Why Rajkot lynching is no big surprise — in India, certain castes, not caste itself, get killed
Recently, Mukesh Sawji Vania, a Dalit man, was put to death in the Sapar Industrial Area of Rajkot in Gujarat, tied up and beaten till he succumbed to his injuries. There has been a series of such gruesome incidents in other parts as well. Just a few weeks back, a Dalit boy was killed in Bhavnagar because, as reports stated, he was using a horse to roam about his village. Now, Gujarat is a developed state and such incidents are not even expected to happen there.
But currently, in addition to the contradicting socioeconomic scenario, the confusion I find raging is over how such crimes are even happening — after all, isn’t caste a long-gone phenomenon? The truth is, no. The uneducated indulge more in physical untouchability — but the educated too are no better off at abjuring such practices. That form of discrimination appears more at the mental level.
Till the 1980s and 1990s, there was a hope that caste will wither away in India with the fast pace of education and urbanisation. If people of African origin were discriminated against in, say, America, some thought, the history of these communities having been brought there from another part of the world, perhaps still being seen as outsiders, perhaps that underlay some of the violent resentment.
Yet, in our case, we — the people called Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes — have actually been living on this land for millennia. Why then is this feeling of caste, so brutal and so separating, simply not dying out?
There is a simple explanation. Caste is like an insurance company where, without paying a premium, certain things are secured. These include marriage, progeny, socio-cultural needs, physical security, emotional support, socialisation, etc. Besides these advantages, there are other reasons for the survival of caste — there is the theory of karma (which then enjoins a certain parasitic tendency to grow — one “superior” caste gets to enjoy the labour of others), it is backed by spiritualism, etc. In recent times, we are also seeing statements about conflicts apparently being caused due to “assertion” on the part of so-called lower castes.
Yet, the puzzle remains — why is caste, so brutal and murderous, not withering away? The main reason is that no socio-cultural revolution has happened in India for this — and nor it is likely to happen. Other societies, like Europe, have seen reform after reform improving social norms after the Reformation, the Renaissance, the French Revolution, the Bolshevik uprising, etc. In these societies, change came from within and forced their governments to also change.
But in India, instead of internal social churn, whenever Dalits are discriminated against, the buck is passed on to the government and the issue is linked to law and order — very conveniently, the opposition parties also thus shirk the opportunity and the responsibility to find genuine ways to tackle and annihilate caste.
Of course, ruling parties also do not have such programs to do away with or dilute the caste system. We borrowed our governance system from Europe where democracy evolved — but our fault from the very beginning was to sweep caste under the carpet and blindly follow only the welfare programs of those governments — caste was never on the agenda of governance as a social evil to be broken. Rather, political parties actually started using it (barring some exceptions in Left politics).
There is no hope in the future also to have caste itself annihilated — now, it has even started transgressing the boundaries of India itself. There has been much debate in Britain’s Parliament recently over the emergence of caste practices in diasporas in that country and how to fight this phenomenon. In many countries, debates are underway over making new legislation to fight caste discrimination. There have been several discussions at the Human Rights Commission in the UN and even in the US Senate. Congressional hearings on caste issues have happened several times at Capitol Hill.
But, in India, we have actually not even realised how much harm has been done to this country by continuing to follow caste.
Look at our history.
India has seen defeat after defeat at the hands of foreigners not on account of their superior strength or better weaponries, but due to our internal social segregation. Each caste was made intensely conscious of its so-called occupation, no matter who was ruling. For a nation fascinated with its own defeats, somehow this factor has always been overlooked. We hear of how we were colonized due to different debacles; sometimes, rival kings and selfish feudals joined hands with invaders. Sometimes, backstabbing and treachery helped outsiders invade India. Sometimes, our own horses and elephants betrayed us.
Undoubtedly, all of this happened — but think, at the end of the day, how could a handful of foreigners even stay in India and rule it for so long if the common masses did not cooperate with them?
A fact is, the so-called lower castes — comprising around 85 per cent of our population — were rather happy under the foreign regime as they had been so brutally discriminated against by our own people. The nation has thus paid through its past with huge losses in order to protect caste. Even today, the best of talents from the country’s entire population are not pooled together to excel in various fields including education, research, innovation, sports etc. Historically, those who worked in tanneries, with iron, etc., were never given any importance as technicians or technocrats. As a result, no advancement was seen in subjects like metallurgy, civil and mechanical engineering, etc. Had these people been given dignity — and not just the slurs of caste — they would have developed technology in their own fields and India would not have to borrow from outside today.
Yet, caste does not seem ready to die anytime soon.
An anecdote — in a developed state like Gujarat, one Deepak Patel of Ahmedabad reinforces caste will stay. Deepak is a Dalit but writes his surname as “Patel”. When Deepak tried to buy a flat in Neelkanth Society, Shahi Bagh, Ahmedabad, the house was denied to him when his identity as a Dalit was revealed. “Deepak Patel” again tried to buy a house in Mahavir Hills, Gandhi Nagar — he met the same fate as before.
The day there is actually real patriotic feeling in India, such walls of caste will start to break.
Until then, mainly lower caste groups try to break it. Those who rule the roost in all fields do not seem terribly serious about annihilating caste.
What we continue to see is the annihilation of people identified as being from certain castes.