Equality means fair treatment rather than equal treatment. Comment. (2018, 15 Marks)
Equality is an essentially contested concept, and the statement turns on a distinction Ronald Dworkin drew in Taking Rights Seriously (1977): the right to equal treatment (an identical share of some good or burden) differs from the right to treatment as an equal (to be shown equal concern and respect). The second is the deeper right; the first follows only when it serves it.
The limits of equal treatment
- Formal equality applies one rule to all. Classical liberals and libertarians defend it: Robert Nozick holds individuals answerable for their own choices and treats redistributive taxation as akin to forced labour, while Friedrich Hayek warns that material equality and equality before the law are in conflict.
- Applied to unequally placed people, however, identical treatment preserves the prior gap. Anatole France mocked the law that forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges. Dalits in India and Black Americans held formal rights that inherited disadvantage made unusable.
The case for fair treatment
- Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, Book V) defined justice as proportionate equality: equals alike, unequals in proportion to relevant difference.
- John Rawls permits inequalities only under fair equality of opportunity and the difference principle, so institutions must favour the least advantaged.
- Amartya Sen shows that people convert equal resources into unequal capabilities; fairness obliges the state to build capacity, not merely to hand out equal shares.
- Michael Walzer‘s complex equality (1983) makes fairness sphere-specific: money may rule markets but not votes or hospitals.
- Catharine MacKinnon and Iris Marion Young show that a “neutral” standard is often the dominant group’s norm; B. R. Ambedkar argued that in a society of graded inequality, sameness of treatment ratifies hierarchy.
Indian constitutional practice
Article 14 permits reasonable classification — an intelligible differentia with a rational nexus to the object (State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar, 1952) — and E. P. Royappa (1974) set equality against arbitrariness. State of Kerala v. N. M. Thomas (1976) read Article 16(4) as a facet of equality, not an exception; Articles 15(3)–(6), 17 and 46 turn the Constitution toward substantive equality.
The risks of “fair” treatment
- Who decides fairness? Aristotle used proportion to justify natural slavery; Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld segregation as “separate but equal”.
- Paternalism: differential treatment can encode stereotype — Anuj Garg v. Hotel Association of India (2007) struck down a ban on women working where liquor is served, rejecting its paternalistic claim to protect them.
- Liberty and individuality: group-based differentiation can burden innocent individuals, stigmatise beneficiaries and invite elite capture — hence the creamy layer and sub-classification in Davinder Singh (2024).
- Fairness therefore needs a baseline of equal treatment in basic rights, with every departure publicly justified.
Conclusion
Fair treatment is the maturer reading of equality — it honours the spirit of equal human dignity rather than the letter of identical rules. But it cannot replace equal treatment; it presupposes it. Equal rights, votes and legal standing form the floor; differentiated treatment is justified only when it restores people to the standing of equals.