Polite Indian

What is happening in Rajasthan is pretty shameful but not unexpected. The Gurjars have come out on the streets and their demand is that their OBC status be changed to ST. The protests have turned violent and as usual loss of life and public property follows. This includes pelting stone, burning police stations, road blocs and what not.

While the Gurjars are protesting to be included in the ST category, The Meena community is protesting against it. They have vowed to not let this inclusion happen as they are the only community classified as ST in Rajasthan.

What do you make of all this?

In my view this is happening for two reasons. One is Caste based identity Politics and the other is Quota Reservations. Because of Caste politics people vote en bloc as a community and they benefit as a bloc. This is what happened when jats in Rajasthan were granted OBC status. Since they are powerful and well off they kind of cornered the benefit of reservations. The gurjars, that has an OBC status was later promised ST status by BJP. The community voted and BJP came to power. The Gurjars now want the promise fulfilled. Apart from reservations the gurjars have another reason to protest. They have had very less political representation throughout Rajasthan except Dausa. Dausa is perhaps the only place where they have any political clout. When they learnt that Dausa was being converted into a reserved seat their patience ran out with BJP and they have come on the streets. Now if Gurjars get included as ST then the other ST community Meena suffers because someone else will come to share the ST reservation pie. Hence they protest to maintain their exclusive benefits. All of this is ridiculous but not unexpected. Looks like group assertion in India has become the only way to achieve any kind of benefit. This is a sad situation but is Muscle power of the community the only way to get social justice?

These events also bring out a big short coming of the entire social justice programme based on reservations. Many have been arguing all along the futility of implementing such huge programmes without solid data backing them. With incidents like these one can not help but doubt the fairness of the reservation system. The entire ad hoc classification process of communities as OBCs has to stop. The government needs to collect data and clearly define criteria based on which a community can be given a particuar status. It should also tackle the issue of creamy layer otherwise what is happening between different communities will get repeated within the same communities. Thereafter will come the quotas within quotas and so on.

Pratab Bhanu Mehta has an excellent take on the whole issue.

I personally feel it is time to revamp the whole reservation system with something new.

related reading in the blogosphere

Reality Check

Retributions

The recent elections in UP have had the results that could be good for UP in more ways than one.

The first and foremost that there is no hung assembly in UP. Thus providing a chance to focus on other things than just survival politics that had become the headache of every party in power.I hope that BSP makes use of this opportunity to get some development work started and I mean not only at basic level but also some ambitious projects especially regarding electricity, water and roads.

Secondly, this election has proved to be a setback for divisive politics . BSP has demonstrated how the future belongs to those who work with an all inclusive attitude. Now all that the BSP needs to do is show a slight sign of good governance and deliver to an extent on their promises. They can then ensure themselves another term at the help of the affairs and possibly pave the road to Delhi.

Third and most important is the hope and dignity that the election brings to millions of Dalits in the country and UP in particular. Mayawati symbolizes the breaking of upper caste monopoly over power. This election is an important landmark and will go a long way in boosting the Dalit morale. Dalits all over the country can now stand with the belief that Yes it can happen. The lesson that they should learn from this is that they should follow what BabaSaheb told them i.e. Educate, Struggle and Unite. The recent decision by Mayawati to give reservations to poor among the upper caste is an amazing step. It wasn’t long ago when Kanshi Ram said the same thing. He was against reservations for Dalits. He believed that the Dalits should be in power and give reservations to upper caste. It is about time that the Dalit community tasted power. It remains to be seen that they taste the fruits of power as well.

So far Mayawati has shown great political acumen in reaching where she is today but there are a few things that might have to change in the years to come. For one there is no other leader in BSP other than her. There is no second generation leadership. She needs to groom the second generation leadership. She also would have to mend her autocratic ways to be more successful at the higher level.

All in all I am very hopeful that this is the beginning of a change in UP and the relationship of dalits to power.

A lot has been written about the election and Mayawatin in the Blogosphere. I provide some links that are related.

Great Bong on Maya Memsaahib

Confused on Maya Memsaahib

Krish on UP Elections

Hindol Sengupta - Why I am afraid of Mayawati

Shivam Vij - On Why Hindol needn’t fear Mayawati

Kamla Bhatt - Excellent Profile Of Mayawati

Vinay Singh on UP elections

One of the comments on this post is the basis of this post.

Since the announcement of reservations for OBCs by the HRD ministry in last May, we have seen lot of ideas/discussions from either side of the reservation debate. Out of all this I have been trying to think how and if can caste be removed from the forefront of all this.

What constitutes on OBC has always been at the core of the discussion in most cases. Hopping around the blogosphere I have come across some of these questions.

1. Who is an OBC?
2. Why is such and such caste an OBC?
3. How can such and such caste and the other caste be lumped together? That is equal treatment of unequals.
4. How come a rich OBC’s son deserves reservation compared to a poor upper caste kid?
5. What about reservations for women?
6. What about reservations for Muslims? Or religious minorities?

And there are many more.

At this point I would liked to throw in the idea of a deprivation certificate and deprivation score as the basis of providing reservations.

Deprivation Certificate(DC) would be a certificate with the certificate holder’s identification and a deprivation score. Here are some key points.

1. Everybody(no matter what caste, creed, sex, race or religion ) is required to obtain a DC from the govt. very much like a birth certificate.
2. A DC would be a required document for admission to educational institutes and jobs.
3. The Score will be calculated based on many different criteria. I will throw in a few, feel free to add/remove more
   • Caste
   • Family History
   • Gender
   • Economic Status
   • Geographical region
   • Religion
4. The Score will be valid for a period of say 5 years and after that it must be re-calculated. This is necessary because the score depends on factors that are not constant.
5. Every criterion would carry a certain weight. How much? I guess that is the tough question that would have to be answered. But the thing is that the weight can also be revised over a period of time. For example, caste could carry more weight than economic status. Or even one caste could have more weight than the other.

Reservations based on DC and the score would fill the non reserved seats from everybody based on the merit and the reserved seat would be filled based on the score and merit. In the case of two candidates with same marks and different deprivation scores, the candidate with higher deprivation score would get the seat.

Benefits

The biggest benefit of this, in my view, would be the elimination of the caste and its name from the fore front. Yes the caste will still be a factor but just by looking at the score one cannot make out whether the score is of a lower caste person or a person with a poor background or a religious minority or what not. A poor brahmin and a well to do OBC could end up having the same score.

It addresses the creamy layer issue as well.

Another benefit would be that it is an all inclusive framework that would take care of women, religious minorities and every other inequalities that we could think of.

It  allows for grading different criteria by allocating weights to each.

In this scheme of things an individual can be evaluated on his/her own merit and the biggest thing is everybody by applying for the DC and the D-Score will essentially have to prove that he or she is deprived and the score will reflect that. The re-evaluation of score leave room for people to move out of the benefit net.

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”.