It is important to find pathways to make India a casteless nation

We are now in the Amrit Kaal of Independent India. Few can argue that caste has receded from the public sphere. To its credit, the republic has achieved something unprecedented by declaring all Indians equal and adopting social justice as a goal. Yet in politics, public policy and daily life, caste remains a major factor even if overt discrimination and violence have declined. We unashamedly talk about parties assembling caste-coalitions, picking ministers based on caste identities. Reservations in educational institutions and government jobs are seen as spoils of political power wrapped in the language of social justice. Matrimonial classifieds and online services are flourishing. Even car bumper stickers can speak of caste.

It seems as if we have abandoned the vision of a casteless nation of the kind Ambedkar envisioned. It is unrealistic to expect a social order that has stood for 20 centuries to dissolve in a matter of decades, but it seems as if we have given up even the ambition to annihilate caste. This is a matter of ideals and principles: I want a society “where the world has not been broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls," as Tagore’s poem goes. But it is also a practical matter: a society divided by caste cannot achieve social cooperation at scale to compete with others. Our firms are smaller. Our capital is inefficiently allocated. Our cities sprawl. Our natural resources are over-exploited. Our bureaucracy is stifling. At the root of many of India’s chronic failings is weak social capital arising from caste divisions. Caste is not only anti-national, it holds us back from our full potential.

It poses a dilemma for public policy. On one hand, a caste-aware policy perpetuates caste. Reservations, for instance, were supposed to be time limited but have been extended indefinitely as the main tool of social justice. Demands for caste-based quotas have only grown over time and is a constant feature of our politics. On the other hand, caste-agnostic policy permits bias and discrimination to go on unchecked. Studies have shown the prevalence of discrimination in hiring at private firms. One suspects that discrimination and the basis on which it is done—caste—will only increase if public policy becomes completely caste-blind.

While the institution of caste is perpetuated by three pillars—marriage, inter-dining and occupation—public policy has mostly focused on the last, and mostly through reservations.

Marriage and inter-dining are personal matters, and the state has rightly not taken upon itself the task of regulating who one marries and dines with. But the state is guilty of omission. The police and lower judiciary often side with parental and social prejudices and fail to protect adults who choose their own spouses. The Indian Human Development Survey found that inter-caste marriage rate was only 5-6% of the total and hadn’t changed much between 2004 and 2011. More encouraging are results from a 2017 Lok Foundation survey, which not only showed an inter-caste marriage rate of around 10%, but also that about 15% of families would accept it for their next generation. It also showed the more educated the woman, the more accepting she is of intercaste marriage for her children.

Unfortunately, politicians, police officials and marriage registrars are more likely to side with parents, families and the community than with consenting adults who wish to get married. This might well be the single most critical state intervention needed to move towards a casteless society. Perhaps it is for this reason that communities get so exercised over marriages. Even our vocabulary hints at an implicit value judgement when we say “honour killing" instead of “mob lynching", which is more accurate.

A new book edited by Amit Ahuja and Devesh Kapur presents empirical evidence of how violence of all kinds, including caste-based killings, has fallen over the past five decades, mostly due to state intervention, but also social disapproval and media exposure. That should give us hope and also a sense of what’s possible: the enforcement of the basic laws of the Indian republic can take us toward a direction of greater fraternity.

At this time, though, public policy is like a rudderless boat being thrown about by the raging currents of caste dynamics. Political appointments, administration decisions and public expenditure often seem more to be outcomes of caste equations than the public interest. We need a fresh public debate on caste, and how the Indian republic should deal with it. Because, as Ambedkar put it so well, castes are anti-national.