During the long and fiery debate about the need for a caste census in India, a sudden quip by a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) MP ignited a chain of startling interventions. He sneered at the Leader of Opposition’s (LoP’s) stand adding one whose own caste was non existent, was now talking of the need for a caste Census. The combative former minister and member of parliament earned a swift pat on his back from the party leadership on social media. This confirmed the Opposition’s suspicion that the younger leader was playing the bad cop to his party leadership’s good cop.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Spontaneous responses from Opposition leaders including the targeted man, Rahul Gandhi, were forthright and clear in their logic but the incident itself and the coarse language used, were rather unsettling. Soon after that the Supreme Court ruled in favour of sub classification of SC/ST categories within the limits of quotas allocated, by the state governments and also removing members of the ‘creamy layer’ who had already ‘arrived’ as beneficiaries of the quotas allocated since the Mandal report was implemented. Together, the two major developments once again underscore the significant role played by caste in politics, particularly in the context of elections, agitations for enhanced reservations for seats in higher education, or government jobs for the listed castes.
Socialism, central planning, a vast public sector and state controlled education system have not led to the promised gender-neutral level playing field for all socially and economically marginalised caste groups. It has contributed vastly to strengthening caste ties among the upper classes who still control policy making and implementation. What politicians face today is paradoxically a backlash from the caste system that hits out at liberalisation and privatisation.
During its first decade in power, even as the marginalised castes were coming up slowly and painfully, the upper caste Hindu dominant right wing parties managed to push back the powers of the Mandal with Kamandal. They stoked outlandish fears about a reckoning around the corner, when groups of caste and ethnic minorities would form broad-based coalitions that would endanger the existence of the generous core of Hindutva: its upper castes that had pulled India out of endemic poverty and political chaos.
But towards the end of the decade, first the Covid, and then the results of a hasty and thoughtless demonetisation hit the common man. The quantum of mobility has increased considerably by the 2020s, so the next generation in the reserved categories is now fully aware of the acute competition for higher-level jobs and the unfair advantages their English-speaking counterparts from elite schools and urban colleges have over them.
The results of the 2024 elections in which the youth and women from non-caste and minority groups voted massively against the NDA, are proof that Hindutva is no longer a one-size-fits-all cover for hiding social injustices and economic deprivation.
It is true that India is today making use of the intelligence and talents of a small percentage of its population, largely from the urban upper-caste middle classes. This is both wasteful and constitutes a grave crime against the vast masses, whose talents and potential remain untapped and underdeveloped due to structural flaws in our policies.
It is also no coincidence that when Rahul Gandhi as leader of a coalition comprising of many parties led by OBC leaders, raised his voice in favour of having a caste-based census done to gauge the actual size, social positioning and economic status of various castes in India, all hell broke loose in the ranks of the right wing parties that support the Brahminical structure and laws in the name of holy traditions of Hindutva.
The MP who questioned Rahul Gandhi’s lineage and caste in parliament let it be known that one who did not belong to any of the Manu ordained castes, was unworthy of raising the issue of caste. Ironically he himself happens to be an equally privileged son of an upper-caste feudal family, at the helm of political affairs in his state for generations.
Also read: Politics of Caste Census: How BJP and Mandal Parties View the Contentious Issue
Then the right wing media moved in and said that the party’s supreme leader belongs to the Other Backward Castes. But the electorate by now knows how caste hierarchies in politics can shape- shift. Leaders can often pretend to be one of them while ensuring, through the institutions of the state, that the basic segregations remain intact.
In fact, by using such shape-shifting tactics, the empowerment of non-Manu castes has come to mean conferring a sort of honorary upper ‘casteness’ on political leaders. The sad truth is that without the intervention of frank dialogue between the Centre and states, humanitarian impulses and a transparently honest judiciary, this reheated and sprinkled afresh with herbs version of caste system may well lead to cherry picking in the name of ‘creamy layer’. Thus discarding some it finds too evolved for comfort.
The exercise, unless carried out by humane and intelligent non-partisan hands, will only serve to isolate and divide those at the bottom (Lodhs vs Nishads, Jatavs vs Doms) and in the middle (Yadavs vs Kurmis, Dalits vs Ati Pichhada Dalits, Upper-class Muslims vs Pasmanda Muslims), picking those closest to the four dominant castes and pushing the poorest Dalits and tribals even further down.
So there is no way out now, unless we face our history without flinching. It is easy to see the past decade as a bizarre aberration. It is tempting to believe that all upper-castes especially Brahmins are uniquely cruel and self serving. What is most disturbing about the casteist diatribes like the one we started with, is not that the speakers are madmen or monsters, but that they are banal people who may in private be PLUs: like mega weddings, designer clothes, expensive watches, shades and party hard when they can.
Also read: ‘Most Disturbing’, Supreme Court Says of Caste-Discrimination Sanctioned by Prison Manuals
The caste system has stayed because of ordinary peoples’ support to the mechanism that keeps it running. The shrugging of shoulders over “encounter killings”, over kanwariyas demanding Muslims’ invisibilisation, of making reels when homes of people are bulldozed because of unsubstantiated charges even before they have been tried in courts of law. That laughing off of ‘Uncle jis’ on whatsapp mailing spurious messages tainting communities, and of cooperative societies banning ‘non veg’ and delivery staff from using elevators.
Caste, as Baba Sahib wrote, is not a wall or a line of barbed wire, it is a state of mind. Make it both caste and gender. All of us live within their grip , receive their messages, feel their fetid breath when we stand up to speak against them in parliaments. We’d all like to be those rare people of personal courage and empathy who speak out despite all the shouting from treasury benches and heckling from the sidelines, but few of us are. Perhaps if this string of frank and fiery debates continues, more of us will be. Remember eventually a caste system when threatened by strong willed writers — Vyas, Valmiki, Tulsidas, Kabir, Jyotiba or Baba Sahib — will relentlessly revile them, but each one held his ground and the push back still shows.
Mrinal Pande is a writer and veteran journalist.
Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.
