SOCIAL INCLUSION
CONTEMPORARY POLICY
1. Increasing reach of larger economic interest to even smaller economies have led to breaking down
of local economies, patterns of consumption, societal mores and values and large-scale use of
natural resources. Consequently, there has been increasing homogenisation of the economies and
societies at the cost of the richness of life in the hitherto non-integrated societies. There is an
obvious sense of loss of diversity and autonomy.
2. It has led to a kind of homogenous development at the cost of human and biological diversities.
There have been political and social movements protesting against marginalisation and exclusion,
demanding a more inclusive society.
3. Multilateral institutions like World Bank, and a large number of non-Governmental organisations
have come up with packages of projects collectively referred as Social Inclusion policy. The
rationale for advocating such is to thwart the criticism of the developmental paradigm within
capitalism that apparently pushed a large number of people and groups to the margins of economy
and society.
HISTORICAL PROCESS OF SOCIAL INCLUSION
1. Social inclusion as a policy instrument comes up only in recent times with the advancement of
democracy and new phase of capitalism. It has otherwise been rare that the political ruling groups
would adopt a policy of social inclusion.
2. On the other hand, however, there have been attempts from within the societies to usher new
ways and principles of accommodating individuals, communities and groups. This
accommodation proceeded both horizontally as well as vertically.
3. Many tribal groups, for example, Sakas and Hunas, from central and west Asia and beyond came
and settled in different parts of India. Society, over the time, absorbed them through different
mechanisms. There were new terms coined to regulate the social interaction with these new
groups. Mlecchas was not only the term for the foreign elements but also signified the code of
relationship that was designed between the native and the foreign elements. In the course of time,
the foreign elements lose their traces and become part of the local community.
4. In the nineteenth century the British writers and administrators thought that the Indian society
was immobile and non-change was its defining characteristic. The ‘unchanging village
community’ with its ‘self-sufficient economy’ was thought to be the example par excellent of
this. Theories about caste, religion, etc., by many foreign scholars were based on these
assumptions. In reality, however, there were very dynamic interactions between institutions and
human groups and this relationship transcended villages, regions and quite often had continental
dimensions. Pilgrimage sites were of such interesting networks. Many groups and ideas and
values had their entry into the societies in this horizontal interaction.
5. What, however, is more intricate is the basis and processes of inclusion vertically.
6. The colonial system, in its turn, legitimised this unequal relationship on the basis of race,
technology or civilising mission. Delving deeper into the working of both the colonial and
colonised societies, one soon discovers that the unequal relationship was based on the unequal
ownership of the factors of production which historian Bipan Chandra had first pointed out as
‘colonial mode of production’. It was further argued that this inequality characterised even the
pre-colonial social order in the colonised societies. Historian Irfan Habib, for example, showed
