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The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm
Diversity in India: addressing Diversity in
India
caste, disability and gender
Rana Haq
Department of Marketing and Management,
Faculty of Management, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada 585
Alain Klarsfeld Received 28 April 2020
Toulouse Business School, Toulouse, France Revised 28 April 2020
Accepted 28 April 2020
Angela Kornau
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg,
Hamburg, Germany, and
Faith Wambura Ngunjiri
Offutt School of Business, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the diversity and equality perspectives from the national
context of India and introduce a special issue about equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in India.
Design/methodology/approach – This special issue consists of six articles on current EDI issues in India.
The first three of the contributions are focused on descriptions of diversity challenges and policies regarding
caste and disabilities, while the remaining three papers address gender diversity.
Findings – In addition to providing an overview of this issue’s articles, this paper highlights developments
and current themes in India’s country-specific equality and diversity scholarship. Drawing on the special
issue’s six papers, the authors show the relevance of Western theories while also pointing to the need for
reformulation of others in the context of India.
Research limitations/implications – The authors conclude with a call to further explore diversity in India
and to develop locally relevant, culture-sensitive theoretical frameworks. Religious and economic diversity
should receive more attention in future diversity management scholarship in the Indian context.
Originality/value – How does India experience equality and diversity concepts? How are India’s approaches
similar or different from those experienced in other countries? How do theoretical frameworks originated in the
West apply in India? Are new, locally grounded frameworks needed to better capture the developments at play?
These questions are addressed by the contributions to this special issue.
Keywords Gender, Equality, Diversity, Disability, Caste, Religion, India
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
While the research and practice of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) has been on the
political and business agenda for several decades in many countries across the world,
€
the focus has been grounded primarily in Western democracies (Nishii and Ozbilgin, 2007). At
the same time, scholarship on country or comparative perspectives on equal treatment and
€
diversity (Klarsfeld, 2010; Syed and Ozbilgin, 2010; Jonsen et al., 2011; Klarsfeld et al., 2014;
Klarsfeld et al., 2016) highlight that diversity and equality at work is not uniform across
cultures or countries and that more context-sensitive analyses are needed, especially in less
visible and/or less researched contexts. The precursor of this special issue on diversity in
under-researched contexts addresses this deficit and has shown that a broader geographical
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:
coverage is possible (Klarsfeld et al., 2019), so have other scholars in demonstrating the An International Journal
existing “diversity within diversity management” (Georgiadou et al., 2019). Interestingly, Vol. 39 No. 6, 2020
pp. 585-596
when we called for contributions to the special issue on EDI in under-researched contexts © Emerald Publishing Limited
2040-7149
(Klarsfeld et al., 2019), around one-third of total submissions were from India, implying DOI 10.1108/EDI-04-2020-0095EDI abundant research activities and unique dynamics within this country. To ensure that these
39,6 research activities are given the attention they deserve, we decided to extend the special issue
and dedicate an entire special issue to India only.
This special issue explores diversity and equality in the under-researched Indian national
context, highlighting the types of equal treatment or affirmative action legislation in the
country, in particular, the dimensions of diversity addressed and enforced in policy and
practice in various types of organizations. Before presenting the contributions of this special
586 issue, this introductory paper outlines a historical background and highlights current
developments and themes in India’s country-specific equality and diversity scholarship.
The empirical research presented in the papers of this special issue addresses various
aspects of practice and policy on specific diversity dimensions, such as caste, disability, rural
versus urban exposure and gender in India. Additionally, the special issue addresses the
following questions. How does India experience equality and diversity concepts? How are
India’s approaches similar or different from those experienced in other countries? How do
theoretical frameworks originated in the West apply (or not) in India? Are new, locally
grounded frameworks needed to better capture the developments at play? Overall, the
authors show the relevance of “Western” theories while also pointing to the need for
reformulation of other aspects in the context of India. The main findings reported advance the
conversation on EDI and help the reader get a feel for the diversity of diversity-related issues,
policies and practices in India. It concludes with a call to further explore India as an under-
researched context and especially to develop locally relevant, culture-sensitive theoretical
frameworks.
Distinctive features of EDI in the Indian context and its historical background
India experiences equality, diversity and inclusion concepts very differently from the
Western countries. There are three main reasons for this. First, the formal affirmative action
or “Reservations” program under the Constitution of India identifies three groups, namely,
the scheduled castes (SC), the scheduled tribes (ST) and the other backward classes (OBC),
which are unique to India. This policy and practice of reserving jobs for SC, ST and OBC to
compensate for discrimination applies only in higher education, political office and public
sector jobs. Secondly, there is no formal inclusion of women in reservations under higher
education or public sector jobs. Women are only included in reservations, along with the SC,
ST and OBC, under the Panchayat Raj grassroots rural governance system (Mamatha, 2019;
Pathak and Macours, 2017). Moreover, although equal under the law, in reality, women are
treated as second-class citizens facing multiple intersectional discriminations and limited
individual rights within India’s highly patriarchal and conservative societal norms (Haq,
2013). Thirdly, while there is no formal inclusion of reservations based on religion per se, the
SC category is an intrinsic part of caste-based discrimination based upon beliefs of purity of
the upper castes and impurity of the lower castes (Deshpande, 2011; Haq, 2014; Haq and Ojha,
2010; Cooke and Saini, 2010; Haq, 2010; Imam, 1996; Wood, 1987). These beliefs are deeply
ingrained within the Hindu religion and persist even today, to the extent that often lower-
caste people feel obliged to change their religion, name or profession in efforts to escape the
stigma attached upon birth within lower castes. Yet, reservations policies continue to face
constant resistance, criticism and pushback from the higher castes whoa are fearful of losing
their divine privileges sanctified by Hindu religious philosophy (Thorat et al., 2016). Religion
is also a major source of discrimination in India as there is a historical Hindu-Muslim divide
resulting from the Muslim legacy of the Mughal Empire. Thus, India’s EDI experiences and
approaches are radically different from those experienced in other countries, and hence there
is a need for new, locally grounded frameworks required to better capture both the historical
and recent developments at play.January 26, 2020, marked the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the 1950 Constitution Diversity in
of India painstakingly designed by the Congress leadership based upon ideals to unite a India
diverse country after achieving a long and hard-fought freedom from the British on August
15, 1947. Following the divisive politics and ruthless blood bath by both Hindus and
Muslims during partition, the thoughtless, irresponsible and hurriedly executed retreat by
the British resulted in the country precariously divided along religious lines into East and
West Pakistan for the Muslims and India for the Hindus. Mindless of the fact that many
Muslims had chosen to remain in their motherland India and the contested region of 587
Kashmir, the British left behind a legacy of religious Hindu-Muslim divide and questions of
belongingness that have persisted ever since independence and have grown even more
dangerous in recent years. The 1950 Constitution was a pledge of a secular country based
on equality for all the people of India. Persecution based on caste was abolished by the
Constitution, as was the cruel practice of Sati – the practice of burning of the live widow on
her dead husband’s pyre. The Constitution also formalized an affirmative action policy of
“reservations” to address the historical discrimination faced by the schedules castes (SC),
scheduled tribes (ST) and the other backward classes (OBC). It reserved jobs in the public
sector and seats in higher education at 15% for the SC, 7.5% for the ST, leaving the OBC at
the discretion of each state (Constitution of India, 1950) in attempts to provide every Indian
with the right to equality under the Constitution. “But it was the treatment of caste that
would truly set apart India’s constitutional vision. By recognising the terrible brutality and
cost of societally sanctioned caste segregation, and then making actual reparations by
providing for reservations in educational institutions, political constituencies and public
employment for members of scheduled castes and tribes, the framers set themselves apart
as revolutionaries. Making reparation is a uniquely Indian constitutional value. By
contrast, for its past brutalisation and profiteering from the enslavement of African
Americans, US constitutionalism makes no reparations or amends of any sort”
(Guruswamy, 2019, p. 13).
However, despite these provisions, India has continued to face ingrained and seemingly
insurmountable diversity challenges based upon caste, religion and gender, as incidents of
extreme violence against members of continually marginalized groups (SCs and STs,
Muslims, women) have increased in the recent years instead of being eliminated. Its inability
to handle the historical and deeply entrenched discrimination, persecution and violence based
on these diversity dimensions has made India increasingly polarized and divided along
religious dogma. “A concern flagged by many scholars in recent years has been the rise of
anti-constitutional feelings in some sections of the population- be it in the dogged persistence
of caste-based crimes, pervasive gender-based violence, threats and bias against minorities,
or entrenched social and economic inequity that threaten to derail the promise of the
Constitution” (Jyoti, 2019, p. 13).
Over the past decade, the world has been witness to the increasing, widespread and
pervasive gender-based discrimination and violence against women in India, with numerous
highlighted cases of acid attacks, rape, gang-rapes and murders of women and girls. The
public outcry and demand for justice in the gruesome 2012 Nirbhaya case was only resolved
this year on March 20, 2020, when the four perpetrators were finally hanged after an eight-
year-long court case (India Today, 2020). Haq (2013) highlights the intersectionality of gender
and other forms of identities impacting the personal and professional lives of women by
exploring the intersection of gender, color, caste, ethnicity, religion, marital status and class
as sources of discrimination against women in the Indian society and workplaces. Yet, there
continues to be a major divide between the public and private sectors mindset in managing
diversity (Haq, 2012). Although the public sector in India has been at the forefront of valuing
diversity, a study of 619 respondents at the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a large
Indian telecom public sector organization, reports that gender and categorical discrimination,EDI such as disability, minorities and social disadvantage, were prevalent in the organization
39,6 (Kundu et al., 2018).
“The Republic of India has a responsibility towards all its citizens, equally and
simultaneously. Any selectivity or discrimination, any variation in the immediacy of its care
would offend the Constitution and the spirit of the Emperor whose wheel turns at the centre of
our flag” (Gandhi, 2019, p. 13). However, many minorities are not covered or protected by
reservations quotas and face discrimination and violence in their daily lives, in and outside of
588 the workplace. Nambiar and Shahani (2018) trace the historical presence, role and
discrimination faced by the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, queer (LGBTQþ) communities in India,
highlighting strategies for inclusion in the workplace as they are not included in reservations
and face enormous discrimination and stigma. It was only recently that two landmark
judgments by the Supreme Court of India reversed a relic of British imperial rule and ordered
that LGBT Indians be accorded all the protections under the Constitution of India. “In April
2014, the Supreme Court of India ruled in NALSA vs Union of India that the rights and
freedoms of transgender people in India were protected under the Constitution; in September
2018, the Supreme Court also decriminalized adult consensual same-sex relationships in
Section 377 judgment review” (Patel, 2019).
Religious minorities, particularly Muslims, are at risk, as India is currently facing a
constitutional crisis following the recent introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Act
(CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) resulting in unprecedented public protests
and violence. Muslims who chose to remain in India at partition, are now being put at risk
once again by these regulations which require them to prove their citizenship or face
extradition. Although ostensibly aimed at identifying undocumented migrants arriving from
the neighboring state of Bangladesh and living in Assam, it has resulted in targeting and
sentencing Muslims to imprisonment, detention camps or deportation after sentencing by
Foreign Tribunals (Mohapatra, 2019). This is a particularly disturbing trend since India is a
land of many religions, where religiosity is a basic feature of daily life with deeply rooted and
internalized beliefs that are volatile and explosive to the slightest disrespect and incitation as
seen in the increasing Hindu-Muslim divide. Hindu supremacy tactics have been on the rise
since India’s independence from the British in 1947. The scars of a brutal and bloody freedom,
with the death of over two million Indians during the partition, creation of Pakistan and the
contested region of Kashmir, are still fresh today. “Since the partition of India, the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological fountainhead of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has been
stoking a misplaced victimhood in the self-pitying Hindu majority asking for a first stake to
all resources in the country since Muslims were given a separate piece of land in the form of
Pakistan. The resentment was stoked over decades by right-wing leaders who exaggerated
figures of Muslim population in the country. WhatsApp messages and fake news published
by right-wing websites leading up to the Indian election this year even spoke of a Muslim
takeover in India by 2050” (Ayyub, 2019).
Of India’s 1.3 billion population, Hindus comprise 80% and Muslims comprise 13%, the
country’s largest religious minority in the world’s largest democracy (Population of the
World, 2020). The 1950 Constitution of India and the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
envisioned a secular nation where all religions could live in harmony. Two million people died
in the conflict when India was divided into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority
India upon independence from the British in 1947. Under Modi, the most powerful Hindu
nationalist Prime Minister in Indian history, the Hindu-Muslim violence has taken on a new
dimension of fanatically representing India as a Hindu Nation. Clearly, Modi is repeating the
pattern he demonstrated as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002, where he was accused and
tried for inciting and instructing police to not intervene when thousands of Muslims were
killed in Hindu-Muslim riots. When Modi was elected in 2014, he immediately banned beef
because it is sacred for the vegetarian Hindus, resulting in a sharp rise in Muslim lynching asbeef eaters. Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), since coming to power at the Diversity in
national level in May 2014, have increasingly used communal rhetoric that has spurred a India
violent vigilante campaign against beef consumption and those deemed linked to it. Between
May 2015 and December 2018, at least 44 people—36 of them Muslims—were killed across 12
Indian states. Over that same period, around 280 people were injured in over 100 different
incidents across 20 states” (Human Rights Watch, 2019). “‘Since being re-elected with an even
bigger majority in May 2019, his government has moved on to larger-scale, if still localized,
state-sanctioned mob violence,’ says Sumantra Bose, professor of international and 589
comparative politics at the London School of Economics. ‘This is a natural progression,
given the nature, logic and purpose of the Modi-Shah government.’ As a result, many of
India’s 200 million Muslims are reckoning with a future as second-class citizens” (Perrigo and
Yasir, 2020).
The current COVID-19 pandemic health crisis is a vivid example of how external threats
are instrumentalized to further marginalize already stigmatized groups. On April 6, 2020, the
World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated the principle that media should avoid religious
or other profiling of COVID-19 cases. Recently, US President Donald Trump called the current
2020 pandemic the “China Virus” or the “Wuhan Virus” where it originated, leading to an
increase in discrimination and violence against Asians globally. The World Health
Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “Having a
name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing”
(WHO, 2020), and named the unnamed coronavirus COVID-19. Yet, hate speech against
Muslims in India related to the coronavirus is spreading online as fast as the virus itself in a
viral social media pandemic. Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international
religious freedom, is calling on governments to push back aggressively against the rising
incidents of blaming religious minorities for the COVID virus, including the rise in usage of
#CoronaJihad and other hashtags trending in India. The current Covid-19 pandemic
coronavirus-related hate speech is stigmatizing minority groups, particularly Muslims in
India. Tweets with the hashtag #CoronaJihad have appeared nearly 300,000 times and
potentially been seen by 165 million people on Twitter, according to data gathered by
Equality Labs, a human rights group activists, saying that many of the posts are in clear
violation of Twitter’s rules on hate speech and coronavirus but have not been taken down.
Thenmozhi Soundarajan, executive director of Equality Labs, says “Corona jihad is this new
idea that Muslims are weaponizing the coronavirus to target Hindus” (Perrigo, 2020). Other
Hindu nationalist messaging such as “Population jihad” claims that Muslims are trying to
turn India into a Muslim nation by reproducing at a faster rate than Hindus, and “Love jihad”
claims that Muslim men are tricking Hindu women into romantic relationships in order to
convert them to Islam (Perrigo, 2020).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power in 2014,
followed by a resounding majority in 2019 on the promise of leading India into a Hindu
nationalist state rather than the world’s largest democracy as demonstrated by the BJP
government’s actions that form a consolidated strategy toward achieving that goal. First,
their implementation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC), rendering over two million
Muslim citizens in the northeastern state of Assam stateless and excluded as citizens, to be
implemented across the country. Then, revoking the special status of Kashmir, the only
Muslim-majority state in the country, and placing it under months of lockdown with mass
detention and arrests of democratic leaders. Later, there was a court ruling allotting the long
contested land to Hindus for building Ram Temple on a disputed site where Hindu
nationalists razed the iconic Babri Mosque in 1992. Finally, the Citizenship Amendment Bill
(CAB) through which the government plans to rescue and rehabilitate persecuted Hindus
from neighboring countries while simultaneously seeking to disenfranchise its Muslim
citizens through the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which could leave millions of its ownEDI Muslim citizens stateless by labeling them as migrants and infiltrators. The BJP’s Hindu-
39,6 majority message is clearly for Muslims in the country to live in fear of their citizenship,
rights and freedom in India, contrary to the secular 1950 Constitution, as detention camps are
being built to incarcerate all Muslim migrants who will fail to prove their citizenship.
Meanwhile, the BJP’s list of neighboring countries whose persecuted citizens minorities will
be sheltered in India conveniently ignores Myanmar, whose Rohingya Muslims have suffered
state-sponsored persecution, because the Muslim Rohingyas do not fit the Hindu criteria. “As
590 a reporter who has covered Modi’s politics from his term as the provincial head of the state of
Gujarat, where a thousand Muslims were butchered during his rule in 2002, I know this is
neither the beginning nor the end of Modi’s plans to divide India on sectarian lines. We are
now moving closer to Modi’s dream of an India where a Muslim will have to walk the streets
of his country with his gaze lowered, where democracy will be a privilege some cannot
participate in, and Hindu nationalism will replace secularism in this once-glorious republic.
The end is near for Gandhi’s India” (Ayyub, 2019).
After briefly introducing the current context of diversity in India, we present the
contributions included in this special issue in the following sections of this article. These will
be followed by a conclusion opening up research avenues for diversity management research
in India.
Contributions in this special issue
This special issue consists of six articles on current EDI issues in India. The first three paper
contributions are focused on the diversity challenges and policies implemented regarding
caste, disabilities and regional exposure, while the remaining three papers address gender
diversity. The following paragraphs provide a summary of each contribution to this
special issue.
The first paper explores attitudes toward India’s Affirmative Action Programs targeted to
members of disadvantaged castes. In their article titled “Caste at work: study of factors
influencing attitudes towards Affirmative Action in India,” Ambika Prasad, Laurie O’Brien
and Caitlin Smith Sockbeson seek to answer two different but related questions that had been
previously heavily researched in the US context about attitudes toward Affirmative Action
Programs and their beneficiaries – but not in India. The first research question is: are
perceptions toward workers hired under caste-based Affirmative Action Programs (AAPs) in
India similar to the attitudes toward workers hired under race-based AAPs in the US? The
second research question is: are attitudes toward AAPs in India driven by the same
psychological factors as they are driven by in the US? How does casteism awareness
(awareness of caste-based discrimination) and caste identity influence attitudes toward
AAPs? Concerning the first research question, the main finding is that, as was found in
previous research undertaken in the USA, AA beneficiaries were seen as less competent than
non-AA candidate all else held constant. However, and contrary to US scholars, Prasad and
colleagues found that positive evaluations did not improve the ratings of AA beneficiaries as
was found in the USA. Furthermore, advantaged caste individuals show a low support for
AAP. More surprisingly, identification with one’s (caste) identity was found to have a
negative impact on support for AAP, regardless of individuals’ caste. This is unlike what was
evidenced in the USA, where only for Whites is higher identification with one’s race
associated with opposition to such policy. Finally, institutional casteism awareness, that is,
being aware of subtle or indirect forms of discrimination based on caste, is associated with
stronger support for AAP among respondents of advantaged caste respondents, but not
among disadvantaged caste respondents, who tend to show strong support for AAPs,
regardless of their degree of institutional casteism.In the second paper, titled “When affirmative action is not enough: challenges in career Diversity in
development of persons with disability,” Amit Gupta and Pushpendra Priyadarshi focus on a India
rarely studied subset of persons with disabilities (PWDs): PwDs who are professionally
qualified and are working in regular employment in management and executive positions.
Using a qualitative methodology and in-depth interviews as a way to collect data, they
document the self-narrated experiences and views of these professionally qualified PWDs,
who appear to be successfully engaged in a professional career. The employer is a large
public utility organization, as such subjected to a mandatory 2% reservation quota for PwDs. 591
By and large, the interviewed managers perceive to be treated unequally as beneficiaries of
the quota. They perceive that the organization that employs them does not provide any form
of thinking in the sense that jobs and career-paths should take a positive advantage of their
sometimes superior capabilities (a high level of trust among visually impaired persons is cited
as an example of such capabilities by one interviewee). Instead, and in relation to this lack of
thinking at the organizational level, they perceive expectations at team level from colleagues
and superiors to be lower toward them, in comparison to what is expected of persons without
disabilities. Finally, although some PwDs do reach high positions in this organizations,
interviewees feel that these successes are not publicly valued by their employer as role
models for other PwDs. They also feel isolated, and wish a forum to be created where their
voice could be expressed, similar to what is the case for other designated groups. As the
authors point out in their conclusion, however, the careers of the interviewed PwDs are
remarkable. Future research should investigate factors such as accommodation in
educational institutions, social climate, family support during their childhood and student
life, which may have contributed their overall success.
The third paper, by Jyoti Pant and V. Vijaya, titled “Is diversity debate farfetched?
Psychological contract expectations, performance and intention to stay,” explores three
diversity elements in India: gender, physical disability and regional exposure. Authors focus
on understanding the influence of gender, physical disability and regional diversity on the
relationship between employee’s psychological contract (PC) expectations, job performance
and intention to stay. The study surveys 1,065 Gen Y employees (born between 1980 and
2000) in the information technology/business process management (IT/BPM) industry. The
sample represents 730 males (68.6%), 332 females (31.1%) and 3 others (0.3%); 1,005 people
without disability (94.4%) and 60 (5.6%) with physical disability; 737 people (67.2%) with
some exposure to living in urban area and 328 respondents (30.8%) having no exposure to
living in an urban setting. Results show that regional diversity moderates the relationships
between met expectations and performance and intention to stay, while there was no
significant difference in gender or disabilities on the impact of met PC expectations, job
performance and intention to stay. This study advances the understanding of Gen Y
employees and their PC in India and is the first study to explore the moderation effect of
regional exposure diversity on PC expectations and its job outcomes in the Indian context as a
major determinant of job performance. The results highlight the significance of regional
diversity, which has not been a priority in the Indian diversity debate, with specific
recommendations for human resource management (HRM) practitioners to improve the job
performance and intention to stay of the millennial generation. Further studies on regional
and cultural variations as a diversity variable, which is highly characteristic of the Indian
context, may unravel interesting research insights in this relatively unexplored space.
Authors call for further probe into relevant diversity dimensions such as region, caste,
language and religion in the Indian context to add value extending beyond gender and
ethnicity to these unique diversity aspects in the Indian context.
The fourth paper, titled “Rationales of Gender Diversity Management Policies and Practices
in India: An Exploratory Empirical Study in the Indian IT/ITeS Industry,” by Shreyashi
Chakraborty, explores the institutional influences on companies in India and why they adoptEDI gender diversity management practices despite largely absent laws and regulations in the
39,6 Indian context. Oliver’s (1991) framework of strategic responses is used, and hypotheses are
developed along the five factors of cause, control, context, constituents and content that may
impact the way organizations deal with gender issues. Based on a quantitative survey with
top managers and HR, or diversity managers in IT companies, the author shows that the size
of the organization, the influence of external organizations as well as enhanced organizational
flexibility increase the likelihood for companies to adopt gender diversity management
592 practices. These results resonate with findings from other country contexts, like the USA
showing how the need for organizations to acquire legitimacy and act in line with business
rationales drives the implementation of diversity management practices. Other factors like
employee’s influence or regulatory influence were not found to have a significant impact.
Chakraborty provides context-sensitive explanation for this, such as high power distance in
India, norms of restrained employee voice as well as weak regulatory infrastructure.
Interestingly, the study also demonstrates that gender diversity management practices are
more common in foreign subsidiaries than in local Indian companies, ascertaining the
important role of MNCs in the diffusion of diversity management practices across the globe.
The fifth paper, titled “Rationalizing Gender Inequality at Scientific Research
Organizations: A Reproduction of the Indian Socio-Cultural Context," by Namrata Gupta
uses discourse analysis to explore how gender inequality is reproduced and rationalized in
male-dominated Indian workplaces. In particular, the author conducted semi-structured
interviews with male and female scientists in four research laboratories to scrutinize the
“doing” of gender and related power relations. Results of her analysis show that interviewees
in fact delink the organizational context from the broader sociocultural context and largely
blame society for the persisting gender inequalities instead of holding the organization
responsible for it. Hence, the discourse is characterized by the denial of organizational
discrimination. For instance, findings suggest that differential career outcomes are attributed
to Indian middle-class norms and “natural” choices of women who prioritize family over
work. Some interviewees frame discrimination as an individual problem instead of
unmasking it as a systematic pattern, and others even portray women as “privileged”
because they receive additional support during pregnancy and for child care. Such discourses
keep the ideals of rationality and meritocracy in organizations intact and reproduce the
ideological “public-private dichotomy” and the male dominance at the workplace. Overall,
this study shows that the denial of gender inequalities is not only a Western phenomenon but
equally applies to the Indian context. However, what is specific about the Indian context is
that rationalizations occur by attributing responsibility not only to individual choices but
also to the collective. Furthermore, while in “the West” gender fatigue has been identified as a
reason for gender inequality denial, that is, a lack of energy to solve an issue no longer
perceived as a problem, on the contrary, in India, the denial of inequalities is related to a lack
of awareness. Hence, the author calls for more engagement with the topic and emphasizes the
crucial role of men in undoing gender.
Finally, the sixth paper addresses the issue of having more women on corporate boards as
one that has been on the radar for academics, policy-makers and other practitioners around
the globe for several years. India is no exception. The article titled “Tokenism or Realism?
Gender Inclusion in Corporate Boards,” by Arunima Haldar, Sumita Datta and Snehal Shah,
contributes to this scholarship by exploring the complex relationship between ownership
structure and the determinants of board diversity in India following the Companies Act of
2013 that requires the appointment of at least one woman on the board of listed companies.
Using a resource-dependency framework, the authors argue that boards need a breadth of
resources such as prestige, legitimacy and expert knowledge that constitute the human and
social capital of individual board members. Further, they recognize that ownership structure
is closely related to board representation. The study responds to two questions: Does humanand social capital of the women directors of corporate boards play a role in their status on the Diversity in
board in terms of independence? Does firm ownership structure have an effect on the India
relationship between human and social capital of the female directors and their status on
the board? In the study of 100 BSE listed firms, only 63% of the women board appointments
are independent directors. Refuting the myth that women lack the right combination of
human capital, the study revealed that the women in this sample had extensive and relevant
experience as well as education to qualify them for board leadership. However, human capital
alone was not sufficient to give a woman a chance at being appointed as an independent 593
director; further, social capital alone had a negative effect on the chances of being appointed.
A combination of human capital and social capital was necessary, in addition to being
connected to the right social networks of the firms’ owners. The authors argue that women do
indeed have the necessary human capital, and one cannot continue the myth that they do not
have the education or experience to qualify them for appointments; the challenge is that the
collectivist and patriarchal society views women’s individual achievements as incongruent
with their gender. In order for the human capital to contribute to their chances of being
appointed as independent directors, they also need to have the right social capital – that is,
“their social connections with the promoter stakeholder.” Thus, human capital and social
capital effect on appointment is moderated by ownership structure. The authors conclude
that even though India has the necessary legislation requiring appointment of women
directors, the deeply entrenched patriarchal ethos in business and society negates the spirit of
gender egalitarianism necessitated by the Companies Act 2013. They recommend further
inquiry into the director appointment process to reveal the type of human and social capital
most likely to result in invitation to boards, in order to use such data in preparation programs
for women on boards.
Conclusion
This introductory paper has highlighted the recent developments and current themes in
India’s country-specific equality and diversity scholarship. Our analysis shows how the
experience of equality and diversity concepts in India as well as how India’s approaches are
similar or different from those experienced in other countries, and why theoretical
frameworks originated in “the West” do not directly apply in India. A brief historical
background of EDI in India focusing on gender, reservations for the SC, ST and OBC,
disability and Muslim-minority issues outlines the specific circumstances these groups are
confronted with and illustrates the need for more contextualized insights to identify and
adequately address existing challenges.
The empirical research presented in the six papers’ contributions to this special issue
addresses various aspects of diversity practices and policies in India (gender, disability and
caste). Drawing on these papers, we show the relevance of “Western” theories on gender
diversity and disabilities while also pointing to the need for reformulation of theories on other
diversity aspects, particularly regarding caste and religious minorities in the context of India.
Religious aspects seem to be particularly under-researched, also indicated by the fact that
none of the submissions we received mentions discrimination against Muslims, even though
currently this issue is everywhere in the news owing to BJP actions since 2014 (nor any type of
religious discrimination for that matter). The absence that we noted in submissions to this
special issue is corroborated by the fact that where a search with the terms “caste,”
“discrimination,” “India” (or Indian) in title leads to 118 results with Google Scholar, replacing
“caste” by “religious” or “religion” leads to 33 results only (as of April 28th, 2020). Replacing
“caste” with “Muslim” leads to even scanter results (sixresults). We also noted that none of the
papers that we received addresses economic discrimination, and again this imbalance is
corroborated by a Google Scholar search similar to the ones performed above (leading to 31
results when replacing “caste” by “economic” in search terms). Therefore, there seems to beEDI an urgent need to further explore these topics in diversity management scholarship, that is, to
39,6 investigate how diversity management practices may counteract religious and economic
discrimination effectively.
Overall, we hope that this special issue will inform, raise knowledge and interest to assist
in advancing the conversation on EDI and help the reader get a feel for the diversity of
diversity-related issues, policies and practices in India. In conclusion, we call for further
exploration of India as an under-researched context and especially to develop locally relevant,
594 culture-sensitive theoretical frameworks in future research bearing on under-researched
diversity strands.
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596 Corresponding author
Alain Klarsfeld can be contacted at: a.klarsfeld@tbs-education.fr
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