Positive discrimination programme emerged in India, starting in the early decades of the 20th century, and was subsequently given a constitutional basis in 1950. There are at least three aspects of the Indian experience of ‘positive discrimination’ that are distinctive and significant. Firstly, positive discrimination (PD) in India predates affirmative action in the United States by several decades: claims for ‘reservations’ or quotas in education and employment were first made in the late 19th century, and the earliest quotas date back to the 1920s in Mysore and also in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies. Secondly, there is an important difference between the American policy of preferential treatment and the Indian policy which relies primarily on reservations through quotas. Thirdly, Indian policies of PD are primarily located in the educational, political and administrative domains, and have not yet been legislated for the corporate sector (as in Malaysia) or for civil society organisations. PD in India is directed at members of the Scheduled Castes (SCs), the Scheduled Tribes (STs), and more recently members of the ‘other backward classes’ (OBCs), with the possibility of including Muslims also being mooted. The underlying assumption in respect of religious minorities was that the democratic principle of equality is an insufficient guarantee for minorities who will, in the presence of a dominant majority, always be insecure in the enjoyment of their cultural rights. This resulted in guarantees for the freedom of religion, including the freedom to practise and propagate it, as well as providing for separate personal laws for members of minority religious