Author’s note: This article had been requested by Dainik Bhaskar. However, after receiving the piece, the publication declined to publish it.
In today’s lingo, the population census is a giant society-wide selfie. A very special kind of selfie, for it includes each and every Indian, creating a collective self-portrait of the nation in the process. Special also because it is not you or I, but only the government who can take this selfie.
Why then is there such a controversy over the census in the age of the selfie? As a matter of fact, the dispute is not over the population census but about a census of the caste of that population. While the demand for a caste census is not new, it is in the last three decades, with the advent of Mandal politics in the 1990s, that it has gathered steam.
Supporters say that comprehensive and accurate caste-wise data will help steer development programmes and welfare schemes in the right direction. At a political level, there is an expectation that a caste-wise disaggregation of data will bring forth the reality of caste-based inequities, which will energise movements and political parties anew and also make possible a more just allocation of collective resources. Needless to say, these issues relate to the so-called lower and intermediate castes.
Opponents insist that such a census would be a divisive initiative that would fuel the assertion of caste-based identities, leading to acrimony and conflict. This logic is almost 100 years old, and from the time of India’s freedom movement, the privileged have used it as a shield to protect their privilege. In fact, this very logic was used as the basis for discontinuing the enumeration of caste in the census after independence. It needs to be said – because this fact is seemingly invisible even when it is staring us in the face – that this is the view of the so-called upper castes, even if it is often dressed up as progressivism or nationalism.
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It is quite natural that, in the heat of public debate, both sides exaggerate their positions. The hyperbole of caste census supporters rests on their wishful thinking that access to caste disaggredated data will instantly solve all issues concerning social justice. While lack of data has been and continues to be a hindrance, questions of social justice are ultimately questions of power, and data alone cannot provide solutions.
On the other hand, there is some truth to their claim that with the availability of comparative figures on different castes from an authoritative source such as the census, the politics of equity will rest on a firmer factual base and derive new energy from this. This argument is basically correct, but it is incomplete.
It is incomplete because its conceptual roots have not reached the essence of caste. The fundamental reality of the social institution called caste is that it is not a static substance but a dynamic relationship. People commonly perceive caste as a thing or a characteristic which defines every individual of a specific caste. Like a person’s height, weight or looks, caste too is an attribute, albeit invisible, which is inherent in everyone. It is this attribute-like notion of caste which shapes our understanding, on the basis of which we believe that society is divided into various castes. Much like individuals, every caste is seen as having its merits and demerits. Moreover, just as a person has good and bad experiences, every caste has its ups and downs written in its fate.
When we bring this view of caste to the context of government welfare programmes, we are immediately transported to the everyday life of our society, the daily grind of realpolitik and newspaper headlines: so and so caste is demanding a specific kind of reservation; a certain caste group has announced the formation of a political party; and so on. In this world of fusion and fission, gains and losses, and the friction caused by competing aspirations, we suddenly discover that ‘caste’ has come to mean ‘lower caste’. Just as some English words contain letters that are silent, in our times the word ‘caste’ has acquired a silent prefix − ‘lower’. We say ‘caste’ but we really mean ‘lower caste’. The journey of the essentialist understanding that thinks of caste as an attribute ends in the blind alley of eternal identities in endless competition.
Opponents of the caste census are also adherents of this essentialist understanding, but they reach the opposite conclusion because their perspective is that of the so-called upper castes. Courtesy the new constitution and power structure of independent India, these castes received an explicit restriction and an implicit opportunity. The restriction was that they would not openly invoke their caste identities in the public and political domain. The boon or opportunity had two aspects. First, abundant governmental assistance was provided to transform their traditional caste-based wealth and social capital into modern, ‘secular’ or caste-less wealth, and ‘merit’. The second aspect of the boon was the assurance of invisibilising caste in the guise of the ‘general’ category. These castes didn’t have to choose the path of electoral politics to milk the benefits of their caste identity; on the contrary, special ‘flyovers’ were constructed to lift them clear of the ‘lower’ castes’ struggle, and place them on the track to economic and social advancement. Hence, by the 1980s, the third generation of these so-called upper caste groups started feeling that it had nothing to do with ‘caste’, which, for all practical purposes, now meant ‘lower caste’. Clearly, this section would not see any benefit in a caste census. Rather, they would be concerned at the prospect of losing the caste-anonymity of their privilege.
Also read: The Point Is That There Is Not Enough Social Justice, Not That There Is Too Much
The world of caste looks totally different when viewed from an alternative vantage point. As opposed to the essentialist understanding which sees caste as an individual or collective attribute, the relational view of caste sees it as dwelling in the interrelationship between persons and groups. My caste would not be inherent in me, nor your caste in you – rather, caste would be defined by the dynamic relationship between us. This notion of caste is the exact opposite of Kabir’s ‘prem gali’ (so narrow is the alley of love that two can’t pass) – it is impossible for one person to pass through the lane of caste, because caste always involves two people. As long as the powerful and privileged sections of our society consider themselves to be beyond the pale of caste, and as long as the so-called lower castes feel that the well-being of their own community is their only goal, the caste ‘problem’ will continue to fester in one way or the other. Deliverance from caste will only be possible when both commoners and elites are able to see reservation and merit as two sides of the same coin.
That day is still far off. However, the caste census could well be the first stop on the long road to a future where caste no longer reproduces inequality. The condition being that every Indian is asked: what is your caste? Caste data from the census may or may not help, but this giant selfie will clearly show that all of us – and not only some − ‘have’ caste.
Satish Deshpande, who taught sociology at Delhi University, is currently associated with the Institute of Social and Economic Change, in Bengaluru.
Translated from the Hindi original by Chitra Padmanabhan, with inputs from Satish Deshpande. You can read the original published in The Wire Hindi here.