Q.A government report on farmers' problems says that small and marginal farmers cannot get good prices from the market. It recommends that the government should intervene to ensure a better price but only for small and marginal farmers. Is this recommendation consistent with the principle of equality?

The principle of equality does not always require identical treatment — sometimes real equality requires differential treatment for groups that start from a position of genuine disadvantage. …

The chapter's central point about equality through differential treatment is that treating people identically is not the same as treating them as equals. Sometimes real equality actually requires differentiated treatment, precisely because different groups start from genuinely different positions.

Small and marginal farmers have far less land, far less bargaining power in the market, and far less capacity to absorb a bad price or a bad season than large farmers do. An identical, one-size-fits-all market policy applied to both groups would, in practice, leave small and marginal farmers structurally disadvantaged, even though the policy looks perfectly "equal" on paper. …