Caste and Religion- Too perilous a game people play

So finally the UP Election heat has calmed down and news papers are back to the headlines of 2G spectrum, age row of the General, Chinese Threat et al. With each passing year, our political leaders have set new records in crouching further down the scale of integrity. This election is yet another grim reminder of the fact that we are yet to have a political party who upholds the secular fabric in the true sense.

While talking of caste, my memory goes back to the school days. One day our class teacher was conducting some survey and each one of us were asked to tell him our caste (Today I believe, it was a very uncivilized and crude on the part of our teacher to  ask young students to spell their caste). Most of us were unaware and promised him to come prepared next day after due consultation with our parents. Today when I look back, I feel so proud to be a part of the Assamese cultural heritage where caste has never been the deciding factor. In contrast, when I joined my first job outside Assam, I was often confronted with the query on my caste and till 2003, each time I passed the  Banaras railway station, my head used to go for a spin seeing  a signboard proudly proclaiming to be a college hostel of the schedule caste students.

Even though India of today vouches for secular democracy, Caste and Religion have been the two most terrible curses since the ancient times after caste became unalterable. The astonishing advancement of ancient India in the field of Medicine, Literature, Town planning and Philosophy was often marred by the caste factor where a section of the people was kept marginalized for no fault of them. Such a fragmented society could hardly pose any challenge to the marauding forces from the west. For many centuries, the sheer religious intolerance of the invaders posed serious threat to the Indian civilization as millions of its people got slaughtered, enslaved and forcibly separated, a part of our History, carefully concealed by many of our modern historians. We have been very consistent in blaming the British for sowing the seed of religious intolerance in India while the fact of the matter is that the British only reaped the harvest of the seed sowed long back.

The reservation policy accepted in our constitution had relevance in 1951and was brought in with good intent. One of the most noteworthy events of the last century in India is the rising political awareness of the Dalit people which I believe is another indication of spread of education, urbanization and economic development amongst them. Their rise can be compared only to the rising of the blacks in US. The “Kanchirams”, “Mayawatis” are important exponents of the complex social equations. Today the Blacks contribute considerably to the American society and one of them in Obama has ascended to occupy the White House. However, everything has a shelf life and change becomes indispensable to keep it relevant for the present be it Political views, Economic or Religion. India’s economic progress in the last 20 years has been significant and the growth has started reaching the economically downtrodden class even though some of us continue to deny. With the economic growth, our culture, outlook and values are also changing from the yesterdays. As such, the caste and religion should have been irrelevant issues of the past by now. Yet the reservation policy in the present format continues to be a thorn in our society. Today, the instrument of social upliftment has itself become a Frankenstein to torment and divide people. Religion based reservation to the minorities will only further aggravate this situation. In the twenty first century, reservation must be solely on economic ground without diluting the security and sovereignty of our country. Majority bashing and minority appeasement doesn’t mean secularism.

When the dawn of independence heralded upon India, India accepted secularism ahead of religion unlike Pakistan inspite of many opposition from the Hindu hardliners. Without secularism, India of today would have surely become as turbulent and anarchic like our western neighbor. However, a time span of sixty five years is insignificant in the scale of eternity. Let us appreciate we had a long chequered history and some unmindful acts of today can bring back the days of unimaginable suffering and subjugation. When a group of fascists prevent a writer or a painter the freedom of speech and the executive meekly surrender, a serious question arises on the stabilibity of the religious coexistence in the longer run. The answer to all these evils will be inclusive rapid economic growth fuelled by spread of  meaningful education.  The India of today needs to be rational and secular in the truest form.

(I will be dishonest if I don’t reveal something about me. After passing out Engineering, I was desperately looking for a good job and when the opportunity arrived, my selfishness took over my conscience and I immediately acquired a caste certificate. I belong to the Koch community and in those days this community was the cynosure of the many political equations. Every day at my office, I suffered from the guilt of being selfish at accepting personally the opportunities while denouncing it in public. I could get rid of my guilt only when I left my previous job and thereby losing a few years of seniority. However the other day, one of colleagues stimulated me to another facet of the reservation policy. Unmindful of my caste factor, he reasoned why the reserved category persons should apply under General category and thereby further limiting opportunities for some. I didn’t have an easy answer to him!!)

-Written on 4^th Feb,2012 

You can contact Kamaljit at kamaljitmedhi1975@gmail.com