I recently recorded and released a song called “Free Kabir Kala Manch”. It was par for the course for me. As a political rapper, I was merely making a solidarity song for another group of political poets, namely, Kabir Kala Manch who have been falsely accused of being “Naxalites”. The song was well recieved by those who are supportive of my brand of conscious hip hop. But amongst the usual responses, I got a very specific and sharp response from a particular kind of people. It is that response that has prompted me to write this piece. The response varied from eloquently veiled to brutally blunt but it always came down to this: “Reservation is EVIL.” How did we arrive at that point from “Free Kabir Kala Manch”? Well, that’s the fun part.
One of the things about Kabir Kala Manch is they are Dalit poets/songwriters who amongst other things, sing about caste-based oppression in Maharashtra. This ofcourse makes them so much more dangerous to our state, our middle class and our mainstream media who do such a fine job at covering up the silent apartheid this country imposes on it’s people. A fact I was quick to point out in my song. There is a part in the song where the lyrics explicitly describe this:
“Upper class Upper caste Privilege,
You say fuck all the past pillages,
But the past images are still in vast villages,
Even in the cities, you see caste still exists”
That last line really got some people worked up. And for the nth time, I was engaged in a debate about how reservation was an evil system where mentally(and otherwise) incompetent Dalits from well-to-do families are taking up college seats and jobs that could have gone to more deserving ‘upper caste’ Hindus. I have had this same exact debate with a LOT of people trying to convince me with this line of thought. Ofcourse what is strange is that we are instantly talking about reservation in a conversation on caste apartheid. And that is the clincher right there. As someone who is fairly vocal on political issues on social media, (I think the polite term is armchair activist) I often share links of news reports or share my opinions on several issues. Caste oppression is one of them. But every time I talk about it, someone or the other replies with “So you think reservation is the answer?” It’s almost as if reservation guarantees lifetime protection from having to confront the caste apartheid in this country. It’s like saying “You know what. We’ll talk about the two Dalits that are raped and three that are killed everyday once they remove reservation so I can get into medical college.” Do we even realise how incredibly arbitrary that line of thinking is?
Fine then. Let’s look at the anti-reservation argument. I am not saying the system is perfect. God knows there is some validity to the accusations that reservation is being corrupted and misused. But at the end of the day, many of the anti-reservation arguments come from a problematic place. There is a lot of rhetoric about “merit”. If you find some of the crazier ones they might even tell you how Brahmins are intrinsically smarter and how the Varna system was put in for a reason! But we will deal with those lunatics later. So what is this “merit” then? Merit is nothing but a code word for people who don’t go to expensive coaching centres or study in posh english medium schools. You know, like the one I went to. So I know what I’m talking about. I know my peers. My largely upper class upper caste Hindu male peers. When we say “merit” what we really mean is people like us. People who talk like us, who dress like us. People whose cultural identity and family background matches ours. The entire middle class notion of “merit” is nothing but a professional/educational equivalent of the caste restrictions blatantly spelt out in the matrimonial section in the classifieds.
Once you get past the “merit” rhetoric, there is one other major argument that is made that the reservation policy is designed to help those who are economically backward. But many middle class or prosperous individuals who happen to be from the community are taking advantage of reservations to get ahead. The implication is that undeserving candidates are getting ahead and leaving many other meritorious(read upper caste) candidates in the lurch. But here’s a newsflash. The reservation policy is not there only to address a economic disparity. Although that is definitely a large part of the issue, economic backwardness is not the only problem we are dealing with. The reservation policy exists to address a particular inequity in Indian society. To put it very crudely, to many Indians a rich Dalit is still a Dalit. Personal and structural discrimination leave deserving candidates out of the lurch even if they meet all the academic/economic/professional benchmarks. As I have often said in the past, there is no greater proof that caste discrimination is alive than the relentless caste restrictions mentioned in matrimonial ads. Ofcourse if you want something more grisly, there are more than a few reports about atrocities on the basis of caste in this country. It is this reality that Kabir Kala Manch sings about. It is this reality that took the life of Ilavarasan, whose only crime was to fall in love with and marry a woman outside his caste.
The constant defense is that caste is majorly a rural issue. Really? I come back to the matrimonial ads argument. I come back to brokers in Bombay who ask your caste before showing you a flat. (Also in my case, first asked me if I was muslim ‘coz I had a beard. In which case I would not be shown most of the flats I was shown. That is another story for another post.) Caste discrimination and bigotry is still rampant. People are just slightly smarter and less blatant about it in the cities. And here’s something: If you refuse to marry someone based on their caste, is it a stretch to imagine you will refuse them a college admission or a job on the basis of caste? Don’t answer immediately. Think about it.
It is that deep rooted system of discrimination that reservation seeks to address. The system that creates a context where an equally qualified and competent individual is denied the opportunities he or she deserves because of their caste. Economic backwardness is a side effect of casteism, not the solitary cause of it. The root cause is our own bigotry that we have consistently refused to confront. So even if someone from a better off family avails of reservation ,it’s not a misuse. It’s just protection against the lifetime of caste based discrimination ahead. And it isn’t just a Hindu thing either. The toxicity of caste is so pervasive that it has spread to all sections of Indian society. Which is why you will see versions of the caste hierarchy even in Muslim, Christian and even Buddhist communities in this country.
This country needs to have an open conversation about caste. Not just brush it under the carpet and pretend it never existed. But openly confront that it still exists and admit that we all fucked up with this, especially those us from the ‘upper caste’ Hindu community. But it doesn’t have to be like this forever. What seems interesting to me is that reservation will cease to be useful the day people actually do get past caste and only look at merit. So it would be in the interest of the anti-reservation lobby to take on all sorts of caste-based discrimination and prejudice. But they don’t. They never speak out against caste based violence or oppression of communities based on caste. To put it simply, they only want to focus on reservation but not on the social ills that made the reservation system necessary in the first place. And why is that? There must be a good reason. Or maybe it’s just good old middle class vapid stupidity. Who knows?
Let The Funk Flow 