The invisible capital of identity
Jayant Sriram
First Published : 04 Jul 2010 10:38:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 01 Jul 2010 07:18:46 PM IST
The collection of caste-based data is not a new thing, according to social historian M S S Pandian, who teaches at Jawaharlal Nehru university in Delhi. It is an exercise that is already been conducted, through surveys by the NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) and by the Anthropological Survey of India. While the collection of such data has been a good thing, the opposition to a larger exercise like the caste census, he says, mainly stems from a north Indian anxiety.
“In Tamil Nadu we have been aware of caste issues for a long time. Upcountry, it hasn’t been politicised as yet. They’re not comfortable talking about it.” Pandian points to two prominent examples. “When the Mandal commission report was introduced, and all of north India was up in arms about it, the state assembly in Tamil Nadu passed a resolution which was printed out and circulated widely. There was even a rally on the Marina beach to commemorate the event where thousands of people turned up.”
As a more recent example, he points to a recent Madras High Court judgment directing the Centre and the Census Commissioner to hold a caste-based census based on a PIL filed by one of the court’s lawyers. The point, he says, is that in Tamil Nadu, what the rest of the country might find shocking is treated as normal.
He says it’s taken people a long time to realise that caste needs to be taken seriously. “Caste exists, and caste works as capital. It determines things like access to information and resources. If a government is going to plan and carry out welfare schemes you have to take this into account as a factor.”
This is essential, he argues, for a broader understanding of development. “Indicators such as BPL provide only a narrow understanding of what is capital, focusing only on the economic aspect. There are other factors involved. Caste is one, and it could also be things like your knowledge of English, or whether you come from a village or city. To make good policy you have to have an expanded notion of what constitutes capital and caste is extremely important in deciding access to resources or a lack of access. If the state takes its business seriously, it has to take caste seriously.”
Pandian also gives short shrift to arguments that the logistics might prove too complicated and the notion that enumerating caste numbers makes caste identity more rigid. He counters that compared to the Unique Identification Number, collecting data for the caste census is much easier.
As for the second argument, he says it doesn’t hold because our definition of caste is now very fluid. “Even in colonial times the definition was accompanied by a lot of religious discourse. Now, it is more secular. We are talking about jobs and opportunities.” At the end of the day, he emphasises, such information will provide useful data.
Perhaps the biggest fear surrounding the caste census is that it will throw up several new demands but this should not be regarded as a bad thing. “Right now, we take decisions based on caste very arbitrarily. When the Supreme Court asked why states had given so much reservation for caste, it challenged them to provide figures. Then they went ahead and fixed the figure at 50 per cent as if somehow this was valid. With accurate information, we can cut out this arbitrariness.”
A detailed census can also help in a more nuanced social understanding. “When you talk about things like caste mobilisation, if you have the data and the facts, you can understand why it’s happening.”
A wasteful exercise
C Lakshmanan, assistant professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, who specialises in Tamil Nadu politics and Dalit movement, looks at the issue differently. He questions the need for such an exercise. Caste data are already available, he argues, through the census of 2001, the NSSO as well as various state commissions on backward classes. The problem though, is that precious little has been done with it.
“Since Independence, the government has had to deal with the problem of nearly 25 per cent of the population under the SC/ST category. If they had at least said that 15 per cent of them had improved their status it would be reasonable to move on to a larger project like the caste census. Yet they have shamelessly admitted that not even one per cent of them have been alleviated.”
A caste census, he says, is just going to invite new problems. “The classic case is the Gujjars in Rajasthan. Their population is only about a lakh, but they can mobilise the community and frequently hold the state to ransom.” The danger with the caste census is that any community that has enough numbers can mobilise its people and place all kinds of demands on the state.”
At the same time, he points to another problem. “If the data from the census show that a certain group no longer needs to be categorised as SC or ST, then do we have the political will to exclude such a community?”
He feels government, academics and media alike are conditioned to think that the prime indicator for backwardness is caste. “If they can move beyond this caste-centric approach and broaden their understanding then something is possible, but they have to realise state intervention based on caste issues is a myth. A caste census is just a ploy to divert attention.”
“In Tamil Nadu, for instance, reservation is only there in the public sector and of the 25 per cent of the people it’s meant to cover, only 6 per cent actually benefit, that too for jobs like sweepers and drivers. But no one talks about this.”
Lakshmanan also points to a study conducted by Professor Sathyapaul of the University of Andhra Pradesh which surveyed the participation of SC and ST MPs in Parliament during question hour from 1975 to 2000. “In 25 years they spoke for a total of six and a half hours. Only four hours actually dealt with Dalit issues, an example of how caste based intervention has become meaningless.”
He finishes by arguing that if the government feels it doesn’t have adequate data then it should temporarily suspend policies such as reservation and refashion it once data are collected rather than do both simultaneously.
— jayantsriram@expressbuzz.com
The blind side
Caste blindness is the tendency of a group to “not-see” or ignore caste. Many call it the privilege of the upper castes, one they have gained after having extracted the most out of caste privileges. Satish Deshpande and Mary E John wrote in their article titled “The politics of not counting caste” (Economic and Political Weekly, June 19 2010): “For the most privileged sections of the upper castes this was true in a certain sense because three generations of caste blindness had allowed them to fully encash their caste advantages. They were now in a situation where they no longer needed to invoke caste explicitly, having acquired all the other resources that guaranteed them the “legitimate” advantages of inherited wealth, expensive education and abundant connections among their own kind. It is these groups of upper castes who are the most vociferous advocates of caste blindness today. It is they who believe that the Census is mainly about and for the lower castes and their squabbling about quotas.” But caste blindness or denying someone’s caste identity can lead to unequal distribution of resources. Post tsunami, Dalit Network Netherlands noted in its report that in the “pretence of caste blindness” the aid agencies had not taken into consideration the inherent caste discrimination. “The discrimination was present at all phases of the recovery process, from the denial of rice, the refusal to share emergency shelters, the removal of bodies, and the relief materials provided, through to the compensation and provision of livelihood assistance and housing,” says the report. It was not “planned or organised by the caste fisherman” but, “it merely played out its natural course as a result of thousands of years of an unchallenged caste system.” Caste blindness among the oppressed castes came down considerably after the Mandal Commission report. Today, caste assertion has become a way to reclaim resources and privileges denied.
