19 August 2001
Scotland on Sunday
By David Orr
LAST Wednesday in a village in central India, a woman known by only a single name realised a cherished dream. Shantibai was allowed to raise the national flag to mark Independence Day.
What made an unexceptional ceremony so special was the fact that Shantibai is a tribal woman from a socially backward community. Objections from higher-caste members in her village in the state of Madhya Pradesh had at first prevented her from hoisting the flag.
It was not until she had complained to the state minister that she was allowed to perform the ritual, traditionally reserved for members of the more socially privileged classes.
This marginal event, which did not get much publicity either in India or abroad, serves to prove that caste barriers, so ubiquitous and deeply-rooted in Indian society, are at last being broken down.
But should there be any illusion about the speed with which India’s social prejudices are disappearing, another incident, which received much more news coverage, stands as a reminder that this is a country where old fears and hatreds still linger.
Earlier this month, two young lovers were lynched in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh because they came from different castes. The couple, 19-year-old Vishal and Sonu, 18, were hanged one after the other from the roof of a house in their village. He was a high-caste Brahmin while she was a member of the lower-caste Jat community.
Seven villagers were later arrested, among them the boy’s and the girl’s parents, who had not only sanctioned the punishment but had watched as their children swung from the makeshift gibbet.
Within days of this incident Sushil Kumar, 18, from a poor, lower-caste family, shot himself after his marriage to his higher-caste girlfriend was blocked.
Phoolan Devi, known as the ‘Bandit Queen’, became a champion of the rights of the lower-castes until her murder last month. In 1981 she is reputed to have been responsible for the murder of 21 upper-caste men in 1981 who had raped her. Her murder is believed to be linked to inter-caste tension.
It is against the background of such tragedies that a fierce debate is currently being held in India as to whether caste should be included in a forthcoming United Nations conference, Against Racism. The conference is to be held in South Africa at the end of the month.
Those who support its inclusion argue that the UN conference is also meant to cover xenophobia and related intolerance. Some say theories about the origins of caste suggest it could have evolved from rivalries between different racial groups.
The Indian government, however, is insisting the issue of caste should not be included. “Race and caste are distinct,” said India’s attorney-general Soli Sorabjee. Just as the Indian government will brook no foreign intervention in the question of Kashmir, so is it reluctant to have outsiders discussing its indigenous form ofstratification – particularly in South Africa.
Unlike apartheid, caste is a social system rather than an institutionalised means of division and oppression. Officially, caste no longer exists. But a number of campaign groups have criticised the Indian government’s stance. One, Human Rights Watch, has called caste-based discrimination Asia’s “hidden apartheid”.
Though prohibited by the Constitution of India, caste discrimination remains endemic in India, particularly in rural areas where 80per cent of Indians live. It dictates where people should live, what jobs they have and whom they should marry.
At the very bottom of the system are the ‘dalits’ (formerly known as ‘untouchables’), who live in segregated areas, drink from specified wells and worship at special temples. For a higher-caste Hindu to drink from a dalit’s cup or eat food prepared by a dalit would amount to defilement.
“When we are working, they ask us not to come near them”, a dalit manual scavenger in Gujurat state said. “At tea canteens, they have separate tea tumblers . We cannot enter temples. We cannot use upper-caste water taps. We have to go one kilometre away to get water. When we ask for our rights from the government, the municipality officials threaten to fire us. So we don’t say anything. This is what happens to people who demand their rights.”
A social activist in the southern state of Tamil Nadi said:
“Thevars [caste Hindus] treat Sikkaliars [dalits] as slaves so they can utilise them as they wish. They exploit them sexually and make them dig graves for high-caste people’s burials.”
In some states, perhaps most notoriously in Bihar, generally regarded as the most impoverished of all Indian states, caste-related violence is endemic. Wealthy landlords and their militias regularly clash with one of two Marxist groups, specifically established to combat the injustices inflicted on landless peasants.
In an attempt to eradicate caste as a negative force in society, the Indian government employs a system of ‘reservations’ or quotas for various lower-castes. These allow for increased representation in third-level education, government jobs and political bodies.
Under the current scheme, just under 30per cent of government jobs are set aside for what are known as ‘backward’ castes while 23per cent are reserved for dalits (officially known as scheduled castes). India’s president, K R Narayanan is himself a dalit.
“The government has put in place laws against discrimination but there is very little enforcement of them on the ground,” says Ravi Nair of the South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre in Delhi.
“There is a refusal to recognise caste as an issue in India. Perhaps if there was more international scrutiny, that would help change things.”
While positive discrimination in favour of the lower-castes has made an impact in some areas, it has done little to promote lower-caste Indians in the private sector or in the higher echelons of business.
Though Brahmins may find the whole subject of caste embarrassing to discuss, their social groupings and financial interests dictate that lower castes are kept in inferior positions.
The ‘Matrimonials’ section of the Sunday newspapers attest to the caste obsessions of most middle and upper-class Indians. Parents from these backgrounds invariably stipulate that suitors for the hands of their daughters should be Brahmins or high-born Hindus.
The girls’ complexions are described as ‘fair’ or ‘wheatish’, indicating that they are not of peasant stock, used to toiling for hours under a blistering sun.
Just last year, an Indian scientist tried to sue his parents-in-law on the grounds that they lured him into marrying their daughter by alleging that they came from a high-caste family. The scientist, GV Rao, argued that the family had lied in their reply to his newspaper advertisement for a suitable bride. He had later discovered that he had married a woman from a low-caste tribal community.
But the Indian Supreme Court rejected his case, ruling that there is no biological difference between the Hindu castes. Interestingly, Rao’s speciality was DNA finger-printing and diagnostics.
Legislation and government quotas cannot compensate for widespread prejudice. Until there is a change of attitudes to caste in India, it is likely that horror stories like the recent lynchings will continue to make the headlines.