Polite Indian

Over the last couple of days I have been looking to see if there are/were any social movements to abolish the caste system. I started surfing the net and came accross a very interesting document and that is Ambedkar’s Annihilation Of Caste (AOC). This was a speech that Ambedkar had prepared when asked to preside over the Jat Pat Todak Mandal conference. Even though the conference was cancelled, for reasons he has mentioned in the preface, Ambedkar published the speech.

Any person willing to learn about the evils of caste system in India should read the AOC. After reading it I was amazed at how profound Ambedkar’s understanding of the subject was. I don’t think anybody understood the subject better than him. One has to really read it carefully to understand his views. My observations after reading the AOC are

• Ambedkar has the deepest and in my view the most correct understanding of the subject and he has presented the evils of the caste system very well.
• He has correctly diagnosed the problem that the hindu society faces because of the caste system.
• His solution to the problem i.e. Annhilation of the Caste can not be more correct. He understands that no matter how many programmes you run for the upliftment of the backward caste, true equality will not be achieved as long as the caste system lives. A contention that I cannot agree more with.
• However I tend to agree less with the manner in which he has presented the solution. Even though he has explained in detail what he means by the different terms e.g. “destruction of religion”, these are so powerful words that can cause most logical men to close their eyes to reasoning. Choosing a language as strong as this he gave an easy tool to the detractors to put his entire speech in bad light and that is exactly what Mahatma Gandhi did when he reviewed the speech in his periodical, “Harijan”. Because of this it was easy for the Mahatma to overlook the entire content of the speech and focus on this aspect that asked for the destruction of religion. Even though Ambedkar wrote a reply to Mahatma but till that point it had become just a play of words.

While both Gandhi and Ambedkar had the interest of the BC in mind their approach to the problem and solution was different.

Gandhi’s ViewPoint

1. Abolish Untouchability
2. Maintain Varna vyavastha which he argued was different than caste system. A difference so subtle and difficult to comprehend.
3. He believed that the hearts of the upper castes could be changed to treat the lower castes equally and his entire struggle was directed towards bringing that change of heart.

Ambedkar’s ViewPoint

1. Abolish the Caste System.
2. Ambedkar believed that the caste system derived its strength from the Vedas and Shashtras and hence asked for the destruction of the shashtras. A proposition so strong and it provided the ammunition to the detractors.
3. He wanted a strict legislation in place to make sure that caste could not be misused again.

In my view Gandhi’s methodology was incorrect. Assuming that he did somehow achieve what he wanted to what would he have really achieved? He would have just gone back to the beginning of Varna Vyavastha where the division was based on labour and everybody respected each other. Haven’ we already been there? Haven’t we already seen that degenerate into the ugly caste system? What guarantee is that after Gandhi’s goal was achieved it would never degenerate to its present levels? His belief in the eternal goodness of the upper caste is flawed.

What Ambedkar sought was a legal remedy to a social problem. In his proposal to seek the remedy he went too far in asking for the destruction of the hindu relegion, which sounds strong but in essence what he wanted was to change the laws that governed the hindu society for ages. He wanted to take out the religious sanctity to the caste system by rejecting the shashtras. I think what he meant was to change the shashtras to remove the support for the caste system that it provides. In essence he wanted a religious reform as well.

I agree with Ambedkar in the sense that the legal remedy is very much needed and what is needed after that is active campaigning has I have mentioned in me previous blogs.

I think Ambedkar’s understanding of the system was ver profound and in his zeal to make others understand the depth of his solution i.e. Annihilation of Caste, he went too far in explaining the consequences which in my view was unnecessary and he extrapolated too much. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe the times in which he was living such a change would have caused exactly what he feared.

Had the Mahatma agreed to the abolishing of caste system then, we would have seen the end of it by now. I respect Mahatma Gandhi a lot and he has done a lot of great things but also like humans he has committed some mistakes and in my view this was one of the more serious ones.

Today I think the social condition is different if not much better. There are a lot more educated elite that I believe would agree to abolish the caste system rather than maintain it in some other form. The reasons for this agreement maybe different. Whatever their reasons but I strongly feel it is time to start a social movement against caste system that aims for nothing less than the complete “Annihilation Of Castes”.

What does abolishing the caste system mean?
What does abolishing the caste system means? To some it means raising the level of backward caste to the same level of other castes so that they are all equal. To me that is not correct. That is a soceity were caste system exists and all castes are treated equal.
Abolishing the caste system means that there will be no caste. No one would be identied by a caste. Every hindu will be just that…Hindu. No Brahmins. No Kshatriyas. No Vaishyas. No Shudras. No Dalits……Only Hindus!!!

Anybody you talk to would agree that the caste system is an evil that has plagued the hindu society for thousands of years. As with every evil, this one should die as well but why is no one talking about abolishing it? Why isn’t there a single voice asking for it?

There could be a multitude of reasons for it.
Now Let us try to examine why different groups are not advocating abolishing the caste system.

Forward Caste:
You won’t see a lot of forward caste people advocating abolishing the caste system. This is because in their heart they have not accepted it that all castes are equal. They still hold the superiority feeling about their caste and would not want to let go of it. I can see a lot of people coming out against this statement but if you look around that there are only a handful few who genuinely believe in equality of all. Others just talk about it for discussions and arguments sake. Some talk about equality because of the fear of the law. Some are frustrated because of the bad side effects of reservations that they are willing to treat the BCs as equals But only few talk about it from the heart. We need a lot more forward caste people to feel from the heart that everybody is made equal.

Backward Caste:
Most of them can’t even dream of it let alone talk about it. They have been opressed for so long that thinking in terms of equality is just beyond most of them. They are more worried about surviving in their day to day life that there is little time left to think about anything else. Most of them have just accepted it that they are destined to be opressed and hence go on living their life without questioning it.

Then there is a group of “Elite BC” who has made some advancement in life and are well aware of the benefits of the government programmes that are run for the benefit of BCs. These elitist BCs do not want to let go of these opportunities. They want to use/misuse it to all their advantage and where would the advantage be if the caste system was abolished? Then why talk about it? In the academic arguments these elitist would be the first one to talk about the evils of caste system but they will never talk about abolishing it. There might be a few thinking about it but I have not heard any voices yet.

Political Parties:
Which political party would risk losing a vote bank? Yes, the political parties will not do it because for every party it is a vote bank. Be it SP, BSP or Congress. The political parties are in fact interested in keeping the caste system alive. The resaons are the same why the britishers wanted it and that is divide and rule. This is the disgusting fact about our political parties. Even those who are the so called “protectors” of the backward caste. The unwillingness of the political parties hurts us the most. Even more than the unwillingness of the “Forward” and the “Backward” caste. It is a shameful fact that we cannot rely on our politician to do any good to the society.

So what can we do about it?

To begin with we can start talking about it. We should use all the possible means of communication to spread the word. There are a lot of wellwishers of the backward caste in the internet community and I hope they will take up this cause. Even though there might differences in the manner in which one would like to go about it but establishing this common goal would be the first step. All should agree first that the caste system should be abolished and then we can start discussing about the modalities.
We should start a discussion about this in the media, both print and electronic, circulate chain emails, start a petition online.
Start raising your voice and soon you will see that they are being heard.

“kaun kehta hai aasman mein surakh nahi ho sakta,
ek pathar to tabiyat se uchhalo yaaron“
(who says the sky cannot be pierced, one just needs to throw a stone towards it with all one’s heart)

Caste System has been prevalent in the hindu society for thousands of years. In most parts of the country your caste can be identified just by your name and if that is not obvious you are expicitly asked what your caste is?
Why does that happen? It happens because people make implicit assumptions about your personality/character and upbringing just by knowing your caste. This is so deeply rooted in the society that nobody even gets offended answering questions about their caste. Even those who get offended would not express it out aloud.
After being independent for over 50 years now don’t we know that how big an evil the entire caste system is? There has been efforts from the pre independence era to abolish it but we have not been able to do so. Why? Will we ever be able to abolish the caste system? Is it even right to think that something like this is even possible?

I say YES.

It is very much possible to uproot the caste system. What is needed is the political/social will and a systematic approach.

Before we try to come up with a means to abolish caste system let us answer the question Why is the caste system still alive?

The caste system in still alive because the so called “Upper Castes” won’t let it go away. It is alive because the politicians do not want it to go away. It is a very sensitive issue and in India every sensitive issue can be politicised to bag votes. It is easy to divide the people on lines of caste and create vote banks. These politicians have kept it alive. I have not seen a single political party talking about abolishing the caste system. All they talk about is how the “Lower Castes” have been oppressed and how they need more reservation in education and jobs. To keep the feeling among the lower classes that they are lower the caste system is alive. The political parties even fighting for the backward classes want their masses to remain backward so that they can easily count them within their vote banks. So in my view it is all political that the caste system is still alive.

How can we abolish the caste system?

It is such a deep rooted system that it cannot be undone in a couple of years. Any effort that starts today will show benefits only after a couple of generations. As with any big effort to bring about a change within the society, this will be met with a lot of resistance but this is about the right time to start the change because nobody in his right frame of mind will say “It is not the right thing to do”. There will be other arguments about how to then assure their welfare and so on but more about it later.

The first thing to do is to remove the notion of caste. Today there is a very stringent and effective law where anybody insulting anyone based on caste is punished heavily.

• We need to have similar stringent legislation where nobody can ask anybody his caste and nobody is forced to tell his caste. After the legislation run an active campaign to make everyone aware of the law and the consequences.
• Amend the constitution to state that caste system is abolished in place of the current article which says untouchability is abolished.
• There must be no place on any application form or government document asking about caste.
  

Ponder over those points for a minute. If you don’t need the caste for those things then where do you need it? No where! If you don’t need the caste information then don’t ask and don’t tell. A couple of generations later they would not even know what their caste is because it is not important for anything.

Kill the purpose of the identification criteria and the identification criteria will die on its own.

Sceptics will argue that this will not happen and even after the two things mentioned above are done the caste system will prevail. I would disagree.
Take an example where you change the name of a city say Madras. It has been changed to Chennai. Every official document now shows Chennai, every sign now reads Chennai. A kid while growing up will see it as Chennai and will read in history books that it was called Madras once. From the kids perspective there is no value in knowing the city as Madras except academic or historical reasons.

Take another example of renaming a University and you will find the same thing. An engineering college gets renamed as IIT so and so. Over time it will just get that identity and people will accept it.

So if we give enough time and put the right procedures in place the caste system can get abolished. We would have achieved true social justice then.

What after that?

Questions will then be asked, how do you uplift them without knowing who they are? I would ask, who are you trying to uplift? In my view the obvious answer is, “The people who are not able and not well represented”. We are definitely talking about people who cannot earn a decent living and need education and support. Who are these people? These are the people who have an economic disadvantage.

After or even while abolishing the caste system we can totally focus on what is truly needed and that is programmes to provide economic benefit to the economically deprived. The economic justice can then be acheived with the right programmes for acheiving just that and not mixing it with social justice.

Remember, these things take time. Centuries old evil cannot be uprooted in just a few years. It will need perseverence from all of us.

Reservations and Indian Politicians

I would not like to get into the discussion whether reservation is good or bad for the Indian society but the question I would like to ask is…. Are the Indian politicains serious about the welfare of the backward caste?

In my opinion NO.

The situation would have been a lot different if they really had been serious in the last 59 years of indpendence. What they really care about is the votes. If they really care about the BCs then in addition to providing reservation in educational institutions and jobs they should also advocates reservations in the following areas as well.

• Parliaments - 50% of the seats should be reserved for SC/ST/OBCs
• Assemblies
• Panchayats
• Municipalities
• Every other public body.

Representation of the backward castes in these places will definitely provide them the power and the means to uplift the community to which they belong.

Also analogous to the promotion of SC/ST/OBCs in the jobs, there should be 50% of ministries reserved for the backward castes. This will also ensure proper representation of BCs in the power holding positions.

But I see no politician advocating that. Why? Because it directly affects their power base. Their chances of coming back to power will be greatly reduced once this is implemented. All those politicians in my view are hypocrites. This idea has not been even mooted once! Maybe it has been but very quickly suppressed. Who knows!

I once again repeat, I do not know if reservations are good or bad but if the government decides that reservation is the means to uplift the backward caste then they should provide reservation in the political sphere as well.

Once the politicians implement these policies or at least talk about it openly only then I can get convinced about the sincerety of their effort. Untill then to me it is all a political gimmick to fool the common people.

Any Arjun Singhs voting for that?