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Saturday, June 5, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Caste And The Census (Gail Omvedt)

http://www.countercurrents.org/omvedt260510.htm

Caste And The Census

By Gail Omvedt

26 May, 2010
Sanhati.com

"See no caste, hear no caste, speak no caste." The policy of the
Indian elite towards the issue of caste has been that of the three
monkeys: one of denial. It doesn't exist; if it does it is not so bad;
it should not be talked about, and those who do talk about it or try
to act on it are the ones who are "casteist." The entire onus is
placed on the victims of the system trying to fight it.

This has also guided the policy of the government of India. Now that
the Census of 2011 is coming closer, with preparations getting well in
hand, it is clear that once again there will be no question of caste
identification, except for the broad and rather useless (for most
purposes) categories of "Scheduled Caste" and "Scheduled Tribe." The
issue has been raised in the past, and quite frequently has met with a
rather frantic response that this would lead to turmoil, dissension
and bitter conflict.

Yet for years the British government asked questions about caste in
the Census; though the issue became politicized (with some groups
seeking and proclaiming new identities) it led to no really serious
problems. Again, the United States asks about race in each of its
censuses; and while race in the U.S. is as contentious an issue as
caste in India, it has led to no great problems.

The fact is that to deal with an issue, one has to have information
about it. Policies require understanding and analysis; pretending that
caste doesn't exist is perhaps the best way to perpetuate it. On one
hand, there are numerous acts and regulations dealing with caste; on
the other hand, there is a genuine dearth of information. There is no
encouragement for studies of caste; indeed, the only sociology
students who are at all encouraged to deal with the issue are an
occasional student from subaltern caste background who is taught to
write on his own people. But looking at the caste system as a system
is not so often done. The National Sample Surveys, for example, have
only recently started using the very broad (and often not very useful)
categorization of "OBC"; but this pulls together a diverse and
hierarchically broad group of castes or jatis into one overall
category. And Brahmans - those who, as sociologist Satish Deshpande
has argued, "ride incognito in our social system" - are never looked
at; all the "upper" castes together are lumped in the "other" group.
There is almost no solid statistical data available about them. And
issues like intermarriage - all we can do is speculate, on the basis
of scattered personal experience and matrimonial ads in the
newspapers, about what percentage of marriages (95%? 99%?) are still
within caste marriages.

Yet it would be so simple to include a question about caste in the
Census. Let it be a matter of self-identification; people would be
free to identify their caste as they like, or (if they wish), reply
"no caste" or "mixed." This itself would yield valuable data. I would
guess that the number saying "no caste" would be less than one
percent! Then, a committee at the state level could identify the broad
categories within which the data can be summarized.

This would hardly be a utopia. But it would provide a beginning for an
honest attempt to deal with the issue, to gather data to deal with the
issue. Caste has undoubtedly changed in modern India - though some
extremely "feudal" and backward forms remain, such as the fact that
cleaning human excrement is still done in so many places in India by
members of particular dalit castes. Even cases such as those of
Chitralekha in "developed" and "left-progressive" Kerala show the
degree to which many occupations are "reserved" by ongoing, brutally
enforced tradition for members of particular caste groups. In other
cases, most of the old forms of the jajmani system have vanished. Yet
the correlation of caste and economic status remains strong. Education
continues to be two-track and it is the children of the subaltern
castes who suffer particularly from this.

Another Census is going by without dealing with the harshest, most
peculiar aspect of india's social system. Let this be the last one.

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[ZESTCaste] Kalyan for caste in census, writes to PM

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Kalyan-for-caste-in-census--writes-to-PM/629696

Kalyan for caste in census, writes to PM

Express News Service Posted online: Sat Jun 05 2010, 01:02 hrs
Lucknow : Former chief minister and parliamentarian from Etah, Kalyan
Singh has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, demanding
caste-based census in the country.
Such a census will help create schemes and programmes for the welfare
of different castes, the national patron of the Jan Kranti Party
pointed out.

A prominent leader of backward castes from UP, Singh shared his letter
with mediapersons at his Lucknow residence on Friday. Expressing his
support for caste-based census, he said only people who are against
social justice to all castes can say no to the inclusion of caste in
census.

"The Prime Minister had initially said in Parliament that the census
will be caste based," he said.

"But I am surprised to see that even though the first round of census
is on, there is no column specifying caste in the data form."

Almost all political parties have expressed their support for a
caste-based census, he said. "Cutting across party lines, leaders have
supported the idea even in Parliament. Hence, I fail to understand why
there was no provision for caste details in the census," said Singh.

He added that since the Prime Minister has already announced this in
the house, it is not justified to hand over the issue to the group of
ministers for consideration.

Demanding that a caste column be included in the census with immediate
effect, he said, "I know the first round is on, but still, this column
can be included and should be done at the earliest".

------------------------------------

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[ZESTCaste] Count caste in this census to annihilate it

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Count-caste-in-this-census-to-annihilate-it/articleshow/6005686.cms

Count caste in this census to annihilate it
3 Jun 2010, 0628 hrs IST,ET Bureau

Satish Deshpande, Professor of Sociology, DSE, DU

The single-most important lesson offered by the history of independent
India is that caste awareness is the only viable route to the true
abolition of caste. The new republic and its idealistic Constitution
opted for a caste blind policy, treating the Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes as an unavoidable exception.

In order to succeed, caste blindness needed to be preceded by an
all-out assault on caste privilege. Instead, Nehruvian India
squandered a historic window of opportunity. By limiting itself to
'abolishing' caste formally, it turned a blind eye to the perpetuation
and deepening of substantive caste inequalities.

Designed to fail, this 60-year experiment has done so in a spectacular
fashion. Its crowning achievement is that the country is split into
two warring camps. On one side is the upper caste elite, the minority
group that has leveraged its caste privileges to maximum effect under
the cover of caste blindness, and thanks to the same policy, now
believes itself to be caste-less .

On the other side is the vast majority of the so-called 'lower'
castes, which, having been massively shortchanged by six decades of
supposedly caste-blind development, now insists that caste is
all-important and all talk of abolishing caste is mere humbug.

Although both sides are products of the same fatally-flawed notion of
caste blindness, they seem to have nothing else in common, least of
all a mutually-comprehensible language that permits dialogue.

Nevertheless, both these sides inhabit the same nation and must learn,
willy-nilly, to share it. In order to forestall further rifts in our
social fabric, we must create a climate more conducive to debate and
discussion across the two camps.

To do this, we need a decisive break with the naive caste blindness
that insists on equating victim and beneficiary, urging them both to
be silent about caste. Such naivete fosters the false and incendiary
upper caste belief that caste awareness is steeped in the sin of self
seeking 'politics' while caste blindness is an elevated 'ethics'
without sin.

It is surely better to count caste than to cast stones. Census 2011
offers us yet another historic opportunity to make a fresh beginning
in tackling the caste question. It can help us break out of the
sterile deadlock in which 'caste' is reduced to 'lower caste' , and
the latter to quota quarrels. To collectively acknowledge that all of
us are marked by caste in different ways is the most important reason
for a caste census, going far beyond the need to rationalise
reservation policies.

We must count those who need no quotas and feel caste-less . Let them
say they have no caste, or like Mr Amitabh Bachhan, claim to be of the
Indian caste. The number and class composition of those who can afford
this luxury will itself be educative.

The practical objections to a caste census are exaggerated. Caste is
certainly complex, but not too complex to be counted. Only a minuscule
proportion will be genuinely uncertain; for the overwhelming majority,
the only problem will be with synonyms.

This can be tackled because the interpretation and tabulation of data
comes at a later stage, by which time careful procedures for localised
aggregation can be designed.

------------------------------------

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[ZESTCaste] Caste and the census

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/indira-rajaraman-castethe-census/397100/

Indira Rajaraman: Caste and the census

If caste information is not collected, we will have denied ourselves
an opportunity to make quotas function in an equitable manner
Indira Rajaraman / June 05, 2010, 0:12 IST

If caste information is not collected, we will have denied ourselves
an opportunity to make quotas function in an equitable manner.

Even countries with good recording systems for births and deaths
conduct a population census once in ten years. These snapshot counts
capture population movements in a more elegant way than having a
police state that monitors movements within a country. And several
countries go beyond the minimalist census to record information about
all manner of things, including household income.

In developing countries, the census is the only source of data on
demographics, and any other information needed to inform public
policy. The 2011 Indian census, for the first time since Independence,
is considering collection of caste data. This has generated some heat,
as might be expected.

Had there not been a resurgence of caste-based quotas after 2006,
there would have been no need whatever for introducing it into the
census. But after 2006, accurate knowledge of caste shares in the
total population is critical for equitable fixation of quotas. Even
countries practising merely equal opportunity, with no preferential
affirmative action, let alone quotas which are the last step up the
positive discrimination ladder, conduct a baseline count along the
relevant boundaries. The United States census, currently under way,
routinely includes a question on race. The information is collected as
self-declared, and is treated purely as an identity issue entirely
independent of visual markers, or fractional ancestry.

No quota can operate in a data vacuum. Indeed, constitutional equality
is violated if a caste-based quota is mandated in the absence of a
uniform nationwide database, of the kind only a census can provide.
Caste enumeration in the 2011 census is essentially dictated by the
quota decisions taken earlier. No country can put in place job and
education quotas for an underprivileged segment of the population, and
then bury its head in the sand about the boundaries along which those
entitlements are drawn.

Among the urban elite, caste is seen as private information, of the
kind people may choose to reveal in certain contexts like matrimonial
advertisements, but which they should not be compelled to reveal to a
census enumerator. This can be easily accommodated. There will clearly
be a box for unknown or undeclared caste. Indeed, this freedom should
be extended to questions on religion and sex. A third box for the
last, in particular, would establish that the sum of males and females
need not equal the total population, and so recognise the rights of
the mocked small minority in every country that is of indeterminate
gender.

The majority of residents know their caste identity more clearly and
unambiguously than they know their own age. I have marvelled at the
ability of census enumerators to ferret out the age of individuals, by
piecing together answers, often mutually conflicting, related to
religious cycles like the Kumbh, or by probing personal memories of
major events. Between age and caste, age is unquestionably the more
intrusive query. Even names in India are ambiguous, with public and
private variants, and with the first names of women radically altered
after marriage among certain groups, in accordance with custom. Caste
by contrast is uniquely assigned, and is public information in any
rural settlement. Although caste consciousness is decidedly lower in
urban India, caste identity of households is publicly known in all but
a small minority of urban residential neighbourhoods as well. Clearly,
caste is neither relevant, nor sought to be known in anonymous urban
spaces like worksites or commercial areas. But it is known in places
of residence, which is where the census is conducted.

The stand that caste consciousness, with its associative aspects of
exclusion and entitlement, is best obliterated over time by neglect
would have been tenable but for the resurgence of quota consciousness.
People are already familiar with classification into categories like
scheduled, backward and general, in contexts like admissions or
employment registration. The new question will just be a more factual
version of information they are accustomed to providing.

Aside from yielding the database for defining caste-based quotas,
knowing caste shares in the population will enable a more fair
operation of the reservation among the beneficiaries, who are a
mutually unconnected set of castes. The same network exclusion effects
which led to the introduction of quotas in the first place will
clearly operate within the quota. Scheduled and backward reservation
can be dominated by a few well-networked groups. The purpose of the
quota will only be served if there is a database on representation of
the stipulated groups in the population, and their representation in
the quotas designed to give them privileged access.

The best analogy is the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), a
trade preference scheme operated under what was formerly GATT (now the
WTO), whereby importing countries in the developed world were
permitted to offer positive discrimination towards developing country
exporters in the form of reduced tariffs, usually set at zero. Because
the general MFN tariff extended without discrimination had been
lowered through successive rounds of trade negotiation, the
differential advantage of a zero tariff GSP came down to somewhere
between 1 and 4 per cent, depending on the product. Only a few
developing countries were close enough to compete effectively at such
a narrow price advantage, so that GSP imports came to be dominated by
them. A graduation provision was, therefore, introduced, usually set
at half of total imports under the GSP. Even where Indian exporters
were among those graduated out, they had to concede the fairness of
the provision.

Quotas are designed to give forcible entry for underprivileged groups
in a system which poses multiple obstacles to their advancement. If
access to the quota is uneven across those groups for whom it is
intended, clearly it only replicates the injustices of the larger
system. But unevenness of access itself is impossible to assess
without a census of population shares of beneficiary groups. If caste
information is not collected, we will have denied ourselves an
opportunity to make the quota function in an equitable manner.

The author is honorary visiting professor, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi

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[ZESTCaste] Speaker Meira Kumar against caste-based census

http://www.ndchronicle.com/news/Speaker_Meira_Kumar_against_caste_based_census_1275649418/

Speaker Meira Kumar against caste-based census

4 June, 2010

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha Speaker, Meira Kumar, a Dalit married to an
OBC, unlike many other non-upper caste politicians, has made it public
that she is against the caste-based census.

Talking to the NDTV, a private television channel, on Thursday she
said "I wanted a casteless society" as had been the "aim of the
founding fathers of the Constitution".

She said the caste has always divided the society. "For years...for
centuries...we have been in difficulties because of this caste." "I
have always worked towards a casteless society. The aim of the
founding fathers of the Constitution has been to establish casteless
society." She added.

Meira, an MP from Sasaram in Bihar, is the daughter of former deputy
Prime Minister, Babu Jagjiwan Ram, who served in all the Union Cabinet
from 1947 to 1979. Jagjiwan Ram was a Ravidas and held different
important portfolios in Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shashtri, Indira
and Morarji Desai government.

Meira is a former IFS officer, who plunged into politics after qutting
her job in 1985 a year before the death of her father. Last year she
became the first woman Speaker of India.

While talking to NDTV she also rejected the media reports that she is
likely to be the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress in Bihar,
which goes to poll in October.

------------------------------------

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Saturday, June 5, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Caste And The Census (Gail Omvedt)

[ZESTCaste] Kalyan for caste in census, writes to PM

[ZESTCaste] Count caste in this census to annihilate it

[ZESTCaste] Caste and the census

[ZESTCaste] Speaker Meira Kumar against caste-based census

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