Why have we banished our own brethren?

On the eve of the moving of the Draft Constitution in 1949, Dr. Ambedkar expressed his insurmountable fear over the existing inequalities in Indian society.

 He observed:“On 26th Jan 1950 we are going to enter a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man and one vote, one value. In our social and economic life we shall by reason of our social and economic structure continue to deny the principle of one man, one value.”

Dr. Ambedkar was well aware of the discrimination faced by Dalits due to the institutionalised caste system. He said: “On the social plane, we have an India based on the principles of graded inequality, which means elevation of some and degradation of others. 

On the economic plane, we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject poverty.”

Dr. Ambedkar's observations were true, made on the basis of some of his own painful experiences, when way back in 1918 in spite of attaining high educational qualifications he was not allowed to drink water from a pot ‘reserved' for the high caste professorial staff at Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai. Dr. Ambedkar realised then that education had not succeeded in bringing out the desired attitudinal change in most of the “upper” caste people towards Dalits. “Upper caste” in village or city even with the highest degrees shared the same mindset when issues of Dalits emerged.

Only recently, on 15 February 2012, at Daulatpur village in Haryana's Uklana region, a Dalit youth had to face the wrath of an upper caste when in a bid to quench his thirst he drank water from a pot located on his premises. Once his caste became known, his hand was chopped off with a sickle.Even though we are living in the 21 century and make claims of having the world's largest democracy, there is little change in the attitude of the upper caste towards Dalits, literate or illiterate.

Surveys* show that 27.6% of Dalits are still prevented from entering police stations and 25.7% from entering ration shops. Thirty-three per cent of public health workers refuse to visit Dalit homes, and 23.5% of Dalits still do not get letters delivered in their homes. Segregated seating arrangements for Dalits are found in 30.8% of self-help groups and cooperatives, and 29.6% of panchayat offices.

 In 14.4% of villages, Dalits are not permitted even to enter the panchayat building. In 12% of villages, they are denied access to polling booths or forced to form a separate line.

In 48.4% of villages, Dalits are still denied access to common water sources. In 35.8%, they are denied entry into village shops. They are supposed to wait at some distance from the shop, the shopkeepers keep the goods they bought on the ground, and accept their money similarly without direct contact. In teashops, again in about one-third of the villages, Dalits are denied seating and are required to use separate cups. In as many as 73% of the villages, they are not permitted to enter non-Dalit homes, and in 70% of villages non-Dalits do not eat together with Dalits.In more than 47% villages, bans operate on wedding processions on public (arrogated to upper caste) roads. In 10 to 20% of villages, Dalits are not allowed even to wear clean, bright or fashionable clothes or sunglasses. They are not allowed to ride their bicycles, unfurl their umbrellas, wear sandals on public roads, smoke or even stand without the head bowed.

Restrictions on temple entry average as high as 64%, ranging from 47% in Uttar Pradesh to 94% in Karnataka. In 48.9% of the surveyed villages, Dalits are barred from access to the cremation grounds.

In 25% of the villages, Dalits are paid lower wages than other workers. They are often subjected to much longer working hours, delayed wages, verbal and even physical abuse, not just in ‘feudal' States like Bihar but also notably in Punjab. In 37% of the villages, Dalit workers are paid wages from a distance, to avoid physical contact.

In 35% of villages, Dalit producers are still barred from selling their produce in local markets. Instead, they are forced to sell it in the anonymity of distant urban markets where caste identities somewhat blur, imposing additional burdens of costs and time, and reducing their profit margin and competitiveness.

Just because they happen to be born in the “wrong community,” Dalit families are subjected to some of the extreme forms of humiliation and degradation generation after generation. They are treated as worse than animals. So much so, now most of them have internalised discrimination as their fate and they dare not raise voice against their tormentor for fear of punishment. For, they know even if they protest they have no hope of getting justice. That is because a majority of the positions in the government set-up are occupied by the “upper castes.”

And even if with great difficulty a lower caste person tries to make it to those positions, he is kept out through shrewd manipulations. Between 1950 and 2000, 47% of Chief Justices and 40% of judges were of Brahmin origin, according to a parliamentary committee report. In order to continue their monopoly over important positions, upper caste people have fought tooth and nail using all possible means to keep Dalits from even dreaming of aspiring for those positions.

To break the domination of upper castes, it became necessary to introduce affirmative action for and positive discrimination of Dalits, as part of the policy of the government. But implementing positive discrimination has not been an easy task and many seats reserved exclusively for Dalits still remain vacant, again because of the shrewd manipulations of the dominating castes.

In spite of traditions of high educational qualifications, many feign ignorance of the constitutional laws; rather they do not want to understand them because of their vested interests. In spite of glaring atrocities against Dalits, they are reluctant to share with them positions their families have been holding for ages. Complicity of the state makes situation worse, allowing crime against Dalits continue. Equality remains on paper.

Even today, given a chance many still do not hesitate to shift all the blame on the colonial regime for most of the ills existing in Indian society, especially for dividing the country. The British government even today is being accused of making a mockery of civilisation and its principles by its hypocritical actions. But now their place is taken over by our own country brethren, the only difference being ‘hypocritical action' is directed against their own countrymen.

Some of the “upper castes,” it seems, are bent on leaving behind Britishers when it comes to the issues of oppression. Dalits are targeted most because the perpetrators are aware that they are not empowered. On July 11, 1997, sub-inspector M.Y. Kadam left General Dyer of Jallianwalabagh massacre behind, when he fired shots at his own countrymen and co-religionist Dalit protesters, above the waist, who had gathered in Ramabai colony in Mumbai in protest against desecration of Dr Ambedkar's statue.

Moral and ethical issues and democratic values get subordinated in the face of corruption perpetuated by the oppressive caste system. There is not even the remotest desire to make democracy more functional. The caste system with graded inequality remains popular amongst those whose privileges are associated with it. For the same reason, the idea of egalitarian society fails to gain currency in their quarters. Lessons like, “United we stand and divided we fall” are hard to learn and even if by mistake they are learnt, they become hard to implement. Caste is meant to divide, not unite. A nation which lost its freedom on that account should be cautious, lest its divisions drive it to a state of subservience to an alien rule again. What ‘hidden pride' lies in discriminating against and oppressing one's own countrymen and co-religionists is hard to discern.* (The details of the surveys have been sourced from the book, Untouchability in Rural India, authored by Ghanshyam Shah, Harsh Mander, Sukhadeo Thorat, Satish Deshpande and Amita Baviskar published by SAGE Publications, New Delhi,2006).

(The writer is Head, Department of History, BBAU, Lucknow, Email ID is: shuradarapuri@ gmail.com)

Source: The Hindu Dt 25.03.2012

Spl coaching for SC/ST students 
The Tamil Nadu government has proposed to impart special coaching to more than 20,000 SC/ST students in 20 disciplines at free of cost from April. Training will be given in health care, information technology, competitive exams like IIT-JEE and telecommunications through recognized private institutions. In addition, the government will also provide stipend for candidates during their training. The training would cost the exchequer to the tune of more than Rs 20 crore. 
Fire officer gets outstanding woman award: The Outstanding Woman Award 2012, constituted by “Global Adjustments”, a cultural service company, has been conferred on N Priya, divisional fire officer of Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services. This is in recognition of her extraordinary courage and leadership qualities in preserving the 224-year-old “KalasMahal” which was ravaged in a major fire. She suffered 50% burns. Tamil development, religious endowments secretary Dr M Rajaram presented the award at a function held here in Chennai.  
Source : The Times of India dt 28.2.12
For further information pl visit :  http://www.tahdco.tn.gov.in/

Caste haunts them even in death

In Tirupur, Dalit Families Fight For Decent Burial Of Their Kin

Caste tension is mounting in Ammapalayam, near Uthukuli in Tirupur district, with non-dalits opposing the burial of a 70–year-old dalit in a vacant plot located in the heart of the village. Last week, the Madras high court had ordered the district administration to provide the dalits of Ammapalayam a permanent burial ground in the village, which is about 20km from the hosiery town of Tirupur. The 60 dalit families residing here have been burying their dead along a 30-feet stretch beside the Kunnathur-Adiyur road since the majority community refused to let them have a burial space in the village. 
    On Tuesday, when the death of C Maral was confirmed, community representatives told district authorities that they would not bury the body by the road in light of the court order. They said the body ought to be buried in a 30-cent vacant plot in the village, but close to a non-dalit settlement. However, the non-dalits objected. The district collector, the superintendent of police and the revenue divisional officer were unable to work out a compromise despite holding several rounds of talks between the two communities through the day. 
    Tension continued on Wednesday too as dalits from nearby localities gathered in the village and raised slogans against the non-dalits. Over 300 policemen were posted in the area after this. The body of Maral is yet to be buried. Dalits in the village said the district administration and non- dalits were forcing them to use a burial ground located 3km from the village. 
    Ammapalayam has been in focus after a high court order brought to light the simmering caste tension here. Dalits claim that non-dalits had asked local barbers not to provide their services to more than 50 dalit families, who are now forced to walk more than 10km to access shops in Kunnathur and Perumanallur. They are also barred from entering the local temple. 
    Tirupur superintendent of police V Balakrishnan said the Kangeyam DSP had been instructed to inspect the area and find out whether caste discrimination was prevalent there. “If such a situation exists, we will file a case against caste Hindus under the sections of Prevention of Atrocities against SC/ST Act,” he said. 
    Dalits here alleged that members of the “upper caste” did not permit them to use the village burial ground, forcing them to bury their dead along the state roads. 
    “We have no option but to use the same area for every burial. Because of this, bones resurface at the burial site. We want to erect shrines and remember the dead. But because the bodies are all mixed up, we cannot do this,” said M Mani, 34, a coolie. 
    After the court intervened on behalf of the dalits, following a PIL filed by a human rights organization, collector M Mathivanan ordered a probe by the Avinashi tahsildar. 
    “The tahsildar has identified two sites for the burial ground. We will finalize one of them and the government will ensure a link road and a compound wall for the burial ground,’’ said Mathivanan. One of the sites identified by tahsildar G Poongavan is located close to the site used by the Gounders to bury their dead. 
Source: The Times of India Dt 1.3.12

Cast Hindus Tried to hoodwink Judicial system to grab the land acquired for Home less Dalit with the help of caste minded  bureaucrats.

‘REGISTRATION DEPT POORLY MAINTAINED’

HC fines six for bid to claw back acquired land

Says They Used Court To Drag Case

Chennai: Slamming unscrupulous ‘litigation mongers’ who use courts to drag civil casesover properties,theMadras high court has imposed Rs 60,000 cost on six persons who sought to get back lands acquired in 1983. 
    They shall pay the amount to the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority, in equal proportions, within four weeks, ruled a division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice N Kirubakaran on Wednesday. 
    Expressing displeasure at the poor maintenance of records and data in the state registration department, the judges also asked the inspector-general of registration to take criminal and departmental action against officials who kept registering high-value properties without duly verifying their present status. The six persons, who approached the high court with the present case, too shall face the penal proceedings, the judges added. 
    The matter relates to 4.06 acres of land in Sriperumpudur taluk, acquired for a housing project for dalits of Chembarambakkam village. The acquisition notification was issued in December 1983 and the entire compensation amount was deposited within a year thereafter. The government took possession of the land in 1993, and even distributed it to the beneficiaries. 
    The present appellants ‘purchased’ the property in December 2006, and initiated a civil case in a local court, and then filed a writ petition too. After the writ petition was dismissed, the six people including the sellers, preferred the present appeal. 
    Rejecting their plea, the bench said: “It is really shocking to know that the appellants – P Sundar and S Gomathi – having dared to purchase the lands already acquired under due process of law, areinitiating different proceedings against the officials as if they are bonafide purchasers of the lands. ” 
    Describing them as ‘cunning’ litigants initiating ‘clandestine’ proceedings, the judges dismissed the appeal in order “to curb the practice of filing fictitious litigations like the one in hand by unscrupulous litigants like the appellants.” 
    The judges pointed out that the sale transaction was allowed to happen in 2006 and the already acquired property was registered in the names of the present appellants only due to the callous attitude of the sub-registrar’s office at Poonamallee. Noting that the present appealwould nothavebeen filed had the authorities were vigilant at the time of registering the documents, the judges said: “The dereliction of duty of the officers concerned at the helm of affairs at the relevant point of time and their ‘inaction’, for the reasons best known to them, has precipitated the matter, paving the way for unscrupulous persons to claim rights based on such illegal and fictitious documents.” 
    They said: “We place on recordour anguish atthe apathy and sorry state of affairs prevailing in the registration department in this time of real estate boom and undervaluation of the properties. If such unworthy officers are allowed to deal with the properties, it would not only help the avariciousclientstocome up with ‘claims’ like the case on hand.”
source: The Times of India dt 1.3.12

Stop campus recruitments, PSUs told

Madras HC Orders Status Quo For 2 Weeks 

The Madras high court has restrained public sector undertakings (PSUs) from holding campus recruitments and asked them to maintain status quo for two weeks. 
    The first bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam issued the interim direction on a public interest writ petition filed by advocate M Palanimuthu, who said PSUs should not conduct such recruitments without any job notification and without following reservation rules. 
    When the matter first came up for hearing on December 23, 2011, the bench had issued notices to several PSUs named in the petition, the Centre and the state government, and asked them to file their replies in six weeks. On Tuesday, when it was taken up for further hearing, counsel for PSUs sought more time to file reply. Giving them more time, the judges said, “In the mean time, status quo with regard to campus selection shall be maintained by the respondents concerned.” 
    On December 23, the bench had said: “The moot question that calls for consideration is whether the procedure followed for campus interviews by the PSUs is justified and whether there are chances of good candidates being discriminated against and candidates who got registered in employment exchanges not getting a chance.” 
    Palanimuthu said that as per rules, recruitment for various posts in PSUs should be done either through employment exchanges or through public advertisements by inviting applications from eligible candidates throughout the country. Instead of following these rules, PSUs of late have started recruiting employees through campus placements, he said. 
    Besides violating job rules, these PSUs thereby unwittingly contribute to the demand for private educational institutions which organize such placement drives, Palanimuthu said. Selection process cannot be confined only to institutions organizing campus placements, he said. 
    Besides seeking a stay on campus recruitment drives by PSUs such as HAL, HPCL, NTPC, Isro and IOC, Palanimuthu wanted the court to cancel appointments already made through the process. He said his representation to the authorities did not evoke any response, leaving him with no choice except approaching the high court for remedy. He wanted all PSUs to be banned from participating in campus recruitments in institutions. 
    The interim order may not have much impact on this year’s placement season as the recruitment process has come to an end in most institutions. “PSUs like the navratnas have been hiring from campuses for their engineering divisions for a long time. This is especially true for companies like NTPC, BHEL, SAIL etc. More than 50% of their core division strength comes from campuses. In recent years, they have also started hiring from premier business schools,” said E Balaji, CEO of MaFoi Randstad.

Source: The Times of India dt 22.02.2012

Man stabs daughter to protect family ‘honour’

Engg Student Wanted To Marry A Dalit Boy

An engineering student escaped with injuries in her neck and abdomen after her father attempted to kill her on Monday after she refused to end her love affair with a dalit youth. 
    S Sundaramoorthy, 46, wanted his daughter S Gnanavalli, 21, to marry a groom from their community. He attacked her on Monday morning as she was proceeding to her college in Chidambaram in Cuddalore district of north Tamil Nadu. 
    Sundaramoorthy, a farmer, belongs to a dominant caste in Melavalaiammadevi village near Vriddhachalam. Gnanavalli was staying in her relative’s house in Chidambaram and studying final year civil engineering at a private college. She was going to the college when Sundaramoorthy stopped her at Annamalai Nagar and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and abdomen and escaped. 
    Passersby, shocked by the violent incident, rushed Gnanavalli to a nearby private hospital. 
    A police team from Annamalai Nagar police station reached the spot and began inquiries. They managed to trace Sundaramoorthy and arrest him. Preliminary inquiries revealed that Gnanavalli was in love with a dalit youth but her parents and relatives were pressuring her to marry a person chosen by them. Her parents had even fixed the date for her engagement. 
    In a last-ditch attempt, her parents and relatives met her on Sunday evening at a temple in Chidambaram in an effort to convince her to marry the groom they had chosen. However, Gnanavalli refused to heed their request. 
    Upset over her defiance, Sundaramoorthy decided to murder her “to protect the dignity of the family”. Armed with a knife, he reached Chidambaram on Monday and waited at a bus stop near her college. He stabbed her repeatedly as soon as he noticed her coming out of a shop. 
    “It is a clear case of attempt to murder to protect family honour. Sundaramoorthy said he wanted to murder his daughter to safeguard the dignity of the family. He was upset and angry as his daughter refused to heed his advice,” Annamalai Nagar inspector A Arokiyaraj said. 
    Gnanavalli, undergoing treatment at the private hospital, was out of danger. 
    Police booked Sundaramoorthy on charges of attempt to murder. He was remanded in judicial custody by a local court.

An engineering student escaped with injuries in her neck and abdomen after her father attempted to kill her on Monday after she refused to end her love affair with a dalit youth. 
    S Sundaramoorthy, 46, wanted his daughter S Gnanavalli, 21, to marry a groom from their community. He attacked her on Monday morning as she was proceeding to her college in Chidambaram in Cuddalore district of north Tamil Nadu. 
    Sundaramoorthy, a farmer, belongs to a dominant caste in Melavalaiammadevi village near Vriddhachalam. Gnanavalli was staying in her relative’s house in Chidambaram and studying final year civil engineering at a private college. She was going to the college when Sundaramoorthy stopped her at Annamalai Nagar and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and abdomen and escaped. 
    Passersby, shocked by the violent incident, rushed Gnanavalli to a nearby private hospital. 
    A police team from Annamalai Nagar police station reached the spot and began inquiries. They managed to trace Sundaramoorthy and arrest him. Preliminary inquiries revealed that Gnanavalli was in love with a dalit youth but her parents and relatives were pressuring her to marry a person chosen by them. Her parents had even fixed the date for her engagement. 
    In a last-ditch attempt, her parents and relatives met her on Sunday evening at a temple in Chidambaram in an effort to convince her to marry the groom they had chosen. However, Gnanavalli refused to heed their request. 
    Upset over her defiance, Sundaramoorthy decided to murder her “to protect the dignity of the family”. Armed with a knife, he reached Chidambaram on Monday and waited at a bus stop near her college. He stabbed her repeatedly as soon as he noticed her coming out of a shop. 
    “It is a clear case of attempt to murder to protect family honour. Sundaramoorthy said he wanted to murder his daughter to safeguard the dignity of the family. He was upset and angry as his daughter refused to heed his advice,” Annamalai Nagar inspector A Arokiyaraj said. 
    Gnanavalli, undergoing treatment at the private hospital, was out of danger. 
    Police booked Sundaramoorthy on charges of attempt to murder. He was remanded in judicial custody by a local court.

An engineering student escaped with injuries in her neck and abdomen after her father attempted to kill her on Monday after she refused to end her love affair with a dalit youth. 
    S Sundaramoorthy, 46, wanted his daughter S Gnanavalli, 21, to marry a groom from their community. He attacked her on Monday morning as she was proceeding to her college in Chidambaram in Cuddalore district of north Tamil Nadu. 
    Sundaramoorthy, a farmer, belongs to a dominant caste in Melavalaiammadevi village near Vriddhachalam. Gnanavalli was staying in her relative’s house in Chidambaram and studying final year civil engineering at a private college. She was going to the college when Sundaramoorthy stopped her at Annamalai Nagar and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and abdomen and escaped. 
    Passersby, shocked by the violent incident, rushed Gnanavalli to a nearby private hospital. 
    A police team from Annamalai Nagar police station reached the spot and began inquiries. They managed to trace Sundaramoorthy and arrest him. Preliminary inquiries revealed that Gnanavalli was in love with a dalit youth but her parents and relatives were pressuring her to marry a person chosen by them. Her parents had even fixed the date for her engagement. 
    In a last-ditch attempt, her parents and relatives met her on Sunday evening at a temple in Chidambaram in an effort to convince her to marry the groom they had chosen. However, Gnanavalli refused to heed their request. 
    Upset over her defiance, Sundaramoorthy decided to murder her “to protect the dignity of the family”. Armed with a knife, he reached Chidambaram on Monday and waited at a bus stop near her college. He stabbed her repeatedly as soon as he noticed her coming out of a shop. 
    “It is a clear case of attempt to murder to protect family honour. Sundaramoorthy said he wanted to murder his daughter to safeguard the dignity of the family. He was upset and angry as his daughter refused to heed his advice,” Annamalai Nagar inspector A Arokiyaraj said. 
    Gnanavalli, undergoing treatment at the private hospital, was out of danger. 
    Police booked Sundaramoorthy on charges of attempt to murder. He was remanded in judicial custody by a local court.

Source: The Times of India dt 22.02.2012

India's destiny not caste in stone.

Those who try to keep up with discussions on current affairs in the newspapers and on television may be forgiven if they conclude that caste is India's destiny. If there is one thing the experts in the media who comment on political matters have in common, it is their preoccupation with caste and the part it plays in electoral politics.

Many are now coming to believe that, despite the undeniable demographic, technological and economic changes taking place in the country, the division into castes and communities remains the ineluctable and ineradicable feature of Indian society. They also believe that to ignore those divisions or to draw attention to other divisions such as those of income, education and occupation is to turn our backs on the ground reality. The more radical among them add that ignoring those realities amounts to an evasion of the political responsibility of redistributing the benefits and burdens of society in a more just and equitable manner.

Does nothing change in India? A great many things have in fact changed in the last 60 years both in our political perceptions and in the social reality. The leaders of the nationalist movement who successfully fought for India's freedom from colonial rule believed that India may have been a society of castes and communities in the past but would become a nation of citizens with the adoption of a new republican constitution. They were too optimistic. The Constitution did create rights for the citizen, but it did not eradicate caste from the hearts and minds of the citizens it created. For many Indians, and perhaps the majority, the habits of the heart are still the habits of a hierarchical society.

Inter-dining rules

Universal adult franchise opened up new possibilities for mobilising electoral support on the basis of caste and thus prevented the consciousness of caste from dying down. Democracy was expected to efface the distinctions of caste, but its consequences have been very different from what was expected. Politics is no doubt an important part of a nation's life in a democracy, but it is not the only part of it. There are other areas of life in which the consciousness of caste has been dying down, though not very rapidly or dramatically. The trends of change which I will now examine do not catch the attention of the media because they happen over long stretches of time, in slow motion as it were. They are not noticeable from month to month or even year to year but across two or more generations.

Let us start with the ritual opposition of purity and pollution which was a cornerstone of the hierarchical structure of caste. The rules of purity and pollution served to mark the distinctions and gradations among castes and sub-castes. Characteristic among them were those relating to commensality or inter-dining. They determined who could sit together at a meal with whom, and who could accept food and water from whom. Only castes of equivalent rank could inter-dine with each other. In general people accepted cooked food and water from the hands of their superiors, but not their inferiors.

The ritual rules governing food transactions were rigid and elaborate until a hundred years ago. Nobody can deny that there has been a steady erosion of those rules. Modern conditions of life and work have rendered many of them obsolete. The excesses of the rules of purity and pollution have now come to be treated with ridicule and mockery among educated people in metropolitan cities like Kolkata and Delhi. It is impossible to maintain such rules in a college canteen or an office lunch room. To insist on seating people according to their caste on a public occasion would cause a scandal today.

In the past, restrictions on inter-dining were closely related to restrictions on marriage according to the rules of caste. The restrictions on marriage have not disappeared, but they have eased to some extent. Among Hindus, the law imposed restrictions on inter-caste marriage. The law has changed, but the custom of marrying within the caste is still widely observed. However, what is happening is that other considerations such as those of education and income are also kept in mind in arranging a match. At any rate, it will be difficult to argue that caste consciousness in matrimonial matters has been on the rise in recent decades.

In politics, the media

There continues to be a general association between caste and occupation to the extent that the lowest castes are largely concentrated in the menial and low-paying jobs whereas the higher castes tend to be in the best-paid and most esteemed ones. But the association between caste and occupation is now more flexible than it was in the traditional economy of land and grain. Rapid economic growth and the expansion of the middle class are accompanied by new opportunities for individual mobility which further loosens the association between caste and occupation.

If, in spite of all this, caste is maintaining or even strengthening its hold over the public consciousness, there has to be a reason for it. That reason is to be found in the domain of organised politics. Caste had entered the political arena even before independence, particularly in peninsular India. But the adoption of universal adult franchise after independence altered the character and scope of the involvement of caste in the political process.

The consciousness of caste is brought to the fore at the time of elections. Elections to the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabhas are now held all the year round. For logistical and other reasons, elections to even the Vidhan Sabhas may be stretched out over several weeks. There are by-elections in addition to the general elections. Election campaigns have become increasingly spectacular and increasingly costly, and they often create the atmosphere of a carnival. The mobilisation of electoral support on the basis of caste is a complex phenomenon whose outcome gives scope for endless speculation.

Even though for the country as a whole the election season never really comes to an end, the individual voter participates in the electoral process only occasionally and sporadically. The average villager devotes far more thought and time to home, work and worship than to electoral matters. It is well known that the voter turnout among urban professional Indians is low. But even when they do not participate in the elections to the extent of visiting their local polling booths, they participate in them vicariously by following on television what happens in the outside world. Television provides a large dose of entertainment along with a modicum of political education.

Private television channels have created a whole world in which their anchors and the experts who are regularly at their disposal vie with each other to bring out the significance of the “caste factor,” meaning the rivalries and alliances among castes, sub-castes and groups of castes by commentators who, for the most part, have little understanding of, or interest in, long-term trends of change in the country. These discussions create the illusion that caste is an unalterable feature of Indian society. It will be a pity if we allow what goes on in the media to reinforce the consciousness of caste and to persuade us that caste is India's destiny.

ANDRÉ BÉTEILLE

( The writer is Professor Emeritus of sociology, Delhi University, and National Research Professor;the illustration is from Seventy Two Specimens of Castes in India, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University .)

letters@thehindu.co.in

Outside politics, there are other areas

of life in which caste consciousness has been dying down.

Source: The Hindu dt 22.02.2012