Commentary/ Ashwin Mahesh
Sorry about casteism
Fifty years after the Constitution explicitly forbade casteism and
caste-based discrimination, the malaise remains with us. Whether in
personal matters such as marriage, or in more social settings as in
employment, the consideration of caste is never too far away. Derived
mostly through Hindu practices, this segregation has propagated itself and
found a home even in supposedly more egalitarian religions. Certainly, old
habits die hard.
To be sure, discrimination and oppression in one form or another has been
around for as long as anyone can remember or imagine; the shameless
prejudices of caste are India's contribution to a long tradition of man's
inhumanity to fellow humans. Enough has been written about the caste
system to be sure that most sincere readers will readily admit it is
a horrible practice, and its complete and irrevocable abolition is a
worthy goal. Even those who are bold enough to extol any value in such a
system will usually make only qualified endorsements. "Caste is a
reasonable basis to begin looking for spouses" or some such argument is
not unheard of, for example.
Considering that casteism, like many other horrors around the world,
persists to this day, it appears that simply expressing distaste for it is
not enough. Pro-active behavior designed to achieve the desired objective
is necessary. In the last few years, some examples of such pro-active
behavior designed to address past sins have come up. One particular
example -- apologising for past actions -- is doing the rounds everywhere,
it seems.
First, the Germans apologised for the war and the Holocaust. The Swiss
banks are considering accepting the truth about the role they played in
financing it. The Japanese offered some sort of apology to the Koreans and
Chinese. The Catholic Church and the Baptists, among others, confessed
their role in slavery. The United States is considering its own apology
for slavery and segregation. And in Australia, the government and the
opposition are debating whether a formal apology is due to the Aborigines
for the way white settlers treated them in the past. This slew of sorrys
raises the question -- is an apology for casteism due?
Given the wide agreement that the caste system is inhuman, there can be no
doubt that some expression of remorse is due. The real questions lie in
determining the form such remorse should take. Should anyone apologise,
and if so, to whom? And will such action be meaningful or some hollow
feel-good expression that achieves nothing? And does apologising for the
past open up the possibility that the descendents of the oppressed will
then demand compensation?
By way of answering these questions, it is helpful to consider the widely
held opinions about caste, as well as others that are more debatable. A
sincere attempt to right the injustices of the past is not possible
without at least some agreement about the present.
An undeniable fact about casteism is that the upper castes prospered for
eons at the expense of the lower castes. As a result, both economic power
and political clout were concentrated in the hands of the privileged.
Millions of Indians were deprived of the opportunity to lead dignified
lives by a system that arbitrarily assigned status to people, in complete
disregard of their character or behavior. This much, I think we will all
agree on.
Additionally, even families that are not particularly casteist themselves
have derived significant benefits from the casteism of their ancestors. It
is irrelevant that I am not caste-minded myself; what is more important is
that caste-based preferences that were available to my forefathers have
filtered down to me in economic and social terms that allowed me to obtain
a good education, reasonable health, economic security, etc.
A few years ago, my cousin wrote me a bitter letter lamenting the
injustice of being kept out of college programmes while less academically
gifted students were being offered the juiciest opportunities. With
more honesty, she might have admitted that her ability to attend a good
school, not worry about having enough to eat and having good clothes to wear
are largely derived from her caste, and in comparison to the
millions who have none of these, she obviously has a headstart. It is
certainly admirable that she herself does not hold on to the casteist
ideas of the past, but their influence on her life, or anyone else's, can
hardly be ignored.
A reasonable basis for examining the questions is thus established from
these two ideas -- the upper castes benefited hugely in the past, and the
benefits continue to trickle down to this day, even if less noticeably.
To the disagreements, then.
The sins of the fathers must not burden the sons. In any society that
demands accountability from its citizens, this is a necessary principle.
Despite the fact that several generations of my forefathers oppressed
countless people during their lives, I am not -- and will never be --
responsible for their behaviour. I neither gave my consent to their
behaviour -- which would then have made me accountable -- nor had the
opportunity to protest their abominable actions -- which would then go some
way towards absolving me of blame. And I'm not alone in maintaining this
position -- it is the one that the majority of upper castes take.
Nor is this a particularly Indian position. The Europeans who
systematically annihilated the Aborigines are all long dead. In Tasmania,
where the natives were shot for no reason other than they fought to keep
their own land are all but gone. The gut-wrenching shame of a society that
considered non-white people to be no more than animals does rest with
today's white Australians, but that does not mean they accept any of
the blame for it themselves. It only means they acknowledge the
ignominy of past actions, and recognize that their own security and
comfort are partly derived from these. And in response, they are willing to
go some way towards restoring parity and dignity to the victims.
The same is true of the Germans in Europe, the Japanese who ran comfort
camps of Korean and Chinese women for their soldiers, and the settlers who
forced native Americans into reservations and Christian missions, or the
southern Baptists who institutionalised segregation. Every one of these
groups will readily admit the shame of their ancestors' actions, but none
can bear personal responsibility for them. To empathise with the suffering
of a people is the easiest thing to do. Of course it's lamentable that
generations of lower castes were held down to miserable lives, but that is
not the fault of today's upper castes.
Seen in this light, the only people who should feel sorry about casteism
are long dead. Any apologies that today's upper castes can offer on their
behalf is bound to be hollow. Consider this: now that the Germans have
apologised for their outrageous conduct earlier this century, does anyone
truly forget the atrocities Hitler wrought? Are the Chinese and the
Koreans not protesting outside Japanese embassies every second week? Does
anyone really believe that if upper castes acknowledged the sins of their
fathers, they won't be subject to malicious targeting by politicians
whenever it suits them? Will it stop people from claiming that only dalits
can be President? Hogwash. When the wrong people apologise, very little
changes.
Following my admission that I have inherited several benefits based on my
caste, this can seem like speaking in forked tongues. On the contrary,
recognising the duality of the problem is essential to any solution that
we can offer. Retribution cannot right the wrongs of history. Politics in
India, even among supposedly socialist groups, has largely, and quite
likely deliberately, ignored this fact. As a result, wide-ranging
education and employment policies have been instituted that act more as
vengeful tools of division than as facilitators of upward mobility
among previously disadvantaged groups.
Reverse discrimination is an unfair and irresponsible way to address the
grievances of the lower castes. Sadly, it is also the strongest casteist
force around today. Worse still, it presents the stiffest opposition to
any sense of remorse that upper castes might have. One can hardly be
expected to feel sorry about the cruelty of a system that is being
replaced by one that is not much different. In time, reverse
discrimination will kill even the small pangs of guilt that occasionally
tug at upper caste sleeves.
If there's anything to be sorry about, then it is perhaps that we have
learned so little from history.
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