Sense and caste census: Ambedkar's vision and the risk of reversal

The problem with Victor Hugo’s famous line — that no power can stop an idea whose time has come — is that it does not tell us what comes after. What happens if an idea turns out to be not so good once it is tried? And when is it time for a not-so-good idea to leave the playing field? But we do know the political corollary to Hugo’s line: No power on earth can stop politicians from pursuing an idea — however dubious — and flogging it to death if it can win them extra votes at election time. Exhibit A: Endless freebies.

 

Exhibit B is now playing out, with the Narendra Modi government biting the bullet on conducting a caste census along with the next decennial census, believing there is underlying support for it from the Other Backward Classes (OBC). The latter believe there are many more of them than previously estimated. So the future is more caste quotas.

 

The near-unanimous support for the idea from political parties is the result of differing calculations. The Congress has backed the idea because it thinks that opening up caste fault-lines will weaken the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP needs all castes to focus on their larger Hindu identity, and getting this divisiveness out of the way may be helpful with Hindu vote retention. The party knows that its vote share took off among the non-dominant castes only after it used social engineering to bring in the smaller castes under the Hindutva umbrella. The dominant single caste-based parties — like the two Yadav parties in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — could theoretically be the losers, since the empowerment of other castes may weaken their hold on power. However, they too may want this enumeration so that the overall percentage of reservations can be expanded to accommodate their current share of quotas.

 

It is now clear where the polity is headed. First, once the caste census reveals which caste has what kind of numbers, there will be a universal demand for expanding educational and job quotas. It is already at just under 60 per cent, including the 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS). It will probably rise to 70-75 per cent in the foreseeable future. The Indra Sawhney judgment of the Supreme Court, which limits quotas to 49 per cent, will become history — if it hasn’t already, given that the Court upheld the EWS quota and Tamil Nadu already has 69 per cent.

 

Second, caste sub-quotas within quotas will become inevitable, as the castes that currently hog most of the benefits will want their shares protected, while the others will now want separate access. We could end up having two or three sub-quotas for OBCs, and possibly for Scheduled Castes (SCs) too.

 

Third, with some caveats, politicians will at some point try to extend some form of reservation to private companies as well. While there may be income limits below which quotas may become applicable to the private sector, reservations are inevitable in a situation where jobs are hard to come by. But the private sector won’t really be affected: Small companies may be exempt, and large ones cannot be stopped from automating lower-level jobs out of existence.

 

The Ambedkarite idea that calls for the annihilation of caste, is now a partial failure, since almost all forms of upward mobility will be determined by your birth caste. The only way to avoid the caste trap is to set up your own business below the threshold where quotas kick in.

 

This is not to suggest that a caste enumeration is, by definition, bad—  it isn’t — but that it is likely to lead to unintended consequences that we cannot foresee right now.

 

We saw that in 1931 when the British conducted the last nationwide caste survey and tried to force-fit every jati (defined by occupation or geographical location) into the four varnas described in Hindu scripture. In the European Christian worldview, scripture defines social organisation and ethics, and they looked hard for Hindu scriptures to support their theory and found one in the “caste system”. There was a fair amount of chaos, as various social groups sought to upgrade themselves into the so-called higher varnas during these surveys.

 

This time that is unlikely to happen, as nobody is going to force-fit any jati into a varna category, as the British tried to do. But since quotas depend on numbers, there could be efforts to inflate caste counts. There could be conflicts resulting from castes that lose out in the number game, or when sub-quotas are considered for slotting specific castes.

 

We saw how the Vokkaligas and Lingayats got worked up when the Karnataka caste survey showed them to be smaller in number than previously estimated. We also saw how a judicial verdict seeking to include the Meiteis as a scheduled tribe set off a bloody civil war in Manipur. We should be prepared for more conflicts, not less, once the numbers are out.

 

The justification for caste-based quotas and affirmative action is that caste is largely a system of oppression; but caste (by which we mean jatis (any social group) and not varna (which implies hierarchy), has another dimension that is usually forgotten. Caste is also a form of social capital and group identity. This is why its annihilation has not been possible despite centuries of effort, and aggressive affirmative action after Independence. Ambedkar’s idea has not found full traction because it linked caste purely to social injustice.

 

Economic and other trends today make identities almost as important as economic benefits for various social groups. Globalisation, urbanisation, and technological automation have severed old social identities, weakening the community ties that once held people together. The urban reality is increasingly defined by loneliness, isolation, and anomie — making identity assertion more important than ever.

 

Caste has survived because it has so far defied the trend towards the anonymisation of individual identities. In fact, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that the “lower” castes are no longer ashamed of their identities; they often wear their caste identities proudly. If a Dalit groom now wants to ride a horse to his wedding, it is not because this is part of his heritage; it is a statement of pride in his caste identity, equal in status with anyone else. One reason why Mayawati has lost electoral traction among Dalits may be because Dalits are not a caste group; Jatavs are. The larger identity of “Dalit” may not unite all SCs under one banner, for it is synthetic in nature.

 

Can any good come out of the caste census? Possibly, for the law of unintended consequences says some benefits flow even from questionable ideas (like demonetisation, which helped create a massive digital ecosystem in India). And bad things happen even with the best of intentions. Like how quotas have reinforced caste identities instead of loosening them. One has to be optimistic that the census will not destroy sense.

The author is a senior journalist