Caste, power, and pain: When even privilege can't guarantee dignity

Education, reservations, and govt jobs are meant to bring equality and dignity. That we are a long way from it is evident in the shoe thrown at the CJI and the suicide of Haryana IPS officer

Three things have come together to raise a combination of issues related to caste and minorities that India has failed to resolve even 75 years after its Constitution was born. The caste issue, of course, has persisted through centuries. 

The three things: The shoe-throwing at the Dalit Chief Justice of India in his court; a senior Dalit IPS officer in Haryana shooting himself and leaving a suicide note about years of discrimination, victimisation, and bottled-up fury; and, third, the somewhat counter-intuitive success among the well-heeled of Homebound, by Neeraj Ghaywan, the most prominent and powerful Dalit filmmaker in Bollywood. 

This is no hit to rival Saiyaara, Pathaan, Jawan, Animal, Baahubali or Kantara. It also did not have any of the usual build-up: PR interviews, sponsored (paid) reviews across many publications, social media influencers and definitely no big stars. If Vidya Balan’s Reshma in The Dirty Picture told us the three-word mantra that makes a movie successful — entertainment, entertainment, entertainment — Homebound fails it. It makes no pretence of offering any. It wasn’t designed for a ~100-crore opening. 

Yet, after a very slow start, it picked up through sheer word of mouth, especially among the upper-crust professionals and younger entrepreneurs  —  say, those with eight-figure annual incomes or in high sevens, the socio-economic influencer class. Evidence comes from the most expensive, if small, halls in multiplexes running to full capacity in the metros. The social buzz that I pick up in these circles isn’t that the film was a bore, exaggerated, overly political, or the usual line we keep hearing, “it’s obvious that reservations haven’t resolved inequality in over 75 years”. So, what else can “we” do? Better to just give “them” good education, facilities, and let “them” compete. That mission fails at the “we” and “them”. 

On the contrary, among those watching Homebound, you’d see empathy with the struggles of three very young and poor rural Indians with education, smarts and aspiration. There’s audience acknowledgement of how the “system” was always loaded to fail them. So, what do we do now? For perspective, these three young people represent more than one-third of India’s population, Dalits and Muslims. 

Education, reservations, and government jobs are meant to bring equality and dignity. That we are a long way from that is evident in the shoe thrown at the Chief Justice and, sadder still, the “suicide” of Haryana Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Y Puran Kumar. By the way, his wife and 2001-batchmate Amneet P Kumar, also a Dalit, is in the IAS. She’s the one who filed the FIR blaming the state DGP and a district SP for her husband’s victimisation. Here we stand then. If a CJI, an IPS, and an IAS officer cannot get dignity and equality, it shows our systemic injustices and prejudices are too deep and visceral to be fixed after 75 years of reservations. We must persist, not roll back.

 

That the three young friends in Homebound, Chandan Kumar (Valmiki), Mohammed Shoaib Ali and Sudha Bharti (also a Dalit), played by Vishal Jethwa, Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor, respectively, are competing to be recruited as police constables, brings back a conversation with “Babu” Jagjivan Ram in 1985. I was reporting for India Today in the first upper (general) caste protests as the Mandal Commission report became a talking point. Ram was now out of power and had time. For me, he made the best case ever for reservations.

 

He talked of an old friend, a Scheduled Caste (nobody used Dalit yet) shoe entrepreneur in Agra with big exports, lavish house, an imported car and millions. Yet he was pleading with Babuji to get his son recruited as an assistant sub inspector (ASI) in the UP Police. “You’ve got all this wealth, why would you want your son to become just an ASI,” Babuji asked him. He said, “However rich we may be, a Brahmin will never treat me or my son with respect. But if he’s an ASI, all juniors, including Brahmins, will salute him. That’s how reservations bring equality and power,” Babuji said.

 

The picture is a bit more complex in Homebound, as Chandan insists on competing in the general category. If he discloses his caste (Valmiki), he says that in the police, they would condemn him to sweeping duties. Sudha ultimately wants to graduate and compete in the UPSC. And Shoaib, is so street-smart he outsells his tie-clad managers while being just a peon in a white goods company.

 

The big boss spoke to him in amazement and used the popular corporate description “bechoo” for one who’s brilliant at selling anything. He’s on way to becoming a tie-clad salesman himself until he’s humiliated at the drunken party at the boss’ house while watching a cricket match. Even as he’s celebrating, he’s asked derisively how he must be heartbroken as India beat Pakistan.

 

Both Dalits and Muslims are being crushed by the burdens of their ancestral past—in contrary ways. The Dalits because of injustice over generations for which the oppressor castes must make amends; and the Muslims because they somehow must similarly account for the excesses and subjugation of the Hindu majority by their Mughal/Afghan/Turk ancestors, and for Jinnah. These are the two arms of the pincer that bring a commonality between the fates of Chandan, Shoaib and Sudha, and one-third of India.

 

In fairness, the Modi government’s vast array of welfare, direct benefit transfer schemes don’t discriminate against anybody over identity. The most important competitive examinations, especially the UPSC, are fair and a significant number of Muslims qualify. For Muslims already out of top political, constitutional, or bureaucratic positions, wider challenges also arise outside the government.

 

Social exclusion, difficulty in getting jobs (Shoaib is asked repeatedly for police checks, parents’ Aadhaar cards) and renting homes are common. There is also a systematic assault on businesses generally linked to Muslims — the meat trade, with multiple and arbitrary bans during festivals for weeks, even fortnights; the leather and animal-hide business; and butchery. You’d have noticed the large presence of young Muslims carrying out app-based deliveries, driving Uber, or coming in through apps delivering repairs and maintenance. On social media, there is already alarmist clamour, as if it’s a threat to your families. Then it gets woven into “love jihad” and conversions, even heinous crimes.

 

The good fact is, as the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said in his exhaustive talk at Vigyan Bhawan last month, India’s Muslims are reversing some negative stereotypes. How many babies they produce being one. Mr Bhagwat said the birth rates among Hindus declined first, and now the Muslims are getting there. Indian Muslims have  embraced modern education unlike those in Pakistan, even though they believe they owe their nationalism to Sir Syed Ahmed and Allama Iqbal. If educated, aspirational job-capable young Muslims are also forced to ghettoise, it’s unfortunate. It won’t help the cause of Viksit Bharat.

 

This isn’t a film review, except to say that India has chosen its entry for the Oscars well this year. It’s just the fact that the film struck a chord with a demographic we might see as insensitive and arrogant, and has coincided fortuitously with two real-life stories where the victims (I use that word even if it weighs heavy on my heart) are in the most privileged positions India can offer a citizen. I’d take you back to the calumny India’s first and only other Dalit CJI K G Balakrishnan faced from the day he was appointed. That makes for a pattern we can’t let go unnoticed — particularly as it involves one in three Indians.

 

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