Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has taken great offence to a remark conflating his demand for a caste census with his apparent lack of a caste identity. Feeling “abused and insulted” by the implication that his caste is an enigma, Gandhi inadvertently pointed to some of the difficulties in enumerating castes.
Lakhs of Indian citizens have or are growing up in inter-faith or inter-caste households where religious or caste identities are de-emphasised. Gandhi is a prime example. He cannot be labelled as belonging to a particular caste, going either by matrilineal or by patrilineal descent. Heir to a mosaic of ancestral identities — Parsi, Christian, Hindu — he is at liberty to identify himself with any of them, or with none.
Would such citizens — and the numbers are bound to increase by the day — be excluded from a caste census? The judiciary has yet to clarify whether caste can be determined by matrilineal or patrilineal descent, or a mix of both. One court held that the manner of upbringing could determine the caste of a child, in case of an inter-caste marriage. Another intervened to allow a single mother to pass on her caste to her child.
Much of the litigation around caste has to do with quota entitlements, and decisions are taken on a case-by-case basis. If a census is conducted, standard rules would have to be formulated, particularly if all entitlements are to be caste-based, as “jitni abadi utna haq” (population-based quotas) seems to indicate. But, not all identities are caste in stone.
Ideally, the never-ending speculation over Gandhi’s caste and religious identity should be put to rest. For the many citizens who don’t identify with any caste or religion, either as a matter of principle or because they are sublimely unaware of such distinctions, Gandhi’s affiliations are unimportant — as indeed, they should be for everyone.
Gandhi could have responded to the BJP MP’s provocative remark in one of three logical ways: by rejecting the notion of caste, declaring a caste affiliation or proclaiming himself a voluntary member of a subaltern group. The first is problematic. In Gandhi’s profession, caste is far from irrelevant, and he cannot very well dismiss caste as an anachronistic institution. The very fact that he is pushing for a caste census, is in alliance with caste-based parties and selected candidates on the basis of their caste in the recent elections is an acknowledgement of its continuing relevance in politics. In any event, given that caste is acknowledged as a basic identity, the idea is not to eradicate caste but to eliminate caste discrimination.
Gandhi can choose, as his right hand man Randeep Singh Surjewala once claimed, to identify as a “janeudhari Hindu” (brahmin), on the strength of his paternal grandmother’s caste. A temple priest once quoted him as saying that he belonged to the ‘Dattatreya’ gotra of Kashmiri brahmins, courtesy his great-grandfather. Given his identification with a particular family, that is probably how voters perceive him.
Gandhi reportedly claimed to be a devotee of Lord Shiva, which implies that he has embraced the faith of his paternal grandmother, as opposed to that of his paternal grandfather and mother. That is an intensely personal choice, and nobody’s business but his own. But caste is a social identity, and few Indians balk at asking even chance-met strangers their surnames, so as to determine their caste.
For Gandhi’s cohorts, proclaiming the Hindu-ness and Brahminhood of their leader may be politically expedient. As a self-declared champion of the marginalised, however, Gandhi could have pro-actively identified himself with them, thereby underlining the sheer absurdity of caste-based discrimination.
Affirmitive action can address inequities in economic and political representation, but social parity among castes calls for a celebration of subaltern identities. The luminaries of the Dalit India Chamber of Commerce and Industry, for example, proudly embrace their Dalithood. Happily, a 2021 Pew Research survey found that most Indians from lower castes — 82% — said they had not personally encountered any form of discrimination. What’s more, the vast majority of upper caste adults surveyed said they would be happy to have a Scheduled Caste neighbour.
The Congress has yet to explain how it would get around the difficulties of acting on a caste census. For instance, the caste census commissioned ten years ago by the Karnataka government and submitted earlier this year, has yet to be released. Enumerating some 1,500 castes and sub-castes, it is believed to have significant political implications, which has discouraged the Congress government from putting it in the public domain.
Gandhi has also claimed that 73% of Indians belong to marginalised communities, including minorities. To deliver ‘social justice’ to all of them would call for a law overruling the Supreme Court’s 1992 cap on reservations, not to mention a Constitutional amendment allowing religion-based quotas. Besides, if all 6,000-odd castes in India are to be accommodated, quotas will be sliced very thin, and those who already enjoy the benefits may find themselves with a slimmer size of the pie — a recipe for social unrest.
Bhavdeep Kang is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience in working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author
