Caste Census

The potion was cooking in the cauldron. A busy looking guy in a top hat wiped the sweat off his brow and said; “could we now decide what to do?”
“Let’s add some technology” the geek helpfully said. “All you got to do in a country with a billion plus is to have a headcount with clean, unique and non duplicate data. By deploying more indifferent and corrupt Babus on the ground, we can’t achieve that. We need to scale up technology to reach the masses, to help identify the needy. Imagine when your identity is linked to your income tax account number, your bank account, your share trading account, your demat account, your property titles. Also your monthly electricity bills and credit card spending… We would know exactly who doesn’t have a home, who doesn’t have a steady income, who is in need of fair price cereals and who is in need of cheap medical care and education.” And he went on to add a lot of gobbledegook which no one could follow.
“Wouldn’t that be too intrusive? Citizen’s right to privacy and all that?” someone asked.
“Right now we are accused of not knowing what goes on under our noses. Not being able to target spending towards the needy. Let us put in place systems where very little direct interface with the state and its’ representatives is required. Today we have people with more than one ration card, voter IDs which are no more valid and driving licenses issued to minors.”
“Hmm.. sounds good. Will it work? In Britain, for example…” He was abruptly cut short by the guy in the top hat. “Please don’t go to Britain with your analogies. Do they have electronic voting machines? Do they have inaccessible villages with no drinking water? Do they have tribals living on bamboo shoots?”
“Won’t this be misused by the security agencies?” asked a tall brawny guy. “We will work around that and put privacy laws in place later”, replied someone.
“Shall we go ahead? Finally?” asked the guy in the top hat
“Yes. Let’s have it” said the others and so the cauldron kept boiling. They added a whole lot of technology. Iris scans fingerprints, national population register, Census data and other things were added to the cauldron.
“Caste anybody?” someone squeaked. There was a moment of silence. It looked as if the silence would stretch forever and ever. Suddenly everyone started talking- First in low voices and then in sharply rising tones. Then no one was listening to others. Someone threw a paperweight to gain attention. Soon there was pandemonium. Microphones were uprooted from the table. Slippers and tomatoes were thrown. There was yelling and screaming from someone who got hurt. Someone climbed on a chair and shouted, “Is this what the makers of our Republic wanted?” No one was listening to him.
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When I joined the government on a hot April morning twenty years ago, I was given a paper to sign. In it was a declaration that I shall uphold the constitution of India, so help me God. (I didn’t bother to clarify that I don’t believe in God. Does that make my declaration invalid?) For several years, I never gave it a thought. All along I was doing small things, playing by the rule book, where the constitution in its’ larger sense did not come in to play. Abiding by the constitution meant maintaining transparency, fair play and non- discrimination in official transactions. I have seen officers of the state maintain none of the above, freely criticize the constitutional provisions (especially of reservations etc) and hand out their valuable personal opinions to anyone who would listen. I realized that many of us had forgotten that small scrap of paper we signed.

Questions abound from both sides of the divide- those for a caste based identity and those who don’t believe in it. Isn’t caste the cornerstone of our centuries-old identity? Wasn’t affirmative action planned to help unfortunate souls who experienced centuries of discrimination? If we reject caste won’t we lose our social safety net of caste associations and local networks? Won’t we be saying goodbye to a rich cultural heritage? Do we divide people on the basis of class or their caste identities? What about Khap Panchayats that dispense medieval justice? Aren’t the poor unified in their deprivation? Do we need caste to identify their needs? Do we need caste leaders to look after the poor and needy among them? Isn’t the state duty bound to look after the needy irrespective of their caste?

Suddenly we have no answers to anything. Among the very rich and the very poor, caste plays a marginal role at best. Caste is a middle class burden, an identity that we unwittingly fall prey to. We marry, we socialize, we procreate and we build housing societies based on the ancient myth of caste. Caste still plays a big role in rural India. Urbanization, westernization and mixed marriages have helped a great deal in modern times to suppress these identities we are born into. Might be a good idea to ask to what purpose are the Members of Parliament asking for a caste-based census. To calculate their vote banks? To decide appropriate candidates? To seek reservation for newer categories?

Someone forgot to ask; doesn’t a caste-based or religion-based headcount implicitly go against the spirit of the constitution? Just like how we forgot about the scrap of paper we signed years ago...