On economic policy, India has been moving toward the international mainstream. On nuclear policy, it bucked international trends. In preferential politics, it offers salutary lessons to the rest of the world. The motives underlying preferential policies are beyond reproach. But by institutionalizing affirmative action in favor of any one group the government effectively discriminates against others, alienates them, feeds their sense of grievance and can contribute to a growing militancy - without necessarily helping the most needy.
Every affirmative action produces an equal and opposite sectarian reaction.
If a government frames public policy in a group conscious way, it cannot expect groups suffering relative deprivation to ignore group identity. For any one post filled on a quota, only one alternative person would have succeeded in a merit system, but hundreds can feel aggrieved for having lost out due to preferential policies. Affirmative action programs are always described as temporary expedients, yet they often persist and proliferate. In India they were meant to have ended after 15 years in 1965, but they haven't. As group-based programs permeate the public institutions of a country, they end up institutionalizing the very divisions that they are meant to eradicate.