Author and journalist Arun Gandhi, the fifth grandson of legendary philosopher and human rights activist Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, believes that a separate electorate, such as in the case of scheduled caste citizens in India and citizens that benefit from affirmative action, will continue to segregate citizens and prevent full integration into society.
“Governments cannot legislate this type of integration, such as in the case of affirmative action. In the United States, there is legislated equality for African Americans, but that doesn’t mean that they are equal,” he points out.
Mahatma Gandhi said that only when people realise that this kind of discrimination is wrong, only then can true integration come about. “Otherwise, we can legislate as much as we want but we’ll achieve nothing at all,” Arun Gandhi notes.
It is imperative that people and government look at this from a moral and ethical perspective, and not just a legal perspective, he notes in a video interview during a talk hosted by the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, at the University of the Witwatersrand.
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