A thought provoker for sure!

[Guest guest]

CASTE UNTO DEATH By Rashmi Bansal | A recent reality show in America called Black.White had a black and a white family literally ‘swapping lives’. With the help of some very sophisticated make up, of course. The idea behind the show was for whites and blacks to see the world through each other’s eyes. And yet, says executive producer RJ Cutler, “I didn’t realise how genuinely different an experience it is to be a white American and a black American.” In the Indian context, I can’t help wondering what it might be like for a Hindu to switch places with a Muslim. Or a Brahmin with an SC/ ST. The need for a view of what it’s like to be on the Other Side is especially relevant in light of the renewed debate on reservations in educational institutes in this country. Because if the government has its way, soon 27 per

cent of the seats in IITs, IIMs and central universities like DU will go to OBC candidates. Raising overall reservations to 49.5 per cent. Naturally, I am on the side that opposes these reservations. Because, like most urban educated Indians, I feel the problem has to be tackled at the primary school level. And not by lowering standards at our most respected graduate and post-graduate institutes. People like me would argue that 50 years of reservation have not led to genuine upliftment of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. And that the benefits of this policy are essentially cornered by the creamy layer of SC/ STs—a kind of caste within a caste. And yet, I

know there is another India, far from the bright lights and big city, where caste can still determine your entire destiny. The conditions you live in, and whether you live at all… So what would happen if an upper caste and an SC/ ST switched lives? Let me stretch the boundaries of imagination. And hazard a guess. The new India “Don’t believe the hype, everything in the world ain’t black and white. Everybody ain’t a stereotype...” sings Cube in the title track of Black.White. The same, I think, applies here. In urban India, caste matters less than ever before. People travel in buses, trains and taxis, rubbing shoulders. They work in offices, they patronise shops. Never, in these kind of everyday interactions do they stop to think, “Uska caste kya hai?” A scruffy and unhygienic looking person may be turned away from a mall. But no one, on the basis of being ‘low caste’! The ultimate test would be getting a job. In Black.White, one of the participants found that in black makeup, she got the brushoff when she applied for work at stores in a white area. The same would probably happen to an SC/ ST boy—but not because of caste. He would be rejected

for lack of confidence and English speaking ability. Now suspend your disbelief for a moment and imagine we give the same boy a makeover. That after grooming and a crash course in English he applies for the same job. Ninety nine per cent chances are he will get it. What am I trying to say? That in urban India, it is economics and not caste that is the dividing factor. Low-income families—regardless of caste—are unable to provide their children with the education and exposure necessary to become ‘employable’ in today’s world. Seeing this issue on caste lines is, therefore, wrong. The other India Now let’s travel to the other end of the spectrum. A city slicker is transported to a rural setting. Here, for the first time, he realises that caste does play a role. In everything. That ‘atrocity’ and ‘oppression’ are not mere words you read in newspapers. They are very real events that Dalits live through and die for. That these people are not merely poor, they have no rights at all. I think this would be a completely shocking and eye-opening experience. In the American

show, sitting in as a white woman in a group discussion, Renee Sparks is amazed to hear a young college student relate how he was cautioned to wash off the handshake of a black person. So yes, extreme attitudes with respect to caste still exist. More at the village level, but I am sure even among a section of the educated and the elite. However, 54 per cent of India is under the age of 25. And this whole new generation is far less caste-conscious than previous ones. Extending further caste-based reservations will destroy all that. The case for OBC reservations, in any case, is very unconvincing. In many states OBCs form the land owning or dominant caste. Politicians like Mulayam Singh, Laloo Yadav, Ram

Vilas Paswan are all OBCs. The fact that fewer OBCs get through keenly contested competitive exams may have more to do with lack of application than lack of opportunity. All in the mind Entry through quota systems ultimately creates a whole new caste system. Students who enter institutes through ‘merit’ look down on those who come in through quotas. Reserved category students rarely achieve the level of self esteem and confidence required to take on the world. They continue to see themselves as victims and pass on the same attitude to the next generation. Instead of seeking imaginative solutions to problems, we thus end up perpetuating the

problem itself. The sustainable strategy is to ‘teach the man to fish’. That is, empower the disadvantaged through a variety of means to compete with everyone else. English language schools at primary level, supplementary coaching for bright students at secondary level. And some role models to look up to. Lastly, the caste system as it came to exist in Indian society was a shameful practice. But we are not ‘unique’. Other societies had similar systems, but managed to eradicate them over time. Which means, so can we. Few would know this, but France once had a group of people known as ‘cagots’. “These

people lived separately from others, on the edge of towns and cities,” writes David Berreby in Us and Them. “They entered churches by separate entrances, and they could not touch an ordinary Christian, let alone marry one.” Cagots were the Dalits of French society—they no longer exist. They were absorbed into the mainstream. Similarly, Korea had its own group of outcasts called the paekchong, who lived apart from the rest of society and worked in special occupations—butchery, leatherworking, shoemaking and related trades. Berreby writes that paekchong and prejudice against them was alive in the memories of Koreans of 50 years ago, even though the legal status had been abolished since 1894. But today, they have ‘vanished without a trace into the mainstream of

Korean society’. It took a Japanese occupation, a war and post-war economic growth to achieve that. Not reservation. You can argue ‘India is different’, but I would counter-argue—it need not be. Now is the time to re-evaluate policies put into place 50 years ago. Or we will set ourselves back by a 100. Mrs Sonia Gandhi, are you listening? Rashmi is an IIM Ahmedabad graduate and founder-editor of the popular youth magazine JAM (www.jammag.com). She can be reached at rashmi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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