Historically speaking, concept of equality or inequality has been always debated. While Plato thought of and advocated inequality originating in the form of three classes—representing the philosophic mind, the courageous spirit and the acquisitive stomach, Aristotle emphatically argued for slavery as representing accumulated wisdom of generations. Equality, as we understand today, was not the same during the Greek, Roman or the medieval times. As Emile Burns says, equal rights of men did not apply to slaves in Greek times.
Sabine is of the view that it was the idea of harmony or proportion, which was fundamental in the Greek idea of the state. The idea of harmony or proportion was a measure of civil quality and equality might not have been the concern. As we know, even Aristotle, who defended slavery, argued for balanced city-state and extolled the virtue of middle class as one of balancing factor between extremes of richness and poverty. However, this was more due to the concern for proportion or harmony than equality. On the other hand, Greek society had no dearth of those who supported equality amongst men. Significant amongst them were statesmen and literary persons such as Pericles and Euripides and schools of the Sophists including Antiphon and the Stoics. Euripides (Greek tragic dramatist, 480–406 BC) in his Phoenician Maidens makes Jocasta say, ‘Man’s law of nature is equality’.9 Sophists denied the assumptions that slavery and nobility of birth were natural. Orator, Alcidamas protested against slavery and inequality and stressed that ‘God made all men free; nature has made no man a slave.’10 In the third century BC, Stoics led by Zeno and Seneca argued that human beings possess reason and are united without any difference. On this basis, they advocated natural equality of all men and opposed slavery.
Rome’s famous statesman and political thinker, Marcus Cicero (106–43 BC), who was a senator, advocated a composite state consisting of the three elements—the monarchical element represented in the consuls, the aristocratic element or patricians represented in the senate and the plebeians or the common people represented in the tribunes. Like Aristotle’s polity with a predominant middle class as a balancing factor, Cicero’s composite state is also aimed at providing a balanced Roman state as a solution to class differences.11 Instead of equality, balancing different class elements was the focus of both Aristotle and Cicero. As such, idea of proportion was given more importance than the concept of equality. However, equal participation by free men in public life was considered a virtue. The Greek extolled it and the Romans struggled for it. In 212 AD, the famous Edict of Roman Emperor, Caracalla conferred Roman citizenship on all non-slave or free inhabitants of the empire.12 This was a significant concept in terms of political equality in an empire, though by no stretch of imagination like what we understand of political equality today in a democratic state.
During the Roman period, slavery was the important source of labour. Slavery manifested in many forms including the gladiatorial activities and its promise of liberation. Spartacus, a Roman slave and a gladiator in Capua before being suppressed in 71 BC and his thousands of men killed, had rebelled and headed a slave insurrection in 73 BC in southern Italy. He advocated equality based on the colour of blood of all men. In fact, Spartacus’s revolt, which is known as the Third Servile War, was the third in the series of revolts of slaves. In 134 BC, the leader of slaves, Eunus, led the First Servile War in Sicily, which was suppressed in 132 BC. Two other leaders of slaves, Tryphon and Athenion, led the Second Servile War in Sicily in 104 BC, which was suppressed in 101 BC.13
After the end of the Roman period, Christianity in Europe and Islam in Asia particularly, raised the voice for equality. However, this was mainly equality in terms of the religious affiliation and spiritual identity. As St. Paul said, ‘thou all one in Jesus Christ’ meaning that before God all are equal. This is like what Hobbes would say that the unity of the people consisted in the unity of the Sovereign or Leviathan. The unity of identity of the religious or spiritual community was the basis of equality. In Islam, the concept of universal Ummah based on equality of members promised a new perspective on equality. Nevertheless, equality in terms of the moral and spiritual consideration could not somehow suppress or root out economic and material inequalities that continued. Today, neither Christianity nor Islam can claim to have dealt with inequalities of its members. Variety of inequalities and differentiations continue. As such, religion as a moral and spiritual framework has not been able to provide a framework of material redistribution and hence equality as well. In fact, the very emergence of a movement in mid-eighteenth century in Europe and especially in Britain, in the name of Christian Socialism is a pointer to this. Christian socialism sought to commit the church to a programme of social reform and to help better the wretched condition of the working class. This was a pointer to the inadequacy of a mere religious-spiritual framework of equality. Christian Socialism acknowledges the importance of material factors as having ‘bearing on the ability to lead a truly religious life’.14
In India, inequality has historically manifested in terms of caste-based social hierarchy. caste-based social organization consists of Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. They have been arranged in vertical hierarchy. There can be two sets of interpretations regarding caste-based social organization in India. One may tend to treat these castes as classes based on occupational categories. Brahmans or priests or wise men leading a life of teaching, study and devotion, spirituality and ethical and moral guidance to the society could be one class. Kshatriyas or those, who are assigned the task of protecting others, leading a life of courage and valour, make another class. Vaishyas who are mainly agriculturalists, artisans, cultivators and those who are engaged in trade and merchandise constitute yet another class. Shudras who are labourers and unskilled workers, other than agriculturalists, constitute the lowest class. Jawaharlal Nehru in his, The Discovery of India interprets castes in terms of occupational or functional classes.15 However, there can be a different interpretation of the caste-based social organization, which may treat these castes not by their occupation but primarily by the way they are conceived to have originated. Abu Raihan Muhammad ibn Ahmad, popularly known as Al-Biruni, in his book, Tarikhu’l Hind (Enquiry into India) mentions that Scriptures treat castes by their origin. ‘Brahmana has been treated as originating from the head of Brahman, Kshatriya created from the shoulders and hands of the Brahman, Vaishyas created from the thigh of the Brahman and Shudras created from his feet.’16 Manu’s Dharmashastra (The Laws of Manu) also known as Manusmrti, does provide an elaborate description of all.
Notwithstanding different interpretations about the caste system, at the bottom of this caste hierarchy, there is convergence in terms of economic and social deprivation. A member of an underprivileged caste invariably, also had been a member of the underprivileged class. Caste and class inequalities have coincided in such situations. Shudras in India represent a convergence of caste and class inequalities. Of particular attention is the practice of untouchability within the caste system, which prescribes rules of interaction, distance, pollution and social intercourse between the members of the upper castes and the section of Shudras categorized as untouchables. The practice of untouchability can be termed as a novel innovation of human mind in the history of inequality. It treats even casting of a shadow or touch of one human being to another as polluting, leave alone any meaningful social interaction. Untouchability has been a practice of not only social inequality but also of social exclusion.
In Europe and in India also, the medieval period is associated with feudalism. Feudalism is characterized by privilege and status-based social and economic order. Hierarchical order based on privilege, status and chain of obligations resulted in sub-infeudation and unequal socio-economic order. Feudal lords and serfs in Europe and zamindars and peasants and landless workers in India became the opposite classes. In Europe, clergy, nobility and aristocracy were the privileged classes and the rest of the people were treated as commoners and labourers. Privileges and status were based on birth and inheritance. In Europe, privileges to one group or class were against the interests of the other. The nobility, the vassal and the clergy had their respective privileges. In fact, political power and affairs of the state were also a matter of privileges. There was no concept of citizenship in either medieval Europe or in India. However, amidst the celebration of privileges, there were various uprisings by the oppressed peasants. It is reported by Braudel that there were various peasants’ uprisings in France (Jacquerie in 1358, Paris in 1633, Rouen, north-western France in 1634–9, Lyon, eastern-central France in 1623, 1629, 1633 and 1642) and in Germany (in 1524–5). The conditions of peasants in Europe during feudalism could be understood when we look at the plight in Bohemia where they were allowed to work on their own land only one day in a week, in Slovenia where they could work only 10 days in a year. The feudal system and its system of bonded-service had no place for equality for all.17
Post-Renaissance Europe witnessed a demand for various forms of equality—social, political, legal and economic. One can argue that emergence of liberal-democratic ideas of individual liberty and rights and the concept of contract have contributed to the conception of equality—legal and political. This provided a break from the medieval privilege and status-based socio-economic order. Emergence of the commercial and mainly the industrial class challenged the power and privileges of the feudal classes in Europe. However, the American Declarations of Independence and the French Declaration of Rights were declarations of equality of the rising bourgeois class with the landed and aristocratic class. The 1789 French Declaration which declared that ‘Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights’, though landmark in the history, only promised the equality of liberty of the emerging capitalists with that of the landed bourgeoisie. The peasants at land and the working class of the emerging industrial economy were still to fight for their equality. Socialist movements in Europe in the nineteenth century brought to forefront the demands for economic equality that the liberal-capitalist framework had so far ignored. The socialist movements were declarations of the equality of the working class with the rest.
During the eighteenth century in Europe, various thinkers and writers advocated and argued for equality. Jean Jacques Rousseau, for example, in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality maintained that rise of property ownership and possession led to the conception of ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ and contributed to the emergence of inequality. He drew a distinction between natural and conventional inequalities. While natural inequality (or natural differences) being physical is beyond one’s choice, conventional inequality arises out of inequality of wealth, power, resources and privileges in civil society. Conventional inequality being a product of social arrangements should be dealt with. Rousseau feared that ‘material inequality would lead, in effect, to the enslavement of the poor and deprive them of both moral and intellectual autonomy.’18 Rousseau celebrated the genius of man and his innate goodness and protested against slavery. He said that to decide that a son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man. Though Rousseau and others such as Condorcet supported equality amongst humankind, equality as a principle of economic organization did not have its firm root at that point of time. Condorcet as a philosopher of ‘progress’ believed that progress would follow such a line in which ‘the elimination of class-differences’ would also occur. Explaining further, Sabine opines that Condorcet expected that ‘within each nation it is possible to remove the disadvantages of education, opportunity, and wealth which inequalities of social class have imposed on the less fortunate.’19 Comparing Rousseau and Condorcet, we can say that while Rousseau gave a critique of progress to oppose inequality, Condorcet used progress as an argument for bringing equality.
Seventeenth-eighteenth century doctrine of natural rights and social contract had given a concept of civil and political equality of men. Social contract implied equality of all to enter into contract and enjoy equal political rights. The concepts of natural rights, contract, consent, limited and representative government, citizenship, etc. laid the foundation for political equality. However, this was limited to the emerging capitalist class, and that too, to the men. It was J. S, Mill, in the nineteenth century, who introduced an element of caution. He pointed out the danger of majoritarian tyranny standing in the way of smooth operation of political equality where majority suppressed the minority’s political view. Alex de Tocqueville, whose famous work Democracy in America (1835–40) focused on development of democracy, was of the view that ‘its (democracy) main tendency was to produce social equality, by abolishing hereditary distinctions of rank, and by making all occupations, rewards and honours accessible to every member of society.’20 However, Tocqueville felt that at times passion of democracy with social equality might be harmful to liberty of individual. In this context, he found equality and individual liberty in conflict.
The nineteenth century is particularly significant for two reasons. On the one hand, analytical jurists and legal theorists, such as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, provided arguments for legal equality, on the other hand, socialist thought led by Karl Marx pitched for economic equality. Bentham’s utilitarian principle of each as one (in counting the greatest happiness of the greatest number) provided the legal basis for social legislation. The need for legal equality was given primacy because the rising bourgeois class needed legal protection for securing parity with the nobility and landed aristocracy. Economic equality was never a requirement of this class, as industrial and commercial ownership provided economic power. Socialist thought, in the shape of the Marxian doctrine, provided unequivocal demand for economic equality, as it was needed for securing the rights of the working class. It may be appropriate to mention here that the nineteenth century demand for economic equality could trace its link to what FranÇois Babeuf, the French revolutionary, is identified with—’Conspiracy of Equals’. Babeuf raised his voice for economic equality for the working men and planned insurrectionary activities21 before he was killed in 1797.
R. H. Tawney, a British social philosopher, in his book, Equality (1931), has discussed the primacy given to legal equality over economic equality during the nineteenth century in Europe. He has also argued that equality and liberty are compatible. Eighteenth-century Europe was mainly concerned with legal and political equality. This was important because demand for legal equality enabled the rising capitalist class to fight privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy and nobility. Demand for political equality helped them seize the power of the state. As Tawney points out, the class system in France and Germany was characterized not only by disparity of wealth and income but also legal status.22 Wealth, in any case, was available to both the classes, it was legal sanction to the privileges that the feudal aristocracy enjoyed that made the difference. Tawney mentions that legal privileges of the feudal class were attacked first and demand for ‘uniformity of legal rights’ was raised.
However, it was only in mid-ninteenth century that revolution in France demanded economic equality. Formation of communes in the 1870s and the influence of the socialist thought triggered widespread voice for equality. The Marxian thought raised the issue of economic equality and the associated question of abolition of private property. Other movements—Syndicalism and Guild Socialism, did favour and fight for economic equality. The ninteenth century also witnessed demand for political equality for those who were hitherto excluded from voting rights. Prominently, demand for equality in terms of extension of right to vote for women came up. In July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized a women rights’ convention in New York, which demanded equality of right to vote for women. The convention also demanded property rights, admission to higher education and church offices, on equal terms.23 Political equality in terms of voting rights to all, equal right of all to hold public offices, and equality of citizenship evolved in three stages. Firstly, the bourgeois class secured political equality vis-á-vis landed aristocracy; secondly, the working class demanded political equality against the privileges of the capitalist classes and thirdly, women demanded political equality. An important event in the ninteenth century was the abolition of slavery in America through the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1965. The question of economic equality witnessed its stronger voice in communist revolutions in the early twentieth century.
In the colonial relations with the British Empire during the ninteenth and the first half of twentieth century, Indian people did not have political rights and the question of political equality did not attract much attention. Demand and struggle for self-government and political rights for Indians was a long drawn and gradual process. The concept of citizenship was absent and Indians were in a colonial relation with the British power. However, with measures in the field of social legislation and workers’ related legislations, the British introduced a framework of legal equality amongst the Indians. Uniform legal codes (CrPC, IPC, etc.), social legislations and other such measures introduced a framework of legal equality. It was only after the introduction of the Constitution of the Republic of India in 1949 that the concept of political, legal, social and to some extent, economic equality could be enshrined.
In the twentieth century, struggle for equality has manifested in different forms. Demand for civil, economic, political and social equality has been raised all over the world. Socialist revolutions in Russia, China and many other countries in the early part of the twentieth century were the culmination of the concept of economic equality. The Constitution of India abolished the practice of untouchability and made it a punishable crime. This is a measure of social equality. In Africa, the white-dominated National Party enforced a state policy of racial segregation and discrimination against the black inhabitants. This policy of racial segregation and discrimination between the white and the black is known as apartheid (Afrikaans word meaning ‘apartness’). It was based on racial purity and white supremacy. Led by Nelson Mandela, black resistance to apartheid regime continued until the 1990s. After the African National Congress (ANC) took over the government in 1990s, apartheid was abolished. Abolition of untouchability in India and apartheid in Africa has provided equality in terms of human dignity and access to other social and material resources. In the post-Second World War, Martin Luther King, the black civil rights activist, led the struggle for civil rights to blacks. They fought against what he says ‘manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination’.24 The twentieth century has also witnessed struggle for gender equality. Gender equality in terms of equal rights to vote, empowerment in terms of inheritance, employment and public offices, sexual freedom, etc. has been sought. In India, the Constitution provides gender equality in all aspects of social, political and public life. Various measures have been initiated for empowerment, such as certain level of ensured representation in public offices in local level governments, tax-related exemptions, coparcener in inheritance, protection in terms of civil rights, etc.
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