Caste, a double-edged sword
Published: Wednesday, Sep 22, 2010, 0:35 IST
By Nilotpal Basu | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
It is about capitalism and hierarchy
The government has now reached a final conclusion on the raging
controversy over the caste-based census in the country. In order to
reconcile with the contending positions, the government has decided to
conduct a separate stand-alone exercise of a parallel house-to-house
enumeration of the caste affiliations of households. It is not yet
clear as to whether the results and the data of the census proper and
this separate exercise will be integrated in the end.
Caste has managed to sustain itself because of the
nature of the underlying economic relations and processes. It grew as
part of our pre-feudal and feudal phase of history. Today, though,
feudal relations have given way to semi-feudal relations with a great
degree of penetration of capitalist market forces in our countryside.
Post-independent governments and the ruling elite have not only
refused to deal a death blow to caste, but have actually used it as a
major instrument of political, and more particularly, electoral
mobilisation.
The contemporary political process has become more complex. On the one
hand, hitherto socially oppressed sections like Dalits and OBCs have
come to question discrimination on the ground of social stratification
and, on the other, campaigned aggressively for a share in the
political process. However, what is absent from such an articulation
is the question of equality in the economic sphere of which the most
notable is the need for agrarian reforms and commensurate change in
the land relations.
On the other hand, major shifts in the overall economic paradigm of
international finance capital-driven globalisation have accentuated
economic inequality. It is obvious that this development in the
economic sphere has impacted socially-oppressed sections more
adversely. This has led to a stronger demand for social justice. The
consequent consolidation of the socially deprived sections and castes
has resulted in obscurantism and medievalism in the traditionally
advanced social groupings and castes.
Phenomena like honour killing have, thus, become part of the
contemporary social responses. It is unfortunate that this phenomenon
has come to threaten the very vitals of our society and polity. The
unity and reconciliation which was part of our freedom struggle and
which led to the modern vision of the composite and plural Indian
nationhood has been jettisoned. And, this vision did get
institutionalised and enshrined in our Constitution. Unfortunately,
the realisation of this ideal has remained an elusive goal. The
present neo-liberal developmental paradigm has actually accentuated
the gulf between precept and practice.
While it can be nobody's brief to deny the legitimate concern for
social justice, it is equally important to recognise the dual
character of caste. At one level, the aspirations of the oppressed
castes represents an extremely legitimate concern. Unless linked with
the process of achieving economic equality, such an approach can end
up reinforcing caste and its implied
hierarchy. Therefore, the battle for social justice cannot achieve
what it intends to unless it transcends the demand for reservation and
integrates with the larger question of achieving a holistic equality.
While the need for a social profile of our demography is important, it
cannot be done in a manner which would strengthen the retrograde
process of the use of caste for electoral mobilisation — particularly
those of the dominant castes.
Therefore, the need for differentiating the two processes — that of
the census and caste enumeration was a real democratic requirement.
Additionally, there was a technical complexity. The nature of OBCs
does not have pan-Indian homogeneity. So a separate exercise for
ascertaining this break-up would not have been effective but for a
differentiated exercise. Therefore, this decision of the government
seems to have addressed this concern.
Hopefully, this will bring down the curtain on the raging controversy.
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