Author- Manoj Kumar Abhimanyu
Watching a campus debate on Rajya Sabha TV over today's political system and bringing change in our society. Students participating in the debate are putting their views that caste system should be abolished and being a part of younger generation, it's their duty to raise their next generation in such a way that they don't carry the tag and feelings of caste.
Well said. But my dear friends, I have heard this on several occasions in the past at different platforms but unfortunately the roots of cast-ism is somewhere else than what we generally think of. It comes from the very feeling of inequality between you and me, he or she. Wherever such feelings exist in the mindset, there breeds this cast-ism. Have you ever thought why you find a person who is poor, who is not in tidy cloths, who is not wearing the deodorant probably a labor or a rickshaw puller or a cobbler or like, when he stands near you in a metro train or a bus, you try to shy away from him. We often tell him to stand a bit away from us or else we ourselves move away from him, thinking he is not of our class and standing near him is degrading ourselves and so they repel us. It happens automatically, our mind is programmed like that.
It's the same thing probably what happened in the historic era. Because of lack of resources, education, courage to come forward to join the mainstream, orthodox views of living the way they lived for years, unwillingness to compete with the rest- many sections remained far behind in the race of development. More over, those who were on the other side thrived a lot and this uneven distribution of resources and progress kept on increasing with the time. As a result the former sections now known to be lower caste remained quite deprived and the other section grew with the time to become the ruling community now known to be upper caste. Further those in ruling or upper class misused the power and resources against the other class to keep them at the bottom and to exploit their services for their own sake.
In the modern era after the freedom, reservation policy of the government certainly was with the intention of helping those deprived sections to be uplifted. Those who got the privileges of reservation got services in the government and public sectors. This was with an honest intention to bring them at par with the persons of upper sections. Several schemes were also started to bring those less privileged in the mainstream. However it's equally true that the middlemen, politicians and the bureaucrats' nexus misused such scheme and did large scale corruption galloping major portion of the funds. Also the benefits of the schemes so started reached to the selective people among others by wrongful means and many other genuine and needy persons were deprived. Petty politics did not allow the real focus of the governments on to make the people from less privileged classes more educated, as those shrewd politicians knew it very well that with education comes the awareness about their rights too. The political class always saw them as their vote banks and it was in their favour as long as they remained less educated. As a consequence those who were educated in the so called Dalit or backward sections and were comparatively well offs, took full advantage of these schemes including the benefits of reservation. In such families it was like if there are four brothers, all were in government jobs. To the contrary, among those who were poor, less educated and uninformed about the schemes for their benefits, who were dependent on day to day toiling to earn their bread remained as it is for generations. Unfortunately even now we can see not much change in their lives.
Certainly somewhere successive governments have gone wrong. It's due to vote bank politics that the political class always wants us to remain divided, less educated, less informed so that we don't start thinking of going against wrong policies framed by them or don't start speaking against their collective failures in not implementing policies announced in the parliaments and assemblies. Well, we can never be in their shoes who are highly deprived residing in the villages and remote places where there is no electricity, concrete roads, high schools, hospitals, banks, drinking water facilities etc. They can hardly have a word of protest against those in political and ruling classes. So for them all these arguments on TV and news media are irrelevant. Fortunately or unfortunately they constitute a large population of India in the range of about 30 to 35 percent. And in fact if anyone thinks about them then only for the sake of their votes in the elections; and they are least bothered about their illiteracy, poverty, health hazards, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, roads, employment etc.
Now let's come to the other 65 to 70 percent of our population, who resides in urban or semi-urban areas or lives in such villages where there is a reach of electricity and roads. It is this class which is highly fractured in the name of upper and lower, dalit and privileged. They know their rights, they fight for these and then they want their due. Today it is almost impossible to judge who is right and who is wrong in the fight for justice for the rights of the privileged and unprivileged. It's not a question of an individual but it's a question of a class and a community, so there are several members of a particular class who are deprived but at the same time member of the defined upper class by birth, they don't have the level playing field for themselves and so they have to suffer, their generations have to suffer. Ironically you can change your religion but you can never change your caste. Caste is fixed, just after coming out of the womb of your mother your caste is labeled on you, something very unique for the outside world. It's not wise to put everything in great detail here because of my post getting too lengthy, so I want to concise it a little but such topics demand much space and liberty.
Now in such circumstances, can we imagine the abolition of caste system from our country? Most of the answers would be in 'no'. India is such a big nation where one sixth of the world resides. It's easy to manage the affairs of smaller nations with a population of few millions, but it's almost impossible to solve the problems of a nation whose population is now around 1.2 billion. Therefore in my view, smaller states need to be created, the administrative units should be strengthened and education should reach each and every child of our nation. Full autonomy is required to these states and strict vigilance is required in the implementation of developmental projects, education and all welfare schemes. Proper balance needs to be maintained between the growth of rural and urban areas. Increased level of industrialization in unrepresented areas in all states is required. Therefore when there will be employment to each adult member of a household, people will not go blindly for the government jobs and hence there would be no need of reservation system and no need to enter the forms with the column of caste and religion. And those politician so far who have mastered the art of 'divide and rule' the legacy left by Britishers would have no choice but to work for the people if they have to rule the nation for five years at least.
And in the end I apologize if any of the statements in my post has hurt you in any way as my intention is not to hurt any section of the society, just tried to be unbiased and honest.
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मित्रों यदि मेरा यह पोस्ट आपके दिल को जरा भी छू कर गुजरा हो तो मुझे विश्वास है कि आप मेरे इस प्रयास को लाइक दे कर मुझे और भी अच्छा लिखने की प्रेरणा, स्नेह और आशीर्वाद देंगे। आप अगर मुझे मेरे फेसबुक प्रोफाइल पर फॉलो करते हैं तो आपको मेरे शेयर किये सारे पोस्ट्स आपके नोटिफिकेशन्स में मिलते रहेंगे।
