Anti-Discrimination and Equality Bill 2016

In the second week of March, the congress MP Shashi Tharoor had introduced a bill titled Anti-Discrimination and Equality Bill 2016 in the Lok Sabha. It’s a private member bill with an objective to create symmetry in the safety net against discrimination of all kinds in the country.

The key argument of this bill is that – though there are several laws in place, “discrimination” is something which has not been adequately addressed. The bill basically seeks to attack the “discriminatory attitudes” which have so far skipped the law and are on the basis of not only caste, creed etc. but also marital status, sexual orientation, disability, religion or food preferences and so on. The argument is that – though constitution prohibits the practice of untouchability, it has failed to address the situations where a Landlord refuses to let out his house to dalit or a non-veg person or homosexuals or even bachelors. There are open boards even in the metro cities saying “For Rent Only Vegetarians”. Further, the existing laws do not have a say on the discrimination in various places in clubs, private organisations, hospitals or Panchayats. The bills seeks to bring all such entities under its purview and included service providers, customers and employees in both the organised and unorganised sectors.

One point you should note that this bill is not community centred as an earlier bill (communal violence bill) was introduced by Congress in 2011. Its text focuses on word “symmetry” and tries to address the majorities and the minorities universally.

Note: The bill does not appear to be relevant for mains, yet the above inputs may be used for writing some related answers.