The Great Race ‘Backward’

The recent suicide of a Dalit student at a university in Hyderabad has generated extensive debate on the presence of ‘casteism’ on educational campuses in India.

Let us admit, Indian universities not unlike universities elsewhere in the world — are breeding grounds for future politicians. It is therefore natural that student politics cannot be organized any differently than the manner in which it gets fought at the national level — i.e. along caste lines. Students frequently indulge in intense group rivalry and expectedly… there is violence. Sometime they get killed and sometime they commit suicide. As a university student in the eighties, I have lived this experience first hand. I am also not surprised that the nature of university politics remain the same. Students get suspended. They are thrown out of hostels. Scholarships canceled. Nothing extraordinary was happening on this campus in Hyderabad.

Caste is often described as diabolical and… dehumanizing. Yet much of the thinking around casteism is deliberately muddled… and intentionally self serving — both for those who are accused of discrimination and those that claim they are discriminated against. A careful unpacking can therefore reveal interesting trends and emerging social behaviors and perhaps put the whole question of caste in different perspective.

1. First of all, the widespread practice of casteism within the Sikhs, the Muslims, Christians and even Buddhists is enough to dispel the notion that caste is religious in nature. Many Hindus who have converted their religions have not been able to convert their castes. Nor have other religions erased their caste or allowed converts to escape from it.

2. Once you have stripped religion out of the caste system — you begin to see its widespread presence amongst every conceivable civilization — from the Romans to the Mongols to the Indians. Human societies have ordered themselves for their own benefit rather than through divine command. Those indulging in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, the warriors and guardians and the plebeians and ordinary workers have always constituted separate groups. Hindu caste system is also organized along similar lines — expect that it has another category for Outsiders ( Untouchables as they are called) . It’s equivalent in contemporary societies was ‘Slave’ . There is nothing to indicate that the Untouchables were treated in any way worse than the Slaves were treated in Rome. There is also nothing to suggest that this system was rigid. Class mobility was rare but absolutely possible if you looked at these four categories placed side by side rather than up and down or forward and backward.

3. Over time, the ordinary workers that constituted largest proportion of the population. organized themselves as guilds purely for reasons of economic efficiency. In the absence of formal education — trade and art ranging from shoemaking to hair-cutting to woodworking to farming to medicine to law to war — was learnt by experience — practicing under the head of a family. If the practice fossilized over a period of time and created rivalry amongst various groups — it should be seen as economic — rather than religious or social in nature.

4. Discrimination is normal human behavior. It is a form of hypocrisy to think otherwise given that we all practice it on a daily basis. Individuals will find myriad reasons to place themselves above their peers in competitive situations. That applies to groups as well. But no such ordering or categorization is possible without the acceptance of those being categorized. So if at a point in history — physical protection from other rival groups was critical — those providing protection were naturally powerful. These warriors, understandably, became emperors and feudal lords and fought wars and battles at the cost of their own life — for the benefit of others — receiving rewards in proportion to the huge risk they undertook..I see this as a trade-off — you were trading your death with the life of a protector. That puts you within a social order — that you accept willingly without any notion of discrimination. Similarly if knowledge is important — you trade your ignorance with the wisdom of the knowledgeable. Those in the artisan and merchant class enjoyed the fruits of their effort — having outsourced protection and knowledge to a separate group.

There are several ways to understand caste without the religious prejudice it often invokes. I have found the one above to be most scientific and reasonable and socially consistent.

The form of casteism that Rohith, the Dalit student spoke about in his letter, is unfortunately, a British import — essentially meant to slice and dice a resilient Indian society that had survived several cultural and religious onslaughts over the course of its history and managed to remain alive and flourishing. How else can one explain that the generous scholarship that allowed the Dalit icon Ambedkar to travel overseas and receive university education and as a consequence achieve political prominence — was made available by the Maharaja of Baroda — an upper caste. Ambedkar’s own life makes a point contrary to the one that his followers never hesitate to make — in the context of discrimination against lower castes. It also puts into question whether the whole idea of affirmative action for India’s lowest caste was to promote and perpetuate a social practice that would have died a natural death, if people like Ambedkar had not ended up playing into the hands of the British.

It is also India’s misfortune, that, although, the British may have released the monster of casteism upon India and left, political parties have managed to keep it not only alive but also constantly feeding its insatiable appetite.

A few decades after independence, when the results of affirmative action had begun to percolate — anti caste ( read anti high caste ) movements were set up in many parts of India, benefiting from results that those schemes ( such as reservations in government jobs, educational institutions and other forms of grants and empowerment policies) had made available. Interestingly the knock-on benefit of these social and political movements did not go to the so called lowest castes which perhaps were genuinely deserving but to a new expanding category of middle castes who had started to call themselves backward. A new caste war began — that between the lowest castes and the backward ones. Imagine middle castes such as the Yadav and Gurjars — the forerunners of India’s princely castes suddenly reincarnate themselves as backward. But democracy is a game of numbers and those numbers have been aggressively used not only to reclassify existing castes but actually create absolutely new ones.

Anyone willing to put his mind to think, will quickly realize that in twenty first century India — caste is no more a social evil but an economic one — pitting one group against the other. It was last heard that the Brahmins have also sought backward ‘status’ . The Kshatriyas have already received that in some states. The effect of this encroachment on caste privileges — originally meant for the lowest in the society has serious political repercussions.

India’s caste-based affirmative action policies enshrined in the constitution that the British gave us were meant to last for twenty years. They have the possibility to out last that very constitution given the way demands for backward caste status are beginning to emerge.

Not long after Rohith committed suicide , in his home state of Andhra — the Kapus — who were identified as ‘forward caste’ in a 1921 census — a prosperous land owning farming community — had burned several buses and obstructed traffic for two days pressing for their inclusion in the ‘backward caste’ category. Nothing can be more ironical.

One would wonder what potential benefits can ‘backward caste’ status provide that Indians are rioting to become ‘backward’. Civil service jobs across the country that provide preferences are less than 2%.. The poor quality government schools and universities that provide preferential admissions for the ‘backward’ are rarely the ones where the ‘forward castes striving to be backward’ send their children.

The most plausible explanation for the rise of casteism — of the kind that Rohith experienced at his alma mater is a form of backlash against the ‘reservation system’ it has spawned. This is a reservation system that the Dalits want to preserve and forms the core of their political principles rather than the destruction of caste as a diabolical practice.

In 1936, Ambedkar wrote a paper called ‘ The annihilation of caste’ which has since become a seminal document for those calling for the abolition of caste discrimination. Yet it is increasingly becoming clear that his followers do not necessarily want to annihilate caste but perpetuate it — generating political mileage for themselves in the process.

If upper caste privilege is what the Dalits and Backwards want to fight against — they cannot do so by asking for it — for themselves.