My
‘common sense understanding’ of ‘caste inequality in India’
I was
born in a relatively upper-middle class Brahmin Hindu family. I mostly stayed
in urban areas and studied in convent or high-profile public schools. My
parents are well-educated (both post-graduates) and I was always well-provided
for.
My
earlier understanding of the phenomenon of ‘caste’ in India was mostly influenced
by this background and socio-economic status I was born with. Since the time I
had some understanding of this phenomenon, I thought of it as a societal
structure that has existed in the Indian society since ages. Although, I
did-not endorse it and was superficially aware of it being an unjust system, as
it ascribed a social status to an individual solely on the basis of birth, I
never really dwelt very deeply on it, as I never had any first-hand encounter
with its actual functioning in the society. Through my interactions with my
family, and the members of the society I moved in, I was always led to believe
that caste inequality was a phenomenon of the past, and the reservation policy
had actually been instrumental in a reversing of the inequality, with Brahmins
and other higher castes being in a vulnerable position today and the lower
castes reaping all the benefits. It was always portrayed as a battle of
‘meritocracy’ vs. ‘reservations’, where, due to vote-bank politics,
‘reservations’ were winning hands down with a severe blow to the principle of
‘meritocracy’.
Another
distinguishing memory that I have of ‘caste’ is the injunction that was placed
on me by my family that I was allowed to marry anyone that I liked with only
two exceptions; the boy I chose should neither be from a ‘low’ caste,
(especially should not be outside the so-called ‘twice-born’ castes), nor a
non-Hindu. Other than this prohibition on marriage, I never observed anyone in
my family practicing any other type of caste discrimination with anyone in the
society, but my marriage into a ‘low’ caste was out of question.
My family always valued education and encouraged me to
read, but another thing that now strikes me is that though I was encouraged to
read Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda and the like, I was never introduced to
the writings of Ambedkar, or Jyotiba Phule or the like. I only knew Dr.
Ambedkar as the person who drafted the Indian Constitution, and left with us a
legacy of the ‘reservation system’, that penalized ‘merit’ and ‘rewarded’
mediocrity. Although, in my personal life, I never suffered any
‘discrimination’ because of the ‘evil of reservation’, I still came to believe
that it was a profoundly unjust way of addressing the ‘caste’ issue and was
completely against the principle of ‘merit’. My views completely coincided with
the views of Mr. N.R Narayan Murthy, the former Chairman of Infosys, when he
says, “I
firmly believe that there is considerable social injustice in the country and
that we have to help the disadvantaged people to overcome this. The solution is
not reservations in education or in employment. The solution is to make the
disadvantaged people more competition worthy than they are today” (Upadhaya, 2007) .
My ‘sociological
understanding’ of ‘caste inequality in India’
I have written all of the above in
the ‘past’ tense, as studying Sociology, although to a limited extent, has
brought about a significant change in my thoughts on the issue of ‘caste’. As a
sociological concept, I have been able to discern a few major characteristics
of ‘caste’ as it prevails in India. These (may not be exhaustive) are:
- The closed nature of the system, with concrete boundaries and negligible mobility
- The concept of ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’ associated with it
- A hierarchical system
- An ‘ascriptive’ system (based on birth)
- Ritual authority
- Preserved through the rules of ‘endogamy’
I am most inclined and convinced
with the arguments put forward by Dr. Ambedkar, on the genesis and mechanism of
caste. According to him, ‘caste in India means an artificial chopping off of
the population into fixed and definite units, each one prevented from fusing
into another through the custom of endogamy. Thus the conclusion is inevitable
that endogamy is the only characteristic that is peculiar to caste’ (Ambedkar, 2002) . The caste system is
maintained and perpetuated by the system of ‘endogamy’, i.e., marriage within
the same caste. As Dr. Ambedkar highlights, endogamy is used in combination
with exogamy, with the result that an individual shall marry within the same
caste but outside one’s ‘gotra’ (Ambedkar, 2002) . The castes, thus,
maintain their exclusivity with strict implementation of these rules of
marriage and any deviation to these rules is seen as a threat to the ‘social
order’ that these rules seek to maintain. According to me, this exclusivity is
especially and strictly sought to be maintained in case of the distinction
between ‘higher twice-born’ castes and the ‘lower Shudra’ castes. My personal
experience also corroborates this view, where there were strict restrictions on
my marriage outside the ‘twice-born’ castes.
After independence, discrimination
on the basis of caste has been constitutionally prohibited. Untouchability has
been outlawed. However, these measures have not succeeded in rooting out this
evil from the hearts and minds of the people. Though there are no overt
restrictions on people on the basis of their castes, yet this system of
inherent inequality thrives on. The justification many a times given by the
‘higher’ castes is that this system is only based on ‘mutual interdependence’
and ‘difference’ rather than on ‘inequality’. However, this is a pretty
precarious position to take as ‘in actual practice, there is a profound
inequality between the castes in terms of productive resources, social status
and access to knowledge’ (Chakravarti, 2006) .
The debates around reservations are
an apt example to prove this point. In common sense parlance, any reservation
policy enacted to benefit the lower castes is pitted against its adverse
effects on ‘meritocracy’. However, there are certain inherent flaws in this
argument. An article I read, by V. Sanil, very deftly challenges the ‘myth of
merit’ (Sanil) . Any conception of
‘merit’ can be justified and worthy only if it meets certain prerequisite
conditions, those of equal opportunity and equal playing field for all. Even
here, the challenge is to address the differences in the
socio-economic-cultural status of individuals that prevail in the society. Any
notion of ‘equality of opportunity’ is a farce until and unless it also addresses
the differences in ‘cultural capital’ between individuals. For example, the IT
industry prides itself on being caste neutral and based solely on the principle
of merit. However, as stated by Carol Upadhaya, ‘Data from our study and
several others suggest that most software engineers come from middle class,
educated families. Taking parents’ education and occupation as a proxy for
socioeconomic class (in the absence of reliable income data), our survey of software
professionals in Bangalore found that 80 per cent of their fathers had graduate
degrees or above, while only three respondents (out of 132) had fathers with
less than SSLC level education. In addition, 56 per cent of respondents’
mothers were graduates or above. Another survey of 102 software engineers in
Bangalore yielded similar findings: 77 per cent of respondents’ fathers had
graduate or postgraduate degrees and all of the remainder had at least
completed high school. The mothers in this sample were similarly highly
educated, most up to high school level and half with graduate degrees’ (Upadhaya, 2007) . Thus, ‘merit’
becomes a meaningless term when the input conditions for all are not equal.
Another aspect which is highlighted
by anti-reservationists is that it benefits only the ‘creamy layer’ from the
lower castes. However, as Weisskopf concludes, ‘that reservations tend to
benefit a creamy layer of SC and ST students does not mean they are failing in
achieving their objectives. They should be understood, instead, as an effort to
promote integration of the upper strata of society – by increasing the access
of highly disadvantaged and under-represented communities to elite occupations
and decision-making positions’ (Weisskopf, 2004) .
However, I would like to add here
that reservations need to work in tandem with addressing the sources of caste
inequality and striking at them. As Satish Deshpande writes in one of his
articles, I too believe that the onus is on the sociologists, with their
subject-matter expertise and the technical and deep understanding of the issue
of ‘caste’ and the inequalities it perpetuates, to put the entire issue into
perspective and then steer the debates around it in the direction that
ultimately promises to reach to at least a semblance of the solution. This, as
Deshpande states, would be a two-step process, firstly, focusing attention on
the contemporaneity of caste inequality, and secondly, researching the
mechanisms by which caste inequalities are reproduced (Deshpande) . This would mean an
open and transparent discussion on the ‘caste’ question, as it exists in today’s
society and the various forms that it takes. It would mean a re-analysis of the
criteria of castes, a study of the current status of particular castes as
against their historic status and so on and so forth. In short, it would mean
bringing out this issue into the open rather than brushing it under carpets and
pretending as if it does-not exist.
References
Ambedkar, B.
(2002). Castes in India. In V. R. (ed.), The Essential Writings of B.R.
Ambedkar (pp. 241-262). Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Chakravarti, U.
(2006). Understanding Caste. In U. Chakravarti, Gendering Caste : Through a
Feminist Lens (pp. 6-24). Calcutta: Stree.
Deshpande, S.
(n.d.). Confronting Caste Inequality : What Sociologists Must Do To Reorient
Social Policy.
Sanil, V. (n.d.).
What is Merit.
Upadhaya, C. (2007,
May 19). Employment Exclusion and Merit in the Indian IT Industry. Economic
and Political Weekly, pp. 1863-1868.
Weisskopf, T. E.
(2004, September 25). Impact of Reservation on Admissions to Higher Education
on India. Economic and Political Weekly, pp. 4339-4349.
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