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. ------------------------------------ ---- INFORMATION OVERLOAD? Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to [email protected], OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/ PARTICIPATE:- On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to [email protected] TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:- If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to [email protected] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/ Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
