Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 1 (1&2) 2013, 81–83 | ISSN 2307-6267 | DOI: 10.14426/jsaa.v1i1-2.27

AFRICAN
MINDS www.jsaa.ac.za

Deshpande, Satish & Zacharias, Usha (Eds.) (2013). Beyond inclusion:  
The practice of equal access in Indian higher education.  
New Delhi: Routledge

Reviewed by Vivienne Bozalek*

Book review

*  Director of Teaching and Learning, University of the Western Cape. Email: vbozalek@uwc.ac.za

This edited collection provides a much-needed contribution to the gap in knowledge 
about the intersection between social justice and higher education in India. As the editors 
of this collection note, it is important to document and disseminate knowledge not only 
about policies which have been developed to address issues of access and social inclusion in 
higher education, but to understand how these policies are implemented and experienced 
on the ground. The particular contribution of this collection is that the authors have 
poignantly documented the actual lived experiences of students who have entered higher 
education through the system of reservation that is used in India. In addition to these 
experiences, the challenges and achievements of affirmative action in the Indian higher 
education system are made apparent through both quantitative and qualitative studies and 
discussion of epistemological and ontological issues. Engstrom and Tinto’s (2008, p. 50) 
mantra “Access without support is not opportunity” reverberates across this collection of 
essays. That institutions do not intentionally exclude students from college does not mean 
that they are including them as fully valued members of the institution and providing them 
with the support that enables them to translate access into success is brought to life vividly 
in this edited collection.  Thus, while appearing to give physical access, but not making it 
possible for students to succeed through a responsive institutional culture which causes 
alienation and further marginalisation, higher education is further entrenching inequities. 

The collection of essays in this volume was commissioned by a grant to the Institute of 
Higher Education, to investigate the successes and failures of the implementation of quota 
policies in higher education institutions and the expectations and experiences of students 
and academics from marginalised groups who had been accommodated in the institutions.  
The book is divided into four parts addressing the following themes: Part I offers essays 
which broadly cover the history and philosophy of higher education inclusionary policies 
in India; Part II focuses on how inclusion plays out in different types of universities - from 



82  Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 1 (1&2) 2013, 81–83 | ISSN 2307-6267 | DOI: 10.14426/jsaa.1i1-2.27

liberal to medical and engineering education; Part III consists of two essays written by 
members of marginalised classes and provides an insight into the struggles of students 
against the injustices they still face in the higher education system; and Part IV provides 
examples of three programmes which have started to address issues of social inclusion. 

Social justice in India began with the Government of India Act 1935, which created 
schedules to name the castes and tribes (known as Scheduled Castes [SCs] and Scheduled 
Tribes [STs]) to be eligible for reservations of places in higher education.  Since then 
reservation quotas have been used as constitutional safeguards to ensure the inclusion 
of students from marginalised castes and tribal identities, and more latterly extended to 
economically disadvantaged students - known in the system as Other Backward Classes 
(OBCs).  Chapter 1, “Caste Quotas and Formal Inclusion in Indian Higher Education”, 
written by one of the editors of the book, Satish Deshpande, gives an useful overview of 
the history of the reservations policy in Indian higher education. This chapter explains 
how protective discrimination policies actually work and the implicit or explicit rationale 
behind these interventions. The caste quota reserves or sets aside a specific number of seats 
or places – usually expressed as a proportion of the total available – for eligible members 
of particular caste-groups legally recognised as legitimate claimants. In higher education, 
this takes the form of reserved seats for the SCs, STs and OBCs (and other groups such 
as the disabled or some other region-specific categories of entitlements) in educational 
institutions.  The chapter also outlines changes which have taken place in the past two 
decades and makes explicit the hostile environment of resentment from those who are 
entitled towards encumbents of affirmative action. 

The book also deals with other forms of marginalisation such as the rural/urban 
divide and Chapter 5 documents the ways in which Yadvindra College of Engineering 
successfully redresses this by providing the resources and opportunities for rural students to 
secure places in the institution.  The essays document best practices in institutions on how 
to accommodate diversity and practice social inclusion.  In Chapter 3, “Affirmative Action 
in Three Dream Institutions”, for example, Devy critically examines the founding missions 
which were created to deal with diversity in three higher education institutions in western 
India which were established particularly to address social inclusion and the relevance 
of their present position. He concludes that it is not enough to merely grant access to 
marginalised groups, but that the subjugated knowledges and experiences of these groups 
should be incorporated into institutional knowledge and classrooms. If institutions were to 
do this, he asserts, this would add to rather than diminish the quality of these institutions. 

The two chapters in Part III of the volume provide a ‘view from below’ of the 
experiences of Delhi and Adivasi students who are enabled to enter higher education 
because of reservations, but are faced with numerous challenges on arrival here. In Chapter 6, 
Singh highlights the contempt and opposition that these students face, especially in elite 
institutions. The success stories and tragic instances of suicide provide lenses to the realities 
on the ground, which are often elided in discussions about reservation policies. Chapter 7 
“Quota’s Children: The  Perils of Getting Educated” explores how first-generation learners 



Vivienne Bozalek: Beyond Inclusion: The practice of equal access in Indian higher education  83

from marginalised communities face humiliation and prejudice in academic, residence and 
extra-curricular activities, whilst at the same time having to struggle to gain epistemological 
access to new knowledges.  

The concluding section of the volume includes a set of three chapters on different 
kinds of support for skill enhancement programmes for the marginalised.  What I found 
most interesting was the final chapter, “To Race with the Able? Soft Skills and the 
Psychologisation of Marginality” written by Usha Zacharias, which provides some critique 
of merely providing skills programmes for disadvantaged students. The author aptly notes 
that slogans of access, equity and excellence are based on the assumption that disadvantaged 
students can ultimately compete with elite students in academic excellence, without 
acknowledging the different sets of opportunities open to them. It is both necessary to 
decolonise knowledge itself and to make students critically aware of the social origins of 
marginal identity, to prevent the burden of reform being shouldered by the marginalised 
student. 

As one of the first full length texts about social inclusion in Indian higher education, 
this is a must read for any scholar, practitioner and policy-maker interested in the field of 
social justice and higher education.

References
Engstrom, C., & Tinto, V. (2008). Access without support is not opportunity. Change, 1, 46–50.