Affirmative action as a state policy is one of the powerful ways of empowering the underprivileged in the society. While such a policy is aimed at lifting the economic and social condition of the underprivileged, this comes with acts that are discriminatory and exclusionary. Yet these acts are termed as positive discrimination. Certain sections of the society are excluded from having access to economic resources and opportunities, while these privileges are earmarked for another section of the society considered marginalized and underprivileged. This is being done guided by the principle of distributive justice. While the principle carries sound moral basis, conceptualizing the deprived and mode of empowerment varies with states and society, thus throws up several challenges. Indian experience draws challenges of negotiating the dual presence of individual and collective in the theorizing—idea of empowerment is directed to an individual, but the identity of the individual is based on his/her social identity. The dual challenge of uplifting a caste/community through empowering an individual belonging to the group has raised several questions in terms of achieving the goal of distributive justice. While the principle of distributive justice aims at empowering the least privileged within an underprivileged group/community, this has not been an easy task. After seventy years of reservation policy a lot more initiative is still called for. There is perhaps need for deeper philosophical deliberation on the nature of empowerment, distributive justice, and the underlying moral foundations. Meaningful policy intervention must be built on well thought out theoretical deliberations.

作为一项国家政策的平权行动是赋予社会弱势群体权力的有力方式之一。虽然这样的政策旨在改善弱势群体的经济和社会状况，但随之而来的是歧视性和排斥性的行为。然而，这些行为被称为积极歧视。社会的某些群体被排除在获得经济资源和机会之外，而这些特权则被指定给社会中被边缘化和弱势的另一群体。这是在分配正义原则的指导下完成的。虽然该原则具有良好的道德基础，但对被剥夺者的概念和赋权模式因国家和社会而异，因此提出了一些挑战。印度的经验在理论上提出了协商个人和集体双重存在的挑战——赋权的想法是针对个人的，但个人的身份是基于他/她的社会身份。通过赋予属于该群体的个人权力来提升种姓/社区的双重挑战在实现分配正义的目标方面提出了一些问题。虽然分配正义原则旨在赋予弱势群体/社区中最弱势群体权力，但这并不是一件容易的事。经过七十年的预订政策，仍然需要采取更多主动行动。也许需要对赋权的本质、分配正义和潜在的道德基础进行更深入的哲学思考。