Vulnerable Groups that Face Discrimination

The vulnerable groups that face discrimination in India include — Women & Children, Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Castes (OBCs), Aged, Differently-abled, Poor Migrants, People living with HIV/AIDS and Sexual Minorities. Sometimes each group faces multiple barriers due to their multiple identities. For example, in a patriarchal society, disabled women face double discrimination of being a women and being disabled.

• Scheduled Castes: “Scheduled Castes” are “castes, races or tribes or parts of or groups within castes, races or tribes”, which the President, by public notification, “specify” to be “Scheduled Castes in relation to that State or Union Territory”. (Article 341, Constitution of India).
• Scheduled Tribes: Article 366 (25) of the Constitution of India refers to Scheduled Tribes as those communities, who are scheduled in accordance with Article 342 of the Constitution. This Article says that only those communities who have been declared as such by the President through an initial public notification or through a subsequent amending Act of Parliament will be considered to be Scheduled Tribes.
• Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes: Denotified Tribes are those who were notified as being born criminal by the British Govt. under a series of laws starting with the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. After independence, this Act was repealed in 1952, and the communities were “Denotified”, hence the name. Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes are the communities who usually does not have land and move from one place to another for livelihood.
• Backward Classes: “Backward Classes” means such classes of citizens, other than the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, as the Central Government may specify in “lists” prepared from time to time for the purpose of reservation in appointments in favour of such classes of citizens which, in the opinion of that Government, are not adequately represented in the services under the Government of India and any local or other authority. (Section 2, National Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993)
• Transgender Person: All persons whose own sense of gender does not match with the gender assigned to them at birth. They will include trans-men, trans-women (Whether or not they have undergone surgery or hormonal treatment, etc.) and a number of socio-cultural identities such as kinnars, hijras, aravanis, etc.
• Senior Citizen: As per Section 2(h) of the MWPSC Act, 2007, “senior citizen” means any person who has attained the age of sixty years or above.
• Victim of Substance Abuse: “Victim of Substance Abuse” means a person who is addicted to/dependent on alcohol, narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or any other addictive substances (other than tobacco), e.g. pharmaceutical drugs, etc., and generally includes the immediate family members of such persons.