The question of freedom is intricately and inevitably linked to the question of caste in India and more particularly to our constitutional aspiration of equality and justice.
To be a caste is to be prejudiced and to be casteless is to be civil. The former is a traditional and religious requirement and the latter a constitutional aspiration.
Caste is broadly anti-freedom – in a liberal sense, caste is the tyranny of cousins affecting both the privileged and marginalised in varying degrees and forms. To be a caste is easier and to not be a caste is a difficult choice. We believe caste provides us the roots of our identity; certainly, our competing and collective histories are tied to caste, making a casteless individual almost impossible.
Are there liberal ways of being and living as a caste-person? This is a difficult question to answer but it would be easier to identify illiberal ways of being a caste-person.
Some recent instances of privileged caste assertion raise troubling questions about the standards of our collective conscience and the meaning of constitutional morality in everyday life.
Gujarat MLA C.K. Raulji defended the release of the rapists in the Bilkis case on the ground that they were “Brahmins and have good sanskar.”
In the Hathras case, following the rape and murder of a Valmiki girl in September 2020, members of the Thakur caste aggressively protested in support of the accused. The tragic case of rape and murder of a young woman was turned into a moment of solidarity amongst the dominant groups – savarna jago (‘arise savarnas’) meetings were organised by Thakur politician and caste leaders.
In August this year, members of the savarna Tyagi community organised a protest in Noida against the arrest of a politician, Shrikant Tyagi, who had assaulted and abused a (savarna) woman on camera – all for her act of questioning illegal encroachments he had erected in the Omaxe Grand housing society. Tyagi’s victim was not an ‘outcaste’ or a Muslim but caste sentiment and pride prevailed over ideas of equality and freedom. The rally was apparently for reclaiming ‘samman’ (respect) for the Tyagi community.
Fortunately, there was no instance of protests in support of the Muslim men accused of the rape and murder of two sisters in the recent Lakhimpur case. However, Samajwadi Party MP S.T. Hasan evoked religion regressively – calling for the accused to be put to death using a method of punishment envisaged by Sharia law. For Hasan, the Muslim accused had to be buried waist down and then stoned to death in a public place.
Beyond caste-centred compassion and retribution based on Sharia, can we cultivate broader solidarity with the victims of crime?
How does the arrest of a politician violating the law and rights of a woman affect the dignity of a caste? What are the standards of civility in a society that organises support rallies for those accused of gang rape and murder? How do rapists and murderers simultaneously become victims deserving of solidarity? Caste obstructs not just reason but also the possibilities of free flowing compassion – which is a key ingredient of democratic civility.
When the nakedness of caste pride and solidarity defeats the ideals of justice, freedom and equality, and when the possibility of compassion or sympathy are violently restricted to one’s caste, we see the most illiberal form of caste-being. How can we have caste solidarity alongside anti-caste compassion? Maybe, caste has a foundational anti-liberal ethos – something that cannot be corrected merely by cosmetic liberal laws? Perhaps the socialisation of the privileged itself needs revisiting. Besides wider condemnation of such caste incivility, one starting step could for the judiciary to take suo motu cognisance of the crude incivility that such episodes of dominant caste solidarity generates.
Suryakant Waghmore is currently a visiting scholar at CESDIP, Paris.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
