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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