For representational purposes. (File Photo)
For representational purposes. (File Photo)

Casteism threatens constitutionalism

Indians have exported the prejudices of casteism abroad and the oppressed castes across the world need legal protection against this menace.

On June 2, 2022, Nitasha Tiku of The Washington Post reported that a talk by Thenmozhi Soundararajan to the Google News employees on caste equity and newsrooms was called off. Allegedly, the cancellation happened because a section of Google News employees with a soft corner for upper-caste hegemony started to protest. The report further states that Tanuja Gupta, an officer at the company who had invited Soundararajan for the talk, resigned in protest. This incident has ignited a discourse on the approach of global technological giants towards issues such as caste, race, and ethnicity. Whether the caste system in India finds a replica in the social media companies across the world is debatable. Discrimination, according to many, is not limited to territorial boundaries. Among tech workers, concerns have arisen on caste-related disparities in the corporate world.

It is important to recognise that caste issues continue to be relevant. One of the biggest challenges that the makers of the Indian Constitution faced was the age-old caste system which, on the face of it, is antithetical to the tenets of a modern democracy. We are still confronted with this dangerous evil. Estimates say that about 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes exist in India.

Casteism in India is unique and pernicious. Dr. Ambedkar said, “The effect of caste on the ethics of the Hindus is simply deplorable. Caste has killed public spirit. Caste has destroyed the sense of public charity. Caste has made public opinion impossible.” He added that casteism has “completely disorganised and demoralised the Hindus”. The situation has not changed over the years. Gita Ramaswamy’s recent book Land, Guns, Caste, Woman: The Memoir of a Lapsed Revolutionary is autobiographical but tells us about the shocking exploitation of Dalits by the upper caste landlords in Ibrahimpatnam in Telangana and elsewhere. The bonded labour that prevails among the Dalits is an Indian brutality. In her book, Gita also explains the efforts to organise the Dalits and the challenges that they faced.

In many parts of India, social reformation simply meant fighting against casteism. Periyar in Tamil Nadu, Phule in Maharashtra, Narayana Guru in Kerala, and many other saintly personalities across the country endeavoured to uplift the society from the clutches of casteism. It was not an easy task. Nor is it a task fulfilled.

The Constitution remains the most formidable political instrument against casteism. In the Constituent Assembly debates, H V Kamath endorsed the constitutional safeguards for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. He, however, said that in the future, Parliament might, after noting the progress of the historically marginalised communities, examine whether “it would be in the best interests of the country to abolish totally the distinction called Scheduled Castes or Tribes and there will be one big unified Hindu Community”.

It was wishful thinking. Even the constitutional safeguards did not work. Articles 341 and 342 empowered the President to enlist the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. By way of special provisions like Articles 15 and 16, caste-based discrimination was sought to be replaced by protective and uplifting state action. Article 17 banned the practice of untouchability. The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 penalised untouchability. Other atrocities against the Dalits were made punishable by the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act,1989, which was amended subsequently. The so-called honour killings illustrated the false pride of the upper castes in India. Laws did not abolish the caste system. Class discrimination is not limited to just territorial boundaries. Nor is it merely a primitive rural phenomenon. It very much prevails in modern economic and societal life in varied ways. Ashwini Deshpande explains this reality in her book, The Grammar of Caste (Oxford University Press, 2011). Suraj Yengde, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, in his seminal work, Caste Matters (2019) states: “Despite the academic and professional credentials that I

had carefully honed, I was still treated like an uneducated labourer from my area—vulnerable and unprotected.’’In a globalised world, casteism too has transcended national boundaries. It is an Indian form of apartheid with an age-old scheme for systemic exploitation. Suraj Yengde has noted that more than half of the households in India “admitted to practising or witnessing untouchability in urban capitals such as Delhi”. Many Indians are now scattered across the world, in almost all the major cities. Therefore, caste prejudices too have been globalised. There is no point in denying the truth.A general perception that the scale of justice is better in the contemporary world is widely shared. Thomas Piketty, in his work A Brief History of Equality (2022) says that “between 1780 and 2020, we see developments tending toward greater equality of status, property, income, genders and races within most regions and societies on the planet”.

Caste in India, however, is different from race or ethnicity elsewhere. It is the oldest means of exploitation based on a person’s birth, over which one does not have any control. No wonder caste escapes the executive and legislative measures which other nations take against discrimination. When racial or gender-based discrimination is met with stringent laws, the question of caste is either forgotten or unaddressed.In 2018, the UK resolved to avoid a legislation against caste-based discrimination. Many Indians there believe that such a legislation is unnecessary as caste does not exist as a divisive force or means of exploitation there. This is far from reality. Indians have exported the prejudices of casteism abroad and the oppressed castes across the world need legal protection against this menace. Therefore, Thenmozhi’s activism becomes significant. It has a constitutional message for the Indians here and abroad.

Lawyer, Supreme Court of India

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