Counting backwards
Indrajit Hazra
May 26, 2010
Caste, we are constantly told, is a reality in India. Whether we
approve of caste-based identities or not, the very fact that a vast
number of Indians still identify themselves and others along caste
lines, makes it an issue that can't be dismissed. But acknowledging
its existence is hardly the same thing as approving it. There may be a
fair number of people who believe in little green men. But to
categorise them in an official exercise such as the census — as
opposed to in a study on delusionals — is to willy-nilly give credence
to the existence of little green men.
The origin of a caste-based census lies in the British colonialists'
fetish to categorise a motley group of people they wished to govern
smoothly. It was according to the same principles that they divvied up
Indians according to their martial prowess (a hodgepodge of ethnic
groups like Rajputs and religious groups like Sikhs). The invention of
the category of 'criminal tribes' in 1871 followed the same line of
Victorian parlour games. (Incidentally, independent India 'denotified'
these communities in 1952, but in 1959, they were reclassified as
'habitual offenders'.)
Caste, the British failed or refused to understand, was not cast in
stone. Originally, small social groups, overwhelmingly in rural
communities, behaved according to fluid 'caste' lines based on
professions rather than on birth (akin to the European concept of
'guilds'). A more robust artificial caste 'solidified' down the years.
After the 1857 'mutiny', for instance, Indian soldiers were given
caste tags by the British once they joined the army. This saw Hindus,
who never really identified beyond 'profession-caste' terms, return to
their villages while on leave and continue their army 'caste' tag
among puzzled locals. So, from being a class category with its avenues
of social mobility, caste became an unmoving 'endogamic' (of marriage
within a class or tribe as required by custom or law) ID tag.
This history lesson is important because our current understanding of
caste is a colonial hand-me-down. The only caste-based census
conducted was in 1931. The census commissioner, J.H. Hutton, later
acknowledged criticism about "the mere act of labelling persons as
belonging to caste tends to perpetuate the system". But he responded
by stating that it was "difficult to see why the record of a fact that
actually exists should lend to stabilise that existence". As he
pointed out, "It is just as easy to argue... that it is impossible to
get rid of any institution by ignoring its existence like a proverbial
ostrich." True. Just by ignoring the existence of bigots, for
instance, bigotry doesn't go away. But the whole debate over 'caste in
a census' today stems from one singular, practical and political
reason: to stand up and be counted in order to be eligible for
goodies. To put it in one easy word: quotas.
Here again, we have to go back to the 1931 census. When the Mandal
Commission started its task of evolving criteria for ascertaining the
population of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the 1980s, it arrived
at the figure of about 52 per cent of India's population on the basis
of the 1931 census. (In 2007, the Supreme Court rejected this figure.)
And here, Hutton highlighted a problem. He quoted a Madras
superintendent: "An extremely dark individual pursuing the occupation
of waterman on the Coorg border described his caste as Suryavamsa, the
family of the Sun." In other words, many had lied for the express
purpose of moving up the social ladder.
By the 1990s, when the Mandal Commission recommendations kicked in,
lying about caste took the opposite direction. Instead of
'Sanskritising' oneself, people started lying to 'de-Sanskritise'
themselves to avail of quotas earmarked for 'backward' castes. In an
article in last week's Business Standard, economist Surjit Bhalla
nails the lie using National Sample Survey (NSS) data. Bhalla points
out that if the NSS figures of 1999-2000 show the OBC population of
about 36 per cent jumping to 41 per cent in 2000-2004, that would
amount to the national average fertility rate of OBC women jumping
from 2.5 to 6.9. Effectively, two out of every 10 non-OBC Hindu in the
NSS survey lied to be branded an OBC and get in line for a slice of
the quota pie.
Unlike sex, ethnicity or religion, 'caste' is a malleable marker. So
even as countless matrimonial ads, khap panchayats and political
parties show that caste is taken very seriously, one is really talking
about self-styling. And even here, large groups like Lingayats or
Kolis have less in common within their 'caste' cousins than with
others from similar socio-economic groups.
So apart from encouraging reverse-engineering IDs ("I'm a Gujjar if it
gets me a government job; I'm a Brahmin if it gets me a good bride"),
a caste-based census, at best, serves no purpose. At worst, it'll
institutionalise wedges in a society that can do with less artificial
pecking orders.
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