Caste census and the OBC bandwagon

Caste is central to all debate and discourse in India today. Yet, though new social groups periodically seek reservations in the name of caste, when it comes to counting different blocks we are squeamish. After years of evasiveness on including caste in the 2011 Census, the matter was dropped and a much watered-down Socio-Economic Caste Census was ordered. Even though this was not a proper census, the result has been partially withheld and has the potential to become a political controversy as OBC leaders are saying that the data has been suppressed because numbers would demonstrate that OBC numbers are much higher than what is being estimated so far. Additionally, we have the spectre of Patels in Gujarat clamouring for OBC status just as the issue of reservation for Jats in Rajasthan has hit a new road block.

Part of the problem is that when we discuss the caste arithmetic, we have no clue of the numerical strength of different castes. The last caste census was in 1931 and the most noteworthy social pointer was that the number of castes swelled to 4,147 from 1,646 in 1901. Experts who studied the 1931 census explained that false listing was fairly common in 1931 to “move up” the social ladder. In essence this meant that those who were borderline castes in 1931 got themselves listed on the higher social ladder.

To understand why there was need to move up the social ladder it is important to go back and look at the caste system. Quite often, the Manu Smriti and Varna Vyavastha is not fully understood and barring a handful of experts no one really understands the Hindu caste matrix. For starters, the word Shudras is most commonly misunderstood and its takes some effort to try convincing that Scheduled Caste is not synonymous with shudra. For generations, upper-caste Hindus had been fed literature and religious texts which used this word in a derogatory and abusive manner and it was presupposed that shudras made up the Scheduled Castes.

It was only from the late 1990s that significant sections of upper caste Hindus in north India began to understand that shudras had a political label, Backward Castes of Class, which was different from the Scheduled Castes who were, in fact, the Ati-Shudras or Avarnas. Though the SCs did not have any caste or were outside the Chaturvarna system and below the shudras, they were still Hindus. This was because a fifth category was created in the Hindu social order. But the position of Shudras was peculiar: though part of the Varna Vyavastha, they were referred to in a derogatory manner because even within the four caste group there were two categories: Dvijas and non-Dvijas — the twice born with right to wear the sacred thread and the once born with no right to don the janeu.

Being at the lowest rung of the social ladder, the shudras faced the brunt of social discrimination. In the first few decades after Independence, while Scheduled Castes got a limited amount of protection from laws, the shudras got none. All this changed with the appointment of the Mandal Commission by the Janata Party government in 1979. The political category of Backward Class was created by the report that was tabled before the Indira Gandhi government in December 1980.

For more than a decade the empowerment of Backward Classes, or Other Backward Classes (OBCs), which included both Hindus and non-Hindus, became a political cause. However, despite promises galore in poll after poll, no political party fulfilled the promise. All such calculations changed with the decision of the V.P. Singh government to implement the Mandal Commission report.

While in 1931, people wanted to move up, in post-Mandal India, such social movement was reversed — from people wanting to be upwardly mobile, they now wanted to be downwardly mobile. They were willing to take this social cut because it would entitle them to privileges and benefits that they are not entitled so far. It was with such objectives that Jats in Rajasthan began the agitation several years ago. After paralysing the administration, the state government accepted their demand but this was challenged and now the Rajasthan high court has quashed OBC quota for Jats in Dholpur and Bharatpur while saying that the community could continue to enjoy the benefits of the OBC status across the rest of the state. This has given rise to an anomalous situation where the same community has been declared OBC in all districts except two because the court accepted the argument that Jats were not backward in Bharatpur and Dholpur.

The Patels in Gujarat are among the richer communities in the state and now a movement is slowly gaining ground to demand reservation for the community. This is another case where the community willingly wants to slip below its present position because its members feel that reservation is the only way that their children will be able to secure admission in professional colleges.

Such periodic demands by different castes in various states only undermine the case of those who genuinely require reservation. It is time that the Centre took the lead to resolve this and ensure that periodic demands are not made. For this the government will have to look at the brief of the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) which includes “entertaining, examining and recommending upon requests for inclusion and complaints of over-inclusion and under-inclusion in the list of OBCs.”

The process of endless adding (there is never any subtraction because privileges once granted can never be withdrawn in India) to the OBC list must cease and towards this a beginning can be made by sending a decisive message to the leaders of the Patels. Who else can do this better than Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel?

The writer is the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, the Times