The Supreme Court of India recently released the Report on Judicial Conceptions of Caste. Published by the Court’s Centre for Research and Planning (CRP), this landmark document acts as an autopsy of the judicial mind. Scrutinising 75 years of constitutional bench judgments, it reveals how the nation's highest court has defined, described and adjudicated the complex reality of caste.

To the lay citizen, legal language often looks like a domain of technicalities. But this report proceeds from a profound premise: judicial vocabulary creates social reality. The findings are candid, oscillating between a “scriptural” view treating caste as a religious accident and a “structural” view recognising it as an engine of oppression.

The definition of caste

The report’s fundamental contribution is excavating the definition of caste. It identifies a fault line between two schools of judicial thought.

The first, which the report critiques, views caste through a sanitised, theological lens. This tendency dates to the unanimous opinion in M.R. Balaji v. State of Mysore (1962), suggesting caste began as a functional division of labour that later became rigid. This view found its most vocal proponent in the dissenting opinion of Justice Kuldip Singh in Indra Sawhney (1992). Justice Singh described caste as a “cancer cell” and sui generis to Hinduism, but located its origins in the Manusmriti and the varna system. The report argues that by treating caste as a religious “distortion” of an originally sound system, this view implicitly validates the Brahminical model and minimises the lived experience of the oppressed.

This theological confusion often led to dangerous legal conclusions regarding the autonomy of caste groups. The report sharply critiques the reasoning in Guntur Medical College vs. Y. Mohan Rao (1976). In that case, the court described caste as a “social combination” governed by its own rules, essentially a voluntary club acting as the “supreme judge” of its membership. The authors argue this reflects a colonial misunderstanding, dangerously overlooking the coercive, hereditary and endogamous nature of the system.

The structural reality

In contrast, the document highlights a “structural” school of thought that strips away the religious veneer to reveal material reality. It reserves special attention for the concurring opinion of Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy in K.C. Vasanth Kumar v. State of Karnataka (1985). Unlike peers who sought caste in scriptures, Justice Reddy looked at the soil. The report cites his brilliant sociological observation that “social hierarchy and economic position exhibit an indisputable mutuality”. He argued that in rural society, these forces are so “woven and fused” that caste becomes the “primary index of social backwardness”.

This structural view, echoed by Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy in Indra Sawhney, allows the court to recognise that caste is not confined to Hinduism. Endorsing Justice Chinnappa Reddy’s observations, the report notes that caste has “spread its tentacles” across religious lines, affecting Christian and Muslim groups, regardless of theological sanction.

Bridges versus crutches

Perhaps the most uncomfortable section details the language judges have historically used to describe the oppressed. The report exposes a history of paternalism, identifying a recurring reliance on “deficit-based” metaphors.

It dissects the dissent in T. Devadasan v. Union of India (1964), where affirmative action was likened to a horse race. The judge reasoned that an “ordinary horse” needs a “handicap” to compete with a “first-class race horse”. The report condemns this metaphor for framing historical oppression as a personal lack of talent. It explicitly rejects terms like “crutches”, used in Indra Sawhney, arguing that reservations are constitutional rights to substantive equality.

Here, the report again turns to Justice Chinnappa Reddy for the counter-narrative. In Vasanth Kumar, he rejected the language of charity. The document quotes his powerful assertion regarding the oppressed: “They need propulsion... The demands are matters of right and not of philanthropy... Several bridges have to be erected, so that they may cross the Rubicon.” By juxtaposing “crutches” with “bridges”, the report clarifies the difference between pity and justice.

This audit of prejudice extends beyond caste to the treatment of tribes. The report flags the judgment in Chebrolu Leela Prasad Rao (2020), which described the “primitive way of life” of Scheduled Tribes, suggesting they were “unfit to put up with the mainstream”. The report condemns this colonial vocabulary, noting that it reinforces a civilisational hierarchy that dehumanises Adivasi culture.

Anxiety of efficiency

This deficit model has long fed the anxiety that social justice compromises “quality”. The report tracks this anxiety from General Manager, Southern Railway v. Rangachari (1962), to State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas (1975), where the dissent warned against “grinding the wheels of Government to a halt” for the sake of “Harijan welfare”.

In a stinging critique, the report uses the concept of “interest convergence” to argue that “merit” is often valued only when it preserves privilege. It notes a stark double standard: while judgments on SC/ST/OBC reservations are obsessed with efficiency, the Janhit Abhiyan judgment (2022), which upheld the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota, contained no comparable discussion on whether EWS reservations would lower standards. To correct this, the report endorses the modern jurisprudence of Davinder Singh (2024), which recognises that “merit” is often a mask for the “stigma of incompetence”.

The poverty trap

Finally, the report addresses the remedy. It targets the “economic reductionist” view found in M.R. Balaji and articulated by Justice Arijit Pasayat in Ashoka Kumar Thakur, which claimed that “poverty knows no caste”.

The report refutes this by marshalling sociological studies to demonstrate that wealth does not erase caste. It details how caste networks control access to credit and markets, excluding Dalit entrepreneurs even when they are not poor. While referencing Jarnail Singh (2018) regarding the exclusion of the “creamy layer”, the report clarifies that economic exit does not equate to a social exit from untouchability.

Similarly, the report critiques the idealistic sentiment that caste “disappears in the classroom”. Citing the Thorat Committee Report (2007), it argues that education does not automatically erase social stigma. It returns to Justice Chinnappa Reddy’s wisdom to argue that “mere reservation” is insufficient. The report highlights his view that the state must provide “developmental facility and opportunity” – investments in health, housing, and nutrition – to enable the backward to truly utilise their rights. Moving beyond the state, the document cites Justice S. Ravindra Bhat’s opinion in Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil (2021), arguing that private sector Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) must go beyond charity to address the “natural tendencies of exclusion” in the corporate workforce.

Limits of linguistic hygiene

The release of the Report on Judicial Conceptions of Caste is a watershed moment. It is a commendable exercise in “linguistic hygiene”, formally rejecting feudal residues. The authors – Anurag Bhaskar, Farrah Ahmed, Bhimraj Muthu and Shubham Kumar – must be credited for holding a mirror to the institution.

However, a critical reading of the report reveals its limits. While the report challenges the judiciary's vocabulary, the law's material logic remains largely hostile. The report identifies that “poverty is not the only cause”, yet the broader jurisprudential trend often favours the neoliberal privatisation of the very public sector resources – land, water, and jobs – that affirmative action seeks to redistribute. The report references the need for private sector sensitivity, but without legal mandates, this reliance on corporate goodwill is a fragile shield against the profit motive.

Furthermore, the report’s scope is limited to the “high theory” of constitutional benches. It leaves untouched trial courts and the lower judiciary, where the vast majority of citizens encounter the law. It is in these local courtrooms – where bail is denied to the landless labourer, where the police version of an “encounter” is accepted as gospel, and where atrocities are technically dismissed – that the “judicial conception of caste” bites the hardest.

Ultimately, this report is a mirror. It shows the Supreme Court its own blemishes, its past reliance on feudal stereotypes and elite anxieties. The remaining question is whether the benches of the future will use this reflection to correct their course, or whether this document will remain an archival record of good intentions while the machinery of caste continues to grind.

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