Caste may have slipped off the cards for Indian politics these days as “development” is the new watchword in elections. In a bid to win vote share, our politicians have sought to woo the country’s poor in Bihar by promising them this development. India’s underdeveloped are a huge section and a large vote bank that, if tapped, can turn elections in the favor of whoever plays this card right.
Of late, the issue of caste has been marginalized as the cry for social justice has weakened. A large section of our urban “educated” population will outright deny the existence of caste discrimination in India. “The upper echelons of Indian society,” writes Bhanwar Meghwanshi in the Hindu, “which like to pretend that caste doesn't exist, are suddenly gripped with nationalistic fervour. They fear the demand for quota-based reservations will catch momentum and castes will get legal recognition.”
According to the urban elite, it is a social evil from the last generation that has little relevance in today’s “shining” India. They believe that a whole two generations have availed of the benefits of affirmative action. This is evident in the documentary, “India Untouched,” when the filmmakers talk to several students about reservations.
The point of the reservation is to level the playing field and wipe out the caste system. But clearly, that has not happened. As Arundhati Roy puts it in her essay ‘Shall We Leave It To The Experts, “India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow, we manage to progress and regress simultaneously.”
The lowest castes continue to be subjugated, while only the creamy layer of the other backward castes has seen the benefits of affirmative action. Thus, any leveraging of caste in these elections will happen only with the creamy layer, wanting an inclusion on certain lists. During these Bihar elections, the Paswan community, according to the Hindustan Times has been “angry with Nitish Kumar for not including it in the Mahadalit list.”
Veerapa Moily, Union Minister for Law said in the Business Standard that the inclusion of the creamy layer or the economically strong backward casts in the reservation quota will water down the benefits available to the weaker backward castes.
Development overrides caste as an electoral issue for politicians, who can gain more mileage from it. Caste, they like to believe, is dead.
Our “educated” elite want to wish caste away—they shy away from even discussing it, because they believe that the mere mention of it divides our society. This is why a majority are for removing caste from the census. But we must, as Bhanwar Meghanwahi says in The Hindu, consider the reality. The last caste census was in 1931. How have we quantitatively assessed the extent of caste discrimination since then? This caste census will finally reveal just how much opportunity for development India’s “lower castes” are getting. That data, the Hindu article says, can then be used to draw out policy solutions to the specific problems related to caste-based marginalization.
Development in a vast section of India will remain stunted unless the issue of caste is dealt with. The documentary shows how disadvantaged this section of society is, when it comes to equal opportunity in education, employment and even food and water. Like a voice from “India Untouched” says, how will they [the lower castes] develop when they have been almost mentally conditioned to accept their inferiority?
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