By Ambrose Pinto S J
Debates on caste census are emotional both for the proponents and opponents of caste...
It is not only the Union Cabinet that is divided on caste in census but society as a whole. When V P Singh decided to implement the Mandal report, the country was torn apart. There was violence and bloodshed. Lives were lost. In Karnataka, the Havanur and Chinnappa Reddy Commission reports on backward classes were found controversial. Due to intense opposition to the reports’ recommendations, there was no possibility of implementing them. Politicians played with the contents of the reports and appeased the dominant communities.
Whether it is politics, education, elections, appointment of people to public offices or allocation of resources, caste has come to play a decisive role. There is a dominant section in Indian society which believes that the only way of getting rid of caste in society is by rejecting caste outright and therefore caste should not be included in the 2011 Census. They hold that the government could adopt class or economic factor as an alternative. To back their arguments, they quote the constitution that speaks of backward classes in Articles 15 (4), 340 (1) and 16 (4) and not castes.
The inclusion of caste, according to them, would perpetuate the evils of the system in a caste-ridden society and accentuate caste consciousness. The divided nation will open new vistas for internecine conflicts. The secular polity will be further communalised and the vision of building a welfare and secular state will be defeated. If the purpose is to reserve jobs on the basis of caste, the end-result will be poor-qualified people entering public services and there will be a shift from meritocracy to mediocrity. The equal protection law, they argue, prohibits the state from discriminating in providing preferences. All preferences and privileges should be on the basis of poverty and not on the basis of caste.
Unfortunately those who oppose caste in the census are elites. They apprehend that caste enumeration would expose their monopoly over power. Society cannot remain static and there is need to transform society and its structures to make it more democratic and participative. Those at the helm of power belong to the dominant castes and communities and they are not inclined to share power with the rest. Ours is a country of inequalities with caste as its foundation. At one end of the spectrum we have the outcastes and at the other end are the favoured ones, comprising priests, landlords and merchants. In between are hundreds of classes condemned to backwardness because of their occupation the caste system has ascribed to them.
A right
Their social status, educational backwardness and economic position are due to the consequence of caste. What they are claiming now is their legitimate place in society as a right and not as a concession on the basis of justice. Their demand for caste-based census is fully justified since they are keen to know the power differentials among communities. While caste alone or income alone cannot be the sole test for backwardness, the country needs to adopt a means-cum/caste/community test to classify backwardness. Social backwardness is the result of both poverty and caste. But caste simply cannot be done away with.
In recent years, the role of caste has increased due to politics. The mobilisation of votes during elections is on the basis of caste. What the backwards could not get through social instrumentalities, they have been able to obtain through mobilisation of caste during elections. The emergence of Mayawati, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh and Nitish Kumar as leaders of their castes would not have been possible without politics. It is caste that has provided channels for mobilisation and articulation for lower castes and classes. Backwardness in India is four dimensional — caste, class, status and power. All these were a monopoly of the so-called superior castes. Caste has even travelled to the religious realm and is prevalent in the egalitarian religions as well. How can caste be ignored?
The central question is to transforming the caste problem by not rejecting it. What is accepted is healed and what is rejected persists. We cannot end the caste system by stating that it does not exist. In everyday life caste is a factor. We have caste groups and organisations. Our customs, rituals, marriages, births and deaths are all in accordance with caste norms. By ignoring caste, we will only perpetuate it and drive millions to live in squalor and poverty. It is only when we are able to identify the socially and educationally backward classes on the basis of caste that they can be provided their legitimate rights.
Census is an important exercise for the country which spends large sums of money on the exercise. That is why the exercise of census should move beyond mere head count and provide social, economic and caste data so that the Indian state can work with that statistics to empower communities. Without that data any reservation for backward classes makes no sense. Once we have a caste data, it will be easy to provide each community with its due share of resources and power. There is a need to expose the hypocrisy of the caste lobby which opposes caste enumeration to preserve its own interests.
Whether it is politics, education, elections, appointment of people to public offices or allocation of resources, caste has come to play a decisive role. There is a dominant section in Indian society which believes that the only way of getting rid of caste in society is by rejecting caste outright and therefore caste should not be included in the 2011 Census. They hold that the government could adopt class or economic factor as an alternative. To back their arguments, they quote the constitution that speaks of backward classes in Articles 15 (4), 340 (1) and 16 (4) and not castes.
The inclusion of caste, according to them, would perpetuate the evils of the system in a caste-ridden society and accentuate caste consciousness. The divided nation will open new vistas for internecine conflicts. The secular polity will be further communalised and the vision of building a welfare and secular state will be defeated. If the purpose is to reserve jobs on the basis of caste, the end-result will be poor-qualified people entering public services and there will be a shift from meritocracy to mediocrity. The equal protection law, they argue, prohibits the state from discriminating in providing preferences. All preferences and privileges should be on the basis of poverty and not on the basis of caste.
Unfortunately those who oppose caste in the census are elites. They apprehend that caste enumeration would expose their monopoly over power. Society cannot remain static and there is need to transform society and its structures to make it more democratic and participative. Those at the helm of power belong to the dominant castes and communities and they are not inclined to share power with the rest. Ours is a country of inequalities with caste as its foundation. At one end of the spectrum we have the outcastes and at the other end are the favoured ones, comprising priests, landlords and merchants. In between are hundreds of classes condemned to backwardness because of their occupation the caste system has ascribed to them.
A right
Their social status, educational backwardness and economic position are due to the consequence of caste. What they are claiming now is their legitimate place in society as a right and not as a concession on the basis of justice. Their demand for caste-based census is fully justified since they are keen to know the power differentials among communities. While caste alone or income alone cannot be the sole test for backwardness, the country needs to adopt a means-cum/caste/community test to classify backwardness. Social backwardness is the result of both poverty and caste. But caste simply cannot be done away with.
In recent years, the role of caste has increased due to politics. The mobilisation of votes during elections is on the basis of caste. What the backwards could not get through social instrumentalities, they have been able to obtain through mobilisation of caste during elections. The emergence of Mayawati, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh and Nitish Kumar as leaders of their castes would not have been possible without politics. It is caste that has provided channels for mobilisation and articulation for lower castes and classes. Backwardness in India is four dimensional — caste, class, status and power. All these were a monopoly of the so-called superior castes. Caste has even travelled to the religious realm and is prevalent in the egalitarian religions as well. How can caste be ignored?
The central question is to transforming the caste problem by not rejecting it. What is accepted is healed and what is rejected persists. We cannot end the caste system by stating that it does not exist. In everyday life caste is a factor. We have caste groups and organisations. Our customs, rituals, marriages, births and deaths are all in accordance with caste norms. By ignoring caste, we will only perpetuate it and drive millions to live in squalor and poverty. It is only when we are able to identify the socially and educationally backward classes on the basis of caste that they can be provided their legitimate rights.
Census is an important exercise for the country which spends large sums of money on the exercise. That is why the exercise of census should move beyond mere head count and provide social, economic and caste data so that the Indian state can work with that statistics to empower communities. Without that data any reservation for backward classes makes no sense. Once we have a caste data, it will be easy to provide each community with its due share of resources and power. There is a need to expose the hypocrisy of the caste lobby which opposes caste enumeration to preserve its own interests.
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