The Debate on Racism/Casteism
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 4th June 2016
Now we have a debate on Racism/Casteism again. This seems to be a direct fall-out of our caste oriented politics. However to begin with, one would need to define what caste oriented politics is (since many definitions tend to have different understanding for the terms, and thus different culprits). The caste oriented politics is where some leaders, generally belonging to a specific caste tend to paint their image strongly with the interests of the community and start demanding how others (other castes/ sub-sections) in society should perceive this caste with set patterns of treatment especially from the government.
The caste movement itself may have been initiated for may be genuine uplift-ment of people belonging to certain castes which hitherto found themselves to be at the wrong end of the society. Since this had something to do with the birth of an individual and denied him opportunities to compete on equal terms, so the movement enjoyed a broad support including from the government.
In current form, it seems to have been degraded about seeking privileges from the government, which generally comes when one declares himself and his caste to be down-trodden. There is absolutely zilch activity in push up competency levels in the society as a means of uplift-ment whereas earlier activity may be seen on both sides. In fact many of the present day caste leaders can also be seen as opposed to inter-caste love marriages as well whereas earlier grouse was that such marriages were prohibited generally by upper caste and thus blocked the way of people and their children graduating to a different class/caste by virtue of marriage.
Empowerment of people to breaking barriers which have held them back seems to be a thing of the past and it is irrespective whether such struggle is waged in urban or rural areas. The battle now may be mostly about self-aggrandizement by getting government machinery to toe one's line and efforts to empower one's caste by improving upon education, self-help groups and small loans; is almost totally absent. While there may be no harm in demanding action from government, however such demands veer around reservations in jobs alone rather than improved schooling/skills training or funds for such purposes or to set up a cooperative bank etc. and point to degradation of such movements.
While media covers the drama and also covers the degradation aspect of government institutions, however remains silent about the degradation of such movements which are the probable cause feeding on to each other and thus these articles have been unsparing on the commercial news media as well. The hollowness of the political leadership whether in government or outside may therefore be just the result of the lack of ability to understand and articulate the cause & effects amongst their supporters (with the possibility that one has to safeguard interests of one's own supporter's hand in the mess) and general public may be getting an opportunity to playing these Dholaks so publicly that it is an attention of one & all.Now coming to Racism part of the topic.
While most of India is generally untouched by Racism except may be some north-east people feeling a bit strongly about the same while in Northern or some select Cities in Southern India. The derogatory term "Chinki" has been coined may be for those identified differently viz. fair skinned, flat faced (Mogoloid) identity. However again one may notice that Nepalese who may have similar features but speak same languages as Northern India (Nepalese closely resembles Hindi, is a dialect) face much lesser barriers. So may be discrimination solely basis looks is probably much lesser, though it may accentuate when a healthy inter-mingling between social groups is not there. Then of course we do have the problem of stereotyping. If people perceive a class as say involved with drugs, then basis looks an entire social group is castigated even if many of those may not be a party to such rackets.
However stereotyping amongst the majority group whereby they easily shift the burden of blame of the social ills to smaller sub-sections is a problem not limited to India and is generally afflicting almost all countries. Such problems may have had accentuated effect here because of a lackadaisical approach of law enforcement agencies like police or an almost dys-functional lower judiciary which fails to prosecute fast and thus emboldens such elements further.
Basically when evaluating a society about racist tendencies, one should attempt to eliminate such associated cause-effects which may not be directly racism alone but have a play of the mix of several other elements. It may help to measure how people enjoying tremendous power be it basis political, intellectual or wealth are treating their counterparts from another social section or country. Such interaction between well-known people/leaders from different communities treating each other often sets the agenda especially if it is perceived to be differential basis looks/race/caste etc.
Then of course one should evaluate how people belonging to different sub-sections of society who may be known to each other and therefore have knowledge and opinion about one-another treat the people from different section of society. If people are seen as giving differential treatment to other people from different sub-section on the sole reason of looks/caste, then a society can be perceived to be racist. Last is how people unknown and unrelated react to counterpart with a different look/race/caste factors alone.
Generally there is much greater chance of getting a feeling of discrimination here as people tend to be rather closed to others (with a different appeal) and rather mingle with one's own but then both sides have a responsibility of opening up to each other. One may also want to evaluate the net time for such interactions and efforts made on both sides which may be unrelated and unknown to each other to open up, before proclaiming a society as racist.