Dhruv Joshi has sent a new article titled "Cast(E) Away: o reservations serve any purpose?" for Read2Help readers.
Cast(E) Away: o reservations serve any purpose?
The original term for the Caste is Varn which mean color in Sanskrit, the word was first coined by the light skinned Aryans who invaded north India in 1500 BC. The motive behind such coinage might have been to put down the darker-hued indigenes. Thus it can be said that just like the word Hindu, caste too was first invented by the outsiders. A verse of the Rig Ved enshrines the original four fold caste division: when god made man, the verse says, the learned, priestly Brahmin emerged from his forehead, the warrior kshatriya from his arms, the farmer-merchant Vaishya from his thighs, and the labourer- artisan Sudra from his feet.
The centuries of intermixing, has given India the most hetero-hued population, in which the caste rules acquired rigidity. Brahmins would not eat the food cooked by the non-Brahmins, untouchables, who performed such polluting tasks as disposing of wastes or handling of carcasses, could not draw water from the wells reserved for the upper castes, or live in upper caste areas. The rigidity is reflected in its highest and most shameful facet of our social life by the fact that Brahmins would feel obliged to bathe afresh even if the shadow of the untouchable fell upon them. The people belonging to so- called lower castes were denied to enter into the temples. The lower castes people were exploited for their labors, their services and sometimes even for their bodies. The higher castes people had impressed upon the minds of the lower castes people that their being of inferior status is a part of the natural order. They were taught that their conformity to the inferior status and good behavior might lead them to reborn in higher castes in their next birth. The society had become completely stagnant in its established rules which discriminated inhumanly against so-called lower castes people.
Looking at these horribly inhuman and discriminating prohibitions imposed by castes and the prejudice it permitted, it is easy to see why Mahatma Gandhi and other enlightened and sensitive nationalists campaigned passionately against caste system. These nationalists were not the first to reform the caste system, Siddhartha, the Buddha, was the first to preach against the inequities of castes in 500 BC. The caste system has survived the blows of other reformers like Mahavira and Nanak. Reform movements have ranged from the Bramhsamaj of Raja Rammohan Roy in 1800s to the lower caste spiritualism of Kerala's Sree Narayan Guru nearly a century later; Mahatma crusaded against caste and Dr. Ambedkar, himself an untouchable, outlawed untouchability as the principal drafter of the constitution. But still it has persisted. The caste system is not a phenomenon limited to the Hindu castes only, Portuguese churches in Goa reputedly have two doors, one for Brahmin Christians and the other one for the lower caste converts.
So poor was the situation of one particular section of people when India got her freedom and pledged to adopt secularist and socialist ideals of creating equal and classless society.
But the passage of time also has not been able to alleviate this cancer, even today we come across the news of inhuman ill-treatment given to the people belonging to the lower castes.
Although situations in Indian cities have been definitely better than that of its villages. The reason behind that is, the cities provide an inconvenient ground for petty prohibitions of caste system. For example it is hardly possible to know the caste of the cook who made the food you ate in a roadside restaurant. It can be said the at least Indian cities, if not villages, have been moving towards the Mahatma's dream of casteless society. The need for an array of affirmative action programs is clearly needed to bridge the gap between the top and the bottom ends of our society.
India's Affirmative action programs guarantee outcomes, not just opportunities and yet it has aroused little open hostility within the country, prior to the anti-mandal agitation. So complete was the country's acceptance of the principle of affirmative action that the clamor to join the bandwagon of reservation grew, and led to more and more groups demanding reservations of their own. The addition of the “backward classes” as recommended by the Mandal commission has now taken the total of reserved jobs in the federal government and national governmental institutions to 49.5%, and in several states the local reservations are even higher, extending, in some cases to 69% e.g. Tamil Nadu.
Despite these constitutional protections, inequalities persist between the upper castes and the former untouchables. Affirmative action, perhaps inevitably, benefited a minority of Dalits who were in a position to take an advantage of it: independent India has witnessed a creation of privileged section within formerly underprivileged groups, as the sons and daughters of rich and influential scheduled caste leaders get ahead on the strength of their caste affiliation. Caste Hindus have increasingly come to resent the offspring of cabinet ministers, for instance, benefitting from the reservations and the lower entry thresholds into university and government that were designed to compensate for the disadvantages these scions of privilege have never personally experienced. Even the Supreme court has muttered its disquiet about the benefits hogged by the so-called creamy layers at the top of the bottom ranks of the society. But since the objective of affirmative-action program is justice and representation in an almost cosmic sense, rather than equity here and now, such resentment can be, and is, disregarded by the authorities.
The emphasis of reservations and quotas as the most effective means of promoting affirmative action flies in the face of a constitutional provisions in the favor of equal opportunity and equality under the law: it is never easy to reconcile “special opportunities for some” with “ equal opportunities for all”. Reserving parliamentary seats for Dalits and adivasis is one thing, reserving seats in medical colleges for OBCs quiet another. Not all groups lend themselves equally well to the argument that representation is more important than efficiency; whereas legislatures must obviously be representative of the populations they govern, the same is not necessarily true of a research laboratory or a public-sector hospital. Nor are reservations in themselves a magic solution to all ills. Sometimes one also feels that reservation policies are overused by the governments to hide their inability to introduce and then implement other affirmative action plans. I fail to see how reservation could OR would help stopping a so called upper caste man to rape or physically harass any woman just on the ground of the fact that she belongs to so called lower castes.
A dissenting judge in the supreme court case quoted a sociologist Andre Beteille: “the problem of the backward classes are too varied, too large and too acute to be solved by job reservation alone….. the masses of Harijans and Adivaasis are too poor and too lonely even to be candidates for the jobs that are reserved in their names”.
Another aspect that makes situation worse in our country is the CLASSES within CASTES. Concentrating on Castes (read: vote banks) our social, political and economical policy makers have given little attention to remove CLASS barriers. The dangerous fact is that the support for consolidation of class barriers comes not only from old vested interests but also from new sources of privilege and this makes it all the more difficult to achieve equity in society.
An example of how policies concentrate o CASTES and not on CLASS relates to Mandal Commission. Mandal Commission’s recommendations were not signed and accepted by the only Dalit member of the commission, L.R. Naik. Naik’s, improperly debated, disagreement lied in the fact that the OBC consist of two different kinds of classes. Of these two classes first are land owning OBCs, whom Naik referred to as intermediate OBC and second are the artisans, whom he described as depressed backward classes. L.R. Naik rightly feared that the benefits of the recommendations will be consumed only by (MOSTLY BY) the intermediate backward class people. He told this 25 years back when the country did not know of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav or Nitish Kumar (All belonging to intermediate backward classes). Today most of the states of our country are ruled byt the upper OBCs who have evolved into lords of the country side. Peeople have a fair idea of upper OBC affluence and political power. But the Lower class of the OBC is nowhere to be seen in the picture. It goes without saying that they are probably Cast Away.
The centuries of intermixing, has given India the most hetero-hued population, in which the caste rules acquired rigidity. Brahmins would not eat the food cooked by the non-Brahmins, untouchables, who performed such polluting tasks as disposing of wastes or handling of carcasses, could not draw water from the wells reserved for the upper castes, or live in upper caste areas. The rigidity is reflected in its highest and most shameful facet of our social life by the fact that Brahmins would feel obliged to bathe afresh even if the shadow of the untouchable fell upon them. The people belonging to so- called lower castes were denied to enter into the temples. The lower castes people were exploited for their labors, their services and sometimes even for their bodies. The higher castes people had impressed upon the minds of the lower castes people that their being of inferior status is a part of the natural order. They were taught that their conformity to the inferior status and good behavior might lead them to reborn in higher castes in their next birth. The society had become completely stagnant in its established rules which discriminated inhumanly against so-called lower castes people.
Looking at these horribly inhuman and discriminating prohibitions imposed by castes and the prejudice it permitted, it is easy to see why Mahatma Gandhi and other enlightened and sensitive nationalists campaigned passionately against caste system. These nationalists were not the first to reform the caste system, Siddhartha, the Buddha, was the first to preach against the inequities of castes in 500 BC. The caste system has survived the blows of other reformers like Mahavira and Nanak. Reform movements have ranged from the Bramhsamaj of Raja Rammohan Roy in 1800s to the lower caste spiritualism of Kerala's Sree Narayan Guru nearly a century later; Mahatma crusaded against caste and Dr. Ambedkar, himself an untouchable, outlawed untouchability as the principal drafter of the constitution. But still it has persisted. The caste system is not a phenomenon limited to the Hindu castes only, Portuguese churches in Goa reputedly have two doors, one for Brahmin Christians and the other one for the lower caste converts.
So poor was the situation of one particular section of people when India got her freedom and pledged to adopt secularist and socialist ideals of creating equal and classless society.
But the passage of time also has not been able to alleviate this cancer, even today we come across the news of inhuman ill-treatment given to the people belonging to the lower castes.
Although situations in Indian cities have been definitely better than that of its villages. The reason behind that is, the cities provide an inconvenient ground for petty prohibitions of caste system. For example it is hardly possible to know the caste of the cook who made the food you ate in a roadside restaurant. It can be said the at least Indian cities, if not villages, have been moving towards the Mahatma's dream of casteless society. The need for an array of affirmative action programs is clearly needed to bridge the gap between the top and the bottom ends of our society.
India's Affirmative action programs guarantee outcomes, not just opportunities and yet it has aroused little open hostility within the country, prior to the anti-mandal agitation. So complete was the country's acceptance of the principle of affirmative action that the clamor to join the bandwagon of reservation grew, and led to more and more groups demanding reservations of their own. The addition of the “backward classes” as recommended by the Mandal commission has now taken the total of reserved jobs in the federal government and national governmental institutions to 49.5%, and in several states the local reservations are even higher, extending, in some cases to 69% e.g. Tamil Nadu.
Despite these constitutional protections, inequalities persist between the upper castes and the former untouchables. Affirmative action, perhaps inevitably, benefited a minority of Dalits who were in a position to take an advantage of it: independent India has witnessed a creation of privileged section within formerly underprivileged groups, as the sons and daughters of rich and influential scheduled caste leaders get ahead on the strength of their caste affiliation. Caste Hindus have increasingly come to resent the offspring of cabinet ministers, for instance, benefitting from the reservations and the lower entry thresholds into university and government that were designed to compensate for the disadvantages these scions of privilege have never personally experienced. Even the Supreme court has muttered its disquiet about the benefits hogged by the so-called creamy layers at the top of the bottom ranks of the society. But since the objective of affirmative-action program is justice and representation in an almost cosmic sense, rather than equity here and now, such resentment can be, and is, disregarded by the authorities.
The emphasis of reservations and quotas as the most effective means of promoting affirmative action flies in the face of a constitutional provisions in the favor of equal opportunity and equality under the law: it is never easy to reconcile “special opportunities for some” with “ equal opportunities for all”. Reserving parliamentary seats for Dalits and adivasis is one thing, reserving seats in medical colleges for OBCs quiet another. Not all groups lend themselves equally well to the argument that representation is more important than efficiency; whereas legislatures must obviously be representative of the populations they govern, the same is not necessarily true of a research laboratory or a public-sector hospital. Nor are reservations in themselves a magic solution to all ills. Sometimes one also feels that reservation policies are overused by the governments to hide their inability to introduce and then implement other affirmative action plans. I fail to see how reservation could OR would help stopping a so called upper caste man to rape or physically harass any woman just on the ground of the fact that she belongs to so called lower castes.
A dissenting judge in the supreme court case quoted a sociologist Andre Beteille: “the problem of the backward classes are too varied, too large and too acute to be solved by job reservation alone….. the masses of Harijans and Adivaasis are too poor and too lonely even to be candidates for the jobs that are reserved in their names”.
Another aspect that makes situation worse in our country is the CLASSES within CASTES. Concentrating on Castes (read: vote banks) our social, political and economical policy makers have given little attention to remove CLASS barriers. The dangerous fact is that the support for consolidation of class barriers comes not only from old vested interests but also from new sources of privilege and this makes it all the more difficult to achieve equity in society.
An example of how policies concentrate o CASTES and not on CLASS relates to Mandal Commission. Mandal Commission’s recommendations were not signed and accepted by the only Dalit member of the commission, L.R. Naik. Naik’s, improperly debated, disagreement lied in the fact that the OBC consist of two different kinds of classes. Of these two classes first are land owning OBCs, whom Naik referred to as intermediate OBC and second are the artisans, whom he described as depressed backward classes. L.R. Naik rightly feared that the benefits of the recommendations will be consumed only by (MOSTLY BY) the intermediate backward class people. He told this 25 years back when the country did not know of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav or Nitish Kumar (All belonging to intermediate backward classes). Today most of the states of our country are ruled byt the upper OBCs who have evolved into lords of the country side. Peeople have a fair idea of upper OBC affluence and political power. But the Lower class of the OBC is nowhere to be seen in the picture. It goes without saying that they are probably Cast Away.
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