Casteism: History’s Biggest Mass Exploitation

 

In India we have casteism as the history’s most obnoxious social system of mass exploitation of helpless millions for the longest period of time, for an astounding 2500 years in fact, and still going in many modern forms of the evil practice.

Elsewhere in the world you have the classes. There is fluidity in this system as Osho says. One can go from low class to high class and vice versa, but not so in the caste system in India. Once you are born in a low caste, your deprivation and disadvantages get stamped on your soul. It’s hardly possible to pick out a more evil practice where the soul is tamed to this abysmal level, where you rob dreams, love, peace and respect from the eyes of generation after generation of millions of your fellow human beings.

Beyond historical injustices and blunders, the issue fuels the Indian political system even now. Indian democracy is addicted to the system. The caste-based job reservation can make or break anyone’s chances. The issue is politically so sensitive that just an off-hand remark by the RSS chief was enough to decimate BJP's hopes in the last Bihar assembly elections. So nobody dares to touch the issue at the practical level. At least the lower castes hold this symbolic political power now.

The so called ‘lower castes’ have been systemically exploited for the last 2500 years in India. There is no doubt that they need institutional support to bring them into the mainstream. Not that the government cannot give them positive incentives in other forms. Reservation in itself is not the end. It is just one of the means to the end. However, in the present system of reservation there are flaws that need to be corrected if the real goal of Dalit upliftment is to be achieved.

I have seen three generations of elite Dalit families reaping reservation benefits to rise on the socio-economic ladder. Like someone’s father is a class one officer in railways. He raises his family comfortably in Delhi, provides best education to his children. His son, born, brought up and educated in Delhi, becomes a police officer. The police officer’s children born, brought up and educated in the best set up get reservation benefits to get still more elite governmental jobs.

On the other hand, I am surrounded by poor educated Dalit young people in the countryside who haven't benefited from reservation in any way. They have the qualifications, but in the fight within the reserved category, they are easily beaten by the elite Dalit families. So does it really serve the purpose? The cause is served if the reservation benefits spread horizontally across the social strata instead of creating vertical towers of prosperity in the same families where the reservation benefits pile up across generations.

The solution can be: Let reservation be a first generation benefit only, i.e., the children of a reservation beneficiary will not be eligible for the scheme anymore. When a Dalit gets a job on reservation, he/she is supposed to bring up his/her children in a way that they can compete against the best. It will help in spreading the reservation benefits horizontally to the other poorer Dalit families rather than the vertical compilation of benefits in the already rich Dalit families. Unfortunately it has been the trend so far. Job reservation is supposed to provide more and more people with basic amenities of life rather than some particular families reaping the benefits and get wealthy on account of the already existing benefits.