So What are You?

When I was asked by an ex colleague, “So what are you?”, I chose to misunderstand the query and said, “A copywriter.”

So he smiled at my naiveté and said, “Nahi, nahi,  I meant what caste are you?” So the famous case of my twin surnames confusing people of my origin was at it again.  But did it make a better person if I’d acquired a-so-to-speak brahmanical status thanks to matrimony or did it increase my prowess to churn out award winning campaigns if I was born a ‘baniya’?

In a conversation with a very well read friend who has strong opinions on the caste system of India and how it manages to infiltrate all spheres of our living, it got me thinking how I had never gone beyond getting irked every time someone wanted to know what caste and sub-caste I belonged to. Why didn’t I read up more, why didn’t I want to take it up the way I want to campaign for cleanliness and hygiene in and around the city?

Or it really doesn’t make any difference to me if a Dalit woman is paraded naked in a village in Bengal? Because obviously I can’t change mindsets or the indifference we Indians are used to. So I should just sit back and pass generalized statements about various castes, creeds and races and pretend to be open minded by not taking offence when some one says “Hindustani Baniye”.

What have our sensibilities come to? The newly appointed chairman of Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) Yellapragada Sudershan Rao in a blog written in 2007, had said that the "positive aspects of Indian culture are so deep that the merits of ancient systems would be rejuvenated."

In the blog-article titled, 'Indian Caste System: A Reappraisal', he wrote: "The (caste) system was working well in ancient times and we do not find any complaint from any quarters against it. It is often misinterpreted as an exploitative social system for retaining economic and social status of certain vested interests of the ruling class."

Is this gross primitive mentality or the picture of current day India? I do not know the views of Dr. B R Ambedkar on the caste system, I can’t even begin to grasp its significance in every day living. I do not know if violence against women is deeply rooted in the way we understand caste or for the matter – the utter unhygienic conditions we choose to live in traces back its origins to caste.

What I do know is despite the fact that untouchability was officially banned when India adopted its constitution in 1950, discrimination against Dalits remained so pervasive that in 1989 the government passed legislation known as ‘The Prevention of Atrocities Act’. The act specifically made it illegal to parade people naked through the streets, force them to eat feces, take away their land, foul their water, interfere with their right to vote, and burn down their homes.

Since then, all that we’ve seen and heard is that the violence has escalated, more so because of grassroots human rights movement among Dalits to demand their rights and resist the dictates of untouchability.

Will this change? Will there be any recourse available to victims? Maybe I can’t do anything to change status quo, but what I can do is not say “What is it to me?”