Defeating the purpose - caste based reservations

Note: This is an old article i didn't  publish. But seeing the relevance of the debate I'm publishing it without modifications.

Last I heard UPA government has included Jats in the central OBC lists, in other places such as Uttar Pradesh many OBC castes are trying to enlist themselves as SC, many SCs are trying to get into ST. Indeed there is a premium on backwardness, everyone is trying to prove how terribly backward they are. And for all these there exists a robust intellectual support,  reservations and quotas are variously described as tools for social justice, egalitarian society, caste-less society ad nauseam. Opposing such policies on grounds of merit, efficiency, fairness immediately casts you as upper caste stooge and a reactionary manuvadi.  The question is from when all these started? What are the justifications advanced and the issues with them? The story predates independence and has roots in 19^th century reform movements. In this article it’s my aim to show hollowness of the whole theory of caste reservations. On the face of it the issue is eminently common sensical to anyone why shouldn’t there be caste based reservations but it’s instructive to see how elaborate constructions and topsy-turvy logic was employed to justify communal reservations. There are various steps in the whole saga, and the elaborate web is established in the end.

Ethnicisation of caste 

Jyotirao Phule (late 19^th century) was the pioneer of the process, and subsequent caste movement leaders have accepted one or the other form of the ethinicised notion of caste. Its origins lie further afar, in British historiography. The Britons gave a theory of Aryan invasion, the theory was advanced that there are two races in India one invader Aryans and other native Dravidians. Some 4000 years ago Aryans invaded India from northwest. This pushed the peace loving native Dravidians into peninsular India. Britishers advanced this history to justify their invasion. But in the hands of Jyotirao Phule (the pioneer of lower caste movement) the theory was leveraged to serve another purpose, it was held that the Aryans are upper caste/Brahmins and the Dravidians and natives were lower castes, that Aryans invaded the natives and enslaved them. In south India this theory was used to foster a full fledge anti-Bramhin movement in the beginning of the 20^th century. The result of this process was that caste was given an ethnic identity like a race or like a linguistic group. This ethnicisation surved its purpose quite well, it united lower castes against upper castes, it gave them pride and confidence in their original superiority.

How this helped justify caste-based quotas? Well, in USA for example blacks are an ethnic group and they were given affirmative action based on their race…the similarity logic dictates that since caste too is an ethnic group like a race, affirmative action in India too should be given on basis of castes. There are grave issues with this. One, the Aryan invasion theory has been totally discarded now and sociologists don’t consider any racial difference between upper and lower castes, there is so much of interbreeding that it’s almost useless to talk of race and ethnicity so far as castes are concerned. Two, unlike race caste is a chosen identity that is one can’t choose to become white or black but one can choose what caste he wants. This is a crucial difference which we will explore in the next section of sanskritisation. 

Sanskritisation

Secular status(economic status) of a caste is one thing and ritual status(place of caste in the varna hierarchy) is another. Of course inevitably there is a convergence between secular rank and ritual rank of a caste, which means the caste having higher power/wealth will be higher in varna hierarchy or vice versa.

The sanskritization means whenever opportunity is afforded(i.e. economic wealth) lower caste will claim higher varna status and might eventually get one. The Indian Varna system is characterized by this fluidity of sanskritization throughout the history, castes moved up and down through the hierarchy. Take for example the Gupta dynasty- the Guptas were vaishyas when the dynasty was founded but once having acquired power they bestowed grants to the Brahmin priests and the priests in turn bestowed Kshatriya status to Guptas. Or when a person used to be punished and made an outcaste he would likely land up as an untouchable. This understanding makes the whole conception of caste rigidity a hollow claim, the rigid and unchanging caste system was a colonial conception and to a great extent colonial product, the subsequent scholarship has proven it wrong. Our reservation thinking depended much on this outdated conception of rigidity of caste system, we assumed that a depressed caste must be depressed for thousands of years and on that basis demand affirmative action to correct a perceived historical wrong. But no such claim to historical deprivation can be made, we don’t know where the particular caste were some hundred years ago.
This process of sanskritization has a crucial significance for the whole debate, it means that the primary determinant for social deprivation is economical/secular not ritual. The lower ritual status might limit the opportunities available for the deprived caste in a short term and a vicious cycle may begin wherein lower ritual status gives lower economic status and which in turn perpetuates lower ritual status. But when it comes to break the chain, the secular status is most important as it’s the genesis of ritual status of a caste.  That means if you generate economic opportunities for the lower castes (through affirmative action or whatever), the caste will eventually rise in the varna hierarchy. There are evidence from history that the whole vaishya varna was created this way during later vedic period. The texts belonging to early vedic period has negligible mention of vaishyas, but the later vedic texts mentions vaishyas profusely.  Sanskritization applies to individual as well as caste, that means whole caste goes up in the hierarchy through collective action and lobbying. What happened 4000 years ago, has continued to happen till the 19^th century. And since the independence the whole process has freezed, the caste structure has become as rigid as we currently believe. The reason is simple, caste based reservations. The caste-quotas have effectively stopped the process of sanskritization because it creates a disincentive for going up in the verna hierarchy. No dalit caste would want to become Bramhin because that would deprive them of the state entitlements. Social stigma for dalits remain because that’s how Hinduism has evolved in last 4k years, you can’t change a religion that way no matter how strong the religious reform movement is. Hinduism is institutionally fluid enough that it can accept a rich dalit as a Bramhin, but not so fluid to respect dalit as a dalit.  This problem is compounded by the fact that quota lowers the eligibility standards, so if a rich dalit becomes a doctor even if he gets fewer marks the perception among upper caste remains that dalits are intellectually inferior and therefore can’t compete with open category even if materially well-off. 

In the view of the above discussion it’s not difficult to guess what will happen if affirmative action is solely based on economic criteria, slowly lower castes settle themselves into vaishya varna. The untouchable castes will become defunct because the traditional occupations allocated to them will no more be relevant in a modern, industrial world(for example manual scavenging will vanish and with it the caste too will vanish).  This path to social justice will undoubtedly sound appalling to many who wants caste as a unit of entitlements.  Why? Here the concept of ethnicization of caste we discussed above will play spoil sport. The ethnicization movement has instilled a sense of pride among lower castes qua lower castes, the term ‘dalit’ is proudly proclaimed. But as I discussed above this ethnicity-centred concept of caste is completely spurious,  caste is not natural but cultural.
Just as people doing manual labour would move out of manual labour on first opportunity without thinking about glory of manual labour, caste too behaves similarly.  Besides this sense of pride in dalithood is mostly a fashion among dalit elite only, the dalit masses who faces discrimination on a day to day basis will escape the stigma at first opportunity provided.  I personally know instances where people feel ashamed of identifying themselves as dalits. You will see lots of ex-untouchables adopting upper caste surname, this people except for the benefit of reservation would easily change their caste forever.

In the above discussion I tried to show why the caste qutas fail to achieve its desired goal of a society without a horizontal caste structure without hierarchies. But I would also show that caste quotas are not only ineffective but positively pernicious and in the remaining part of the article I would try to demonstrate that.
Impossibility of a caste-less society :- 

Even if we assume that caste-quotas will eventually prove effective tools to social justice, it will at best achieve a society with horizontal caste structure (i.e. castes without hierarchies), NOT a caste-less society. Under the current model the caste-less society is an impossibility. Since benefits are bestowed on caste basis the caste identities has strengthened instead of weakened. The only difference between old structure and new structure will be that while older castes were dominated by ritual rules, new ones will be political ones. That would be like jumping from a well into an abyss albeit a shallower one.  SC, ST, OBC labels have already become synonymous with caste labels. On the other hand quotas on secular criterion will very soon achieve casteless society, take the example of castes within general category(or for that matter SC category) the discrimination and animosity among various castes that constitute general category has diminished greatly. In fact within this four broad political categories the caste has become virtually absent except in case of marriage.

Moral of the story. caste has lost its ritual sheen and has become political. SC,ST,OBC etc are political labels. within these labels caste system is breaking already. Except for the perverse incentives set by our reservation system, these new found casteism too would vanish.

The creamy layer hawks

Within each reservation category there exist a creamy layer consisting of most resourceful people. This creamy layer eats up all the benefits meant for the poor among them. The entitlements never reach those for whom the reservations are there in the first place. The creamy layer is quite conscious of its hegemonic interests, on one hand they mobilize people in the name of caste and demand benefits and on the other hand steadfastly oppose any attempt to exclude the creamy layers in order to secure their interests. This creates a perverse structure such that no matter how much resources you give for affirmative action the overall situations of the targeted group as a whole is bound to remain poor. And this has been the unfortunate case so far in India.

Democracy at stake

The caste politics has given us a democratic landscape dotted by power brokers. People vote en-masse on caste lines, elect leaders from their own caste only. The medieval ties of caste loyalties are exploited by this power brokers. This is quite unlike say a labour union, voting collectively to advance their interest, the union is built with a rational participation by the individual based on the past experience of benefits/harms in acting as a labour bloc. Caste is different, there is no rationality behind caste loyalty except a medieval outlook, the costs of doing this are higher and benefits are flimsy.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that democracy has thrived in India not despite caste-system but because of it, the caste system has co-opted the whole idea of a liberal democracy diluting its quality in the process. 
Sapping social harmony and nation building

Caste-conflicts have acquired all the characteristics of a religious conflicts.  Riots, politics, mutual animosity etc. The society is divided and that makes collective effort difficult.
Retarded industrialisation/urbanisation

Indisputably urbanization and industrialisation are two powerful forces that can flatten even the most rigid of the feudal structures. Urbanization in particular is the solvent of castes. It doesn’t require genius to notice caste system is considerably weekend in urban area than in rural areas.

But this processes are retarded by caste politics over reservations. Private universities are resisted because private sector has no quotas. Privatisation of loss making PSUs are fiercely resisted because PSUs have reservations and private entities don’t. It is also true that the power broker elite is more comfortable with rural masses than urban ones because its rural society where this brokers can have a sound grip, naturally its in their long term interest to retard urbanisation.

Problem of present

Just coming out of a seminar titled "ancient civilization:modern republic, crisis and solution". The speaker stressed the crearivity,originality and audacity of ideas of ancient india. And proposed to take inspiration from such great history to find solutions to our present. To be fair with him he didn't say we should ape our past in any way, only that we should get inspiration and feel strengthened that we have a capacity for rejuvenation from a series of problems that afflicts us in present. He was a particular admirer of the chanakya, inspired by him he proposed many good solutions to corruption, politics,violence etc. Not only i disagree with his aproach to fall back on past for our present exigencies, but also believe the aproach like his is the part of the problem. Reasons
1. Problem with past is that although it enables you to be radical, it doesnt allow you to be radical enough. It limits your capacity to regenerate because your expansion is circumscribed by the invisible boundaries imposed by the past. Examples abound, Gandhiji was a crusader against untouchability but at the same time believed in varna system. He opposed any fetters on widow remarriage but valued voluntary widowhood. The ramayan that inspired him also limited his thought. Most of the 19th century reformers also belong to this category, raja ram mohan roi,vivekananda etc. They innovated but not enough. The same can be said about ancient india too. Perhaps there is a political utility in this approach, you apeal to peole more if you draw inspiration from the sources they are familiar with it. On the other hands breaking away completely presents a risk of being completely alienated from the masses, people wont simply accept you. Is it so? not really if you ask me, its true that an individual cant succedd by breaking from past completely but a sustained movement will certainly outroot this mentality. We have seen its spark, budhha and materialists,rationalists of 19th century, dalit leaders including Dr. Ambedkar. Internationally european enlightenment,russian revolution are shining examples of sending past into dustbin and thinking afresh.
2.The most pernicious side effect of this approach. It justifies to laymen that past was all glory and how wretched we are in comparison. There exists no time in india where people didnt glorified past. Present has always been a kalyug. All kinds of pernicious elements from past had been used to lend legitimacy to contemporary politics. Authority of bramhana,prosecution of shudras, discrimination against women all ideas had been fellow travellers of the genuine reformers. For example this distinguished speaker(ex-diplomat, author) glorified chanakya for his intellect, now all prejudiced views of chanakya(e.g against women) also get a free ride for legitimacy.

Point is not that we shouldnt admire what was admirable in past,but we should not ever let our moral compass be directed by it. In present we live and face problems never faced by ancients, past is inadequate give us answers. Its our problem and we trust our own abilities to bring change. Thats it.

Feminism - the Burkha Dutt way

Burkha Dutt is a self avowed feminist.  When she was attacked from all quarters over her alleged role in Neera Radia scandal, she said the criticisms were motivated by misogyny also. So rather than her actual guilt it was people's prejudice against women as such that drag her to the center of the controversy. This is a favorite defence among all kinds of people, turn personal criticisms into criticism against any specific group you belong to especially if you can identify yourself with a group which has been discriminated against like women,minorities etc.  But I've never heard her attributing - even to some degree -  the admirations and awards she has received to people's wish to accomodate women rather than her own skills.  Her feminism somehow is not applicable in such cases. If someone is being good to her presumably its due to her own charms, but if someonw is getting nasty than its misogyny. Logic.

To her feminist temperament, laws for strict alimony is not good for women's dignity. Why should a women be given the favour alimony? Can't she be financially independant like a man? Logic.

On religious constitutionalism

A very 'in' thing now a day is to attack Anna movement by saying that they are dictating terms to parliament and thereby undermining constitutional institutions, this line of defense is very famous particularly among governing elite, the latest condemnation of this kind is from the president Pranab mukherji himself.

This line of thinking can be best expressed by B R Ambedkar's constitution assembly speech quoted below,

"If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution.  It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha.  When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods.  But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us."

This is misconceived, there is an assumption here that constitutional democracy would be representative or efficient, that it would truly represent the aspiration of the masses. As a matter of fact it doesn't, no person would consciously want corruption,hunger,malnutrition, he doesnt choose his leader in order to perpetuate misery. No democracy in the world can be representative enough to be complacent about, government establishment itself creates a class structure with its own survival instinct and self-interests which are many a time in sharp conflict with interests of people it represents. This is particularly so in our case, our governments (be it any) can be easily formed even if they garner 20-30% of available votes, this is hardly a case for representative democracy. We have a constitutional democracy not always representative. So when a governments are irresponsible,rigid, vacillating pressure groups,civil society,social activists play an important role in filling up the lacunae in representation.

Quoting from american declaration of independence where the framers of the declaration adequately realized the importance of revolution..
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

On Jainas

Duarte Barbosa -a Portuguese traveler visited India during first quarter of 16th century. He writes vividly about Indians and their lifestyle,their dresses,customs,laws etc. He has this to say about Jain merchants when he visited Gujarat..
"These live amongst the Moors(Muslims), and trade with them in their goods. They are men who do not eat meat nor fish, nor anything that has life; neither do they kill anything,nor like to see it killed, because their idolatry forbids it them; and they observe this to such an extreme that it is something marvelous. For it often happens that the Moors bring them some worms or little birds alive, saying they intend to kill them in their presence; and they ransom them, and buy them to set them flying, and save their lives for more money than they are worth. And in the same way, if the governor of the country has got a man to be executed, these Banians unite together and buy him from the officers of justice, that he may not die; and frequently they sell him to them. An in the same manner Moors who beg for alms, when they want alms from these people, take great stones and strike themselves with them on the shoulders and the breast, and on their stomachs, as if they were going to kill themselves with them, and they receive alms not to do it, and to go away in peace. And others bring knives stab themselves in the arms and legs before them, in order to extract alms; and others come to their doors to decapitate rats and snakes and other reptiles, and they give them money not to do it, so that they are very ill-treated by the Moors.If these people meet with a band of ants in the road,they hasten out of the road, and go and look for a place to pass without treading upon them. They likewise sup in the daytime because they do not light candles at night, in order that the mosquitoes and other insects may not come and ide in the flame; and if of necessity they must have a candle, they keep them in lanterns of paper, or off stuff dipped in gum, so that no living thing can get there to suffer......"

And just when you start wondering how could these Jains survive with such a meek attitude other remarks from the author follows
"..they are usurers and falsifiers of weights and measures, and merchandise, and coin; and liars and cheat"

Tavernier - another traveler of medieval India makes similar observations
"The members of this caste are so subtle and skillful in trade that, as I've elsewhere said, they could give lessons to the most cunning Jews."(Jews were renown for their trade acumen)

I wonder whether its a mere chance that Jains evolved as a merchant community or was the commerce only option left for people adopting the doctrine of strict non violence.

knowledge through revealation

Knowledge through revelation(divine or otherwise) that is, not through reasoning is problematic. If two persons claim to have acquired knowledge through revelation and claim that their knowledge is beyond reason and if they are contradictory, we cant say which one is true. It becomes necessary to admit multiplicity of truth if we take these reveled truths seriously. According to bible universe is incredibly new and according to Hindu scriptures its incredibly old. Now even a kid can tell you both cant be true. This is a very elementary objection but no one cares to explain it. But we cant escape this with a world having 7 billion minds- all vulnerable to revelations, it becomes impossible to discern whats a gospel truth and whats a blatant lie.

It is wrongly argued that intuition is the ultimate source of all knowledge and therefore revelation is any way important. A proposition is not true or false unless its proven to be so through reason, before application of reason that proposition is a mere proposition without any known truth value. So it might be that Einstein had a sudden intuition of relativity and he then set out to prove that intuition through mathematical formulas. But so what? He must also have had wrong intuitions of all kinds. Once the theory is proved the source of the knowledge just doesn't matter it might be revelation or a random guess or a crazy computer program. At any rate its hard to believe that any revelation is sudden, its not sudden there always are psychical precedents to it, if at all einstein had any intuition than it must have preceded by proper understanding of relevant concepts of physics and all the relevant data might have undergone a subconscious gestation ultimately culminating in a conscious intuition. So a sudden Eureka is never a sudden Eureka.

Satire as an outlet to frustration

A joke from a declining USSR regime..
A Communist Party bureaucrat drives down from Moscow to a collective farm
to register a potato harvest.
“Comrade farmer, how has the harvest been this year?” the official asks.
“Oh, by the grace of God, we had mountains of potatoes,” answers the
farmer.
“But there is no God,” counters the official.
“Huh”, says the farmer, “And there are no mountains of potatoes either.”

Another one from contemporary India..
A journalist asks Manmohan Singh "Tamara raj ma at atla kaubhando thai chhe tamara mantrio hajaro karodo rupiya khai jai chhe tame kem kai bolta nathe?"
PM's reply "Hu khati vakhte bolto nathi"

There were many humorous slogans during Egyptian revolution, Pakistan has become a 'hotbed' of satire not all of them political.

Its almost universal that when people are frustrated things being out of their control, when governments are suppressive, satire inevitably comes out. I think if we find out popular satire of a particular society in a particular political,economical milieu we can understand their perception of the condition. It effectively captures the mood of the times. If we track down how satire changes its forms and modes of expression we can view history from popular point of view. This might further illuminate us in a modern mode of historiography called 'subaltern history'.