Back to caste count

by Sam Rajappa

(June 01, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sri Aurobindo, in his essay Un-Hindu Spirit of Caste Rigidity, wrote: "The baser ideas underlying the degenerate perversions of the caste system, the mental attitude which bases them on superiority, depending on the accident of birth of a fixed and intolerant inequality, are inconsistent with the supreme teaching, the basic spirit of Hinduism which sees the one invariable and indivisible divinity in every individual being."

Enumeration of castes in the census is bound to eat into the unifying threads carefully nurtured by our national leaders during the freedom struggle. The demand for caste enumeration came up during the National Democratic Alliance government also but Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Kishen Advani did not allow coalition dharma to make any compromises on national unity. Unfortunately, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, ignoring the stand taken by eminent leaders like Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru, CR Das, Gokhale, Patel and others in transforming India from a society of caste and communities into a nation of citizens of equal rights, caved in to the demand of some of its coalition partners.

Sri Aurobindo

The colonial regime had toyed with the idea of a permanent divide among the Hindu community by creating separate electorates for the depressed classes. The scheme was abandoned only when Mahatma Gandhi went on an indefinite fast and reached an understanding with Ambedkar under the Poona Pact. Ambedkar said: "How can a people divided into several thousands of castes be a nation?" Whatever India may have been in the past, the endeavour of the democratically elected government should be to strive for a nation of citizens and not succumb to divisions of caste and community. The politicians who demand caste census data are not interested in the social and economic uplift of the traditionally disadvantaged sections but only in enlisting them as vote banks for electoral advantage. Reviving the colonial practice of caste census could only help the divisive agenda of self-serving politicians. Any caste enumeration that relies on self-certification will find a scramble to inflate numbers for political advantage and a precise headcount of a particular caste may ultimately prove as elusive as the projections made from the 1931 census.

The Directive Principles in the Constitution states the State shall strive to minimise the inequalities in income and endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, not only amongst individuals but also amongst groups of people residing in different areas or engaged in different vocations. In order to enable this, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes have been given 15 and 7 per cent reservation respectively in government jobs and admission to educational institutions. Article 340 of the Constitution mandates the government to promote the welfare of Other Backward Classes. The first Backward Classes Commission headed by Kaka Kalelkar identified 2,399 castes as backward and 837 among them as the most backward. His recommendation, however, was that backwardness should be determined on criterion other than caste. The second Backward Classes Commission headed by Mandal declared 52 per cent of the population as OBC. Since the Supreme Court had put a ceiling of 50 per cent on reservations, the OBCs received 27 per cent, except in Tamil Nadu which already had 69 per cent reservation and was allowed to continue it. OBC enumeration should have begun in 2001, in the first census after OBC reservation came into effect as national policy in the 1990s.

Suppose the caste census discovers that 90 per cent of the population opt for OBC status, and the Supreme Court is firm on its 50 per cent ceiling on reservation, how would the government tackle the reservation policy? Will the government agree to proportional quotas of reservation? Strange as it may seem, the post-Mandal era saw a race for the backward tag and at one stage in Karnataka, 95 per cent of its people were declared OBC. There was a mad rush among the high and intermediate castes for going down the ladder. Official enumeration of any category tends to erect walls against its boundaries.

The Congress cannot shirk responsibility for communalising politics in the country. To keep the undivided CPI out of power in Kerala, the Congress teamed up with the Muslim League which till then remained dormant since Partition, in the 1960 Assembly election. Ever since, the two parties have become inseparable partners. The partnership helped the League grow leaps and bounds while it reduced the Congress to a subservient role. In the recent Assembly election in the State, the Muslim League won 20 seats in the 140-member House and was in a position to dictate terms to the Congress on the ministry formation. Encouraged by the growth and influence of the League, the Nair community launched the National Democratic Party and the numerically strong Ezhavas launched the Socialist Republican Party, but neither could build vote-banks of their respective communities, unlike the League. The two caste-based parties withered away gradually. There is a lesson in it for those clamouring for caste census.

A comprehensive caste census is not only impractical but also against the spirit of the Constitution. It would reduce India from a democracy of citizens to an oligarchy of communities. If the government thinks it can reduce inequality by integrating socio-economic data of the entire population with the caste count to enable it to take administrative measures, it can be achieved without classifying the ‘Below Poverty Line’ groups by caste. Caste identity is not only associated with inequalities but can also be attributed to those inequalities. Inequalities exist among all castes and communities. The better way to tackle the problem would be to address the root cause of the inequality. It is a travesty to imagine caste census is a necessary instrument to empower the disempowered. The UPA wants us to believe that there is no alternative to caste-based reservation, and to achieve that, caste census is a must. With the vast majority of the people of the country in the informal sector, reservation can hardly be the solution to achieve greater equality.

An important element of census operation of the British colonial rulers was enumeration and classification of castes to reinforce the divisions in society and strengthen their hold on India. It was the realisation of the divisive uses of caste census that made the first government of independent India to do away with caste from the 1951 census onwards. At one stroke, the UPA government has set the clock back by 80 years. Caste census helps to enforce the tyranny of identities over which we have no control. Our identities are not something we can choose. This compulsory group identity is a way of diminishing our freedom and dignity. It will severely undermine social and cultural identification of people with non-caste socio-economic and cultural categories who constitute the growing number of the middle class. It is difficult to understand why caste data should be restricted to those calling themselves Hindus. Barring the Parsis, caste divisions exist in all the major religious groups in the country.

In due course of time, this will lead to demand for reservations on the basis of caste without reference to religion. At present, a Scheduled caste Christian, for instance, is denied the benefits of reservation. By identifying him by caste, he becomes eligible for reservation. Certainly this was not the intention of the government. The way to transcend caste is not by reinforcing its identity, but by stressing citizenship of the nation.

The writer is a veteran journalist and former Director, Statesman Print Journalism School