Polite Indian

Recently Manmohan singh compared Untouchability to aparthied.

Seeking to make a distinction between the problems faced by Dalits in India and those faced by minorities in all societies, Singh said the dalits faced a unique discrimination with Apartheid being the only parallel to untouchability.

“Even after 60 years of Constitutional and legal protection and support, there is still social discrimination against Dalits in many parts of the country,” he accepted.

(link via upliftthem)

I think that was a very honest admittance of an evil that has plagues India society for centuries. This accpetance is definitely the right step.

BJP has criticised the PM’s speech saying that this will tarnish the image of India internationally. I think this is something that needs to be told to the entire world. India has a problem and it needs to accept it and then address it. PM has just done the first part of admitting it. The second remains to be seen.

I think International pressure needs to be put on India to put an end to untouchability. Pressures similar to those on South Africa to end the aparthied. India on its own has done little to vanquish this evil. Even though legislation to ban untouchability and other acts have been passed, their implementation leaves much to be desired.

If internation pressure and sanctions can bring that change in India then so be it. I am all for it.

Shivam has the entire story of the Khairlanji Massacre.

Surekha and Priyanka were stripped, paraded naked, beaten black and blue with bicycle chains, axes and bullock cart pokers. They were publicly gang raped until they died. Some raped them even after that, and finally, sticks and rods were shoved into their genitals. In the meantime, Sudhir managed to contact the police from his mobile phone, but his phone had been smashed. Its pieces are now circumstantial evidence. Roshan and Sudhir were beaten up, their genitals mutilated, faces disfigured and their bodies tossed in the air, before they lay dead on the ground. Hiding behind a hut, Bhaiyyalal helplessly watched his family’s gruesome end. There was no one to call for help. Kherlanji had only two Mahar families; the rest were either perpetrators or spectators. An hour later, a village meeting was called and a diktat issued: no one was to say a word about the massacre.

It will be shameful if the perpetrators  go unpunished in this case.

Incidents like these make me ashamed of the country that I belong to.

Ever Since the Supreme Court made the decision about Creamy Layer from SC/ST being excluded from the purview of benefits of reservation, Creamy layer is doing its round of news and analysis. To understand what and who is a creamy layer go here.

Seems like almost all the political parties are united in their stand against the SC order. An Article in Hindu (link via krish) goes in depth trying to explain why Creamy layer concept is an invalid concept

The concept of creamy layer obfuscates the fact of caste discrimination within institutions of education, employment, and justice.

My personal stand is that Creamy Layer should be excluded from the purview of reservation benefits. One of the main reason is as I explained here. There are other reasons why they should be excluded.

Let us understand why we run social justice programmes? We run these programmes to enable the socially backward classes of the society to be able to have opportunities, which would otherwise be inacessible to them. Now every social justice program has to have end goal.

In the case of reservations what is the end goal? In my view, as I have argued elsewhere, reservations help provide the economic justice which in turn may or may not provide the required social justice.I have my doubts but let’s stick to the economic aspect of the reservations programme. So how do you measure whether someone has benefittedfrom the programme or not? … By looking at the economic indicators. As time passes, the people who have benefitted from the programme and have been enabled should make way for the remaining underprivileged. If we do not have a provision to move people out of the underprivileged category once they have benefitted, these benefits will be cornered by them for time eternal. The reason being they would be better placed than their economically weaker counterparts.

And if the social justice programmes does not provide one to get out of the disability that it was trying to address, what good is the programme in the first place? If it did help someone get rid of that disability what good is it to continue providing the benefit?

But what about representation?

I agree this is one of the problems. Even today all the SC/ST seats don’t get filled and if we exclude the Creamy layer even more might remain unfilled. This will be a serious drawback of the supreme court judgement. This problem in my view can be tackled in two steps, independent of each other.

First, we need to provide basic education to the SC/ST/OBC students so that we have more people from the non-creamy layer to fill the seats.

Second we should fill the seats in reserved category in two steps. First the SC/ST/OBCs from the non-creamy layer be given preference. If after that seats are still vacant then we should fill them candidates from the Creamy Layer SC/ST/OBC category.

This arrangement would in my view achieve the desired goal. It would bring more people in the benefit net from the underpriviliged category and if there aren’t enough we solve the representation issue by allowing the priviliged SC/ST/OBCs to fill the seats.

Link Via Shivam

Most people won’t believe this unless they see it with their own eyes.

This video made me sad.

There is a discussion at The Other India that I have been a part of and some interesting points stand out from the whole discussion.

I wish to ponder about one point made by suresh about losing your identity based on caste. While I agree that it is nobody’s business to tell anybody how to identify himself or even how not to identify themselves, A few questions then arise in my mind…

1. What are the reasons that we tend to identify ourselves with our caste?
2. What good possibly comes out for a “lower” caste person to identify himself with his caste?
3. Why would a person from an “Upper” caste not identify himself with his caste?
4. Is it our religious beliefs that make us so tied to our caste?

These are the questions that I think if answered will help us understand better if abolishing caste by a legislation makes any sense at all.

What are the reasons that we tend to identify ourselves with our caste?

The first and foremost reason is that caste is something that we inherit and what we inherit is something we have to live with. We don’t question that and we grow up with that identity since childhood. Historically people with different castes have had different life styles and have been following different food habits, customs and traditions. We grow up with these customs, traditions and life style as ours and some of these customs and rituals are unique to our caste. When we think of those customs they automatically get tied to the caste. We do not have to make any extra effort to identify with our caste, it just comes naturally to us.

Another reason is the in built-in social hierarchy in our caste-system. A brahmin being on the top of the hierarchy feels good about being a brahmin and wants to maintain his caste. A Shudra or a Dalit does not enjoy the same position but are made aware of their position in the social hierarchy by those holding the top positions. Such acts in the society reinforces the notion of caste on a daily basis. We being a part of the society cannot escape it.

What good possibly comes out for a “lower” caste person to identify himself with his caste?

Given the social handicaps that accompany a person from the lower caste, I cannot think of a single reason why someone from the lower caste will not be willing to shed off the caste identities.

In today’s world one reason could be to avail the facilities/benefits provided by the government to help elevate their economic status. I wouldn’t even consider this a reason but judging from the numerous cases of fake caste certificates, it can be seen that even people from the “upper castes” are willing to be identified as “lower caste”. This I think is a trend more in urban and semi urban areas.

Why would a person from an “Upper” caste not identify himself with his caste?

Due to the social hierarchy, any upper caste person can easily harbor a false “superiority complex”. The brahmins enjoy the top position and they are treated with some respect no matter what their economic status is. This is more evident in the rural areas. Given this, why would the brahmins not want to identify themselves as brahmins? Why would they want to lose the social position that they have been enjoying for ages?

One reason as I mentioned before is the case of fake caste certificates that the upper caste would identify themself not with their own caste but with a lower caste. Such cases are observed only in the poorer segement of the upper caste.

The only reason why an upper caste will be willing to shed ther caste identity would be when the caste becomes irrelevant. Meaning there is niether a benefit nor a handicap for belonging to any particular caste. RealityCheck makes the same argument in one of his comments at a The Other India.

Is it our religious beliefs that make us so tied to our caste?
This question is an important one. If a caste identity is sanctified in the religion then people have every reason to identify with the caste.
Many authors have argued that the caste system is in built in hinduism and there are many others who do not think so. One such article written by M.V Nadkarni argues that the caste system is not intrinsic to hinduism. It is a long article and makes some compelling points.

On the other hand Ambedkar’s Annihilation Of Caste and Who were the shudras makes a case that the religious sanction to the caste system is provided by our religious texts. He even argues that it goes as far as the Rig Veda quoting verses from the Purusha Sukta.

I am in no position to comment which theory is correct but I wish Mr Nadkarni is correct because it would make it easier to abolish caste. If he is wrong then the abolishing caste amounts to a reform of the hindu religion which is a much tougher task.

Mr. Suraj Bhan had made some progress towards reforming the hindu religion. Below is an excerpt from this news article at dalits.org. His efforts indicate that the caste is so tied with the religion and he would have to take help from the shankaracharyas to Delete Dalit slur from scriptures

Delete “objectionable references” to Dalits from the scriptures if you want to intensify the fight against untouchability, says National Commission for Scheduled Castes chairman Suraj Bhan. Bhan claims he has the blessings of the Sankaracharya of Sringeri Mutt has for his demand and he will soon meet other Sankaracharyas to garner support for his cause. Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Bhan said that references like dhol gan-war shudra pashu nari, sakal tadan keadhikari (drum, illiterate, Dalit, animal, women, all are fit only to be beaten) in Ramcharitmanas should not be allowed in print in a society with a Constitution giving equal rights to all. He said fresh edited versions of these scriptures should be brought out. Bhan said the Commission will hold conferences in all the states to “generate awakening” on the subject. In a bid to garner support for his endeavour, Bhan met the religious head of the Sringeri seat earlier last week. “He has agreed to support my cause and
asked me to speak to other Sankara-charyas on this issue and then a joint appeal can be made,” he said.

It can thus be seen that there are arguments to both sides but even though I would like to believe Mr Nadkarni there are evidences pointing to the contrary. He argues that the caste system is evident in the DharmaShastras and that the Dhrmashastras are just rule books and do not form a part of hinduism. This might be a very valid point but difficult to sell.

Caste-System in India is visible not only among Hindus but also Sikhs, Muslims and Christians as pointed out by this article at backwardpeople. If anybody has to think of abolishing caste, it is not only hinduism that would need reform but Indian version of Islam, Christianity and Sikhism. Though it might be easier with other religions because the religious leaders of other religions blame hinduism for “polluting” their religion with the caste system.

Should we then identify ourvselves with our caste?

It is obvious that this is not an easy question. Even if one is not caste conscious there are many subtle things that makes one identify with his caste. We have seen that there is some impact of religion on the caste system as well. When the religion comes in picture, it is easy to lose sight of reason and blindly follow what it says.

However difficult it may seem, my personal view point is that we should not identify with our caste. The lower castes in my view do not want to identify with the caste anyway. So it mostly comes to the upper castes. We all should make a conscious effort to erase caste boundaries. If religious reform is needed, we should encourage every effort that aims for it. Any person or organisiation promoting the view that caste system is not intrinsic to hinduism should be encouraged with all the support. The Caste system, when branded as an evil and spoken as not being a part of hinduismin in the same breath is likely to get denounced by the religious leaders as well. Once it gets established that caste is not a part of religion the case to abolish caste might get easier.

I would also like to ponder on what would happen if we were to abolish the caste by a legislative action. But that for later…

This article came as a shocker to me. Didn’t know Nepal had the same evil caste system as India.

Some of the highlights of the article are:

1. Public Taps for so called ‘upper caste people’ throughout the village, Dalits forced to fetch drinking water from river
2. Dalit women trashed for touching a public tap
3. This is how so called ‘upper caste’ people seize land from helpless Dalits
4. Discrimination practiced in front of regional administration office
5. Dalit runs Republican Hotel

It is so sad to see Untouchability being practised in India and even in Nepal…When will this end?

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.