhattisgarh he teaches Constitutional Law, Women and Law and Legal Method. He has participated and presented research papers in various National Seminars on socio-legal issues.

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are the classes of the Indian citizens who had been persecuted, discriminated and deprived of human face of Justice for long. Their suffering had endless destination because they had been victims of graded inequality resulting into perpetual degradation and gigantic cold-blooded repression. They had been lamenting since long:
"Hush my child; don't cry, my treasure:
Weeping in the vain,
For the enemy will never
Understand our pain.
For the ocean has its limits
Prisons have their walls around,
But our suffering and our torment
Have no limit and no bound". The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes categorization is the secularised as well as constitutionalised version of degraded lot searched in 1930s. Prior to that, they were known by different names inviting analogous discriminatory treatment to slaves, Negroes, aboriginals, etc. in different parts of the world based on deep-rooted prejudices and heartlessness.

The founding fathers of our Constitution felt that the inequitable forces in the socio-economic system and political organizations had created imbalance in the society and placed certain people particularly the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the disadvantageous position. The Constitution of India provides to all the citizens, social, economic and political justice and equality of status and opportunity. For achieving this objective safeguards and protective measures were provided in the Constitution for the deprived, weaker and vulnerable sections to ensure their all round development so as to bring them into the mainstream of the nation and at par with the other section of the society. This book is directly associated with these provisions which are there in Constitution to make a society devoid of inequality through by the way of discrimination. I must admit candidly that because of the topic being associated with Constitution certain provisions, which I too have dealt with, have been a matter of hot debate before our Supreme Court and in legal, social and political sphere. But still there seems to be a lack of organised study of all those provisions which are there for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Constitution in such a way as could give a lucid understanding of the problems and the solutions provide for them from time-to-time by the legislature. To compile these provisions and study them under relevant head was the driving point for me to choose the caption of the book.