Discrimination in India

Around the world societies have been segmented along different lines. But in the modern times when liberty, equality and fraternity is the Philosophy in most civilised societies including India (See also the Preamble to the Constitution of India), these social divisions are almost extinct. But India seems to have carried forward this legacy of differentiation in society along a very distinctive line that is called Caste. Historically, the Caste System as it is prevalent in India today is based upon the Varnashram, one of the two basic constituents of an ideal Hindu way of life. This system finds mention in the Rig Veda, a hindu scripture that was written and compiled somewhere between 2000 B.C. and 1500 B.C. According to Varnashram the division in the society was to be made on the basis of the vocation of the people. Every individual belonged to a caste to which his profession related. Originally there were only four caste; Brahmin (the learned one, who interpreted the scriptures), Kshatriya (the Warriors), Vaishya (the entrepreneurs), and Shudras (the peasants). With time appeared sub-castes and instead of the basis being that of profession, it became birth. Anyone born to a Brahmin was a Brahmin and so on... With time inequalities in the society got entrenched and the lower castes started getting exploited at the hands of the upper castes. And this continues even till date. Today the Indian society looks more or less as follows;

· Upper Castes (the original Brahmins and Kshatriyas and some Vaishyas)

· Backward castes (some of the original Vaishyas and some shudras)

· Scheduled Castes (the Untouchables, as they were prior to 26 Jan 1950)

· Scheduled Tribes (the original tribes of India)

Most of the Higher echelons of management whether in the Private sector or the Public sector are occupied and controlled by the upper castes (Out of the 60 odd years of our independence, for more than 40 years we have had a Brahmin Prime Minister). Most of the Economic wealth in India is controlled by the upper castes, the industries are owned by upper castes, the land is owned by the upper castes, the print and electronic media is controlled by the upper castes. The power elite in India are the upper castes.

In India discrimination at workplace starts at the recruitment stage, and more often than not it is through informal modes that discrimination is practiced. Article 14 of the constitution prohibits unequal treatment of any kind, and imposes a positive obligation on the state to ensure equality. Articles 39 (b) and (c) also impose an obligation upon the state to remove social and economic inequalities. And discrimination of any sort that is direct or formal would invite legal action. Therefore more often than not what is practiced is indirect or informal discrimination. The most common excuse of discrimination is so called Merit, where candidates are rejected on flimsy grounds such as poor English. Even where they are called up for interview or assessment they are judged primarily on grounds based on extraneous factors such as caste and mother tongue rather than on merit.

Most of the people belonging to the lower castes live below poverty line, and though government provides them with free education it is never up to the level of good English medium public schools. And most of them lag behind in competitive exams and interviews. Add to that indirect discrimination in organisations on caste lines, their representation in the higher echelons of management remains meagre. Most of the people belonging to the lower castes still work in the lower rungs of the organisational setup (where they were supposed to work according to their respective castes) and do menial jobs.

It is not like you would not find people of lower castes any more unemployed as compared to upper castes. In fact it is the other way round, most of the people of lower castes in India are employed and more of upper caste work force is unemployed, this is because most of the lower caste people do manual labour intensive works in the lower rungs of the organisation where it is easy to find employment where as upper castes people do skilled work in the higher echelons and not many jobs are actually available there.

Discrimination occurs when it comes to offering them positions higher up in the hierarchy. This happens to be the upper caste bastion and they don’t want to lose their ground and rarely allow workers from other caste to breach it.

Even if someone is able to breach this barrier and reach the top, he faces lots of difficulty working within the organisation. If there are upper caste workers below him in the hierarchy they will not cooperate with him fully at work. Informal groups within the organisation would come up which would start restricting work.

Article 15(1) of the constitution of India prohibits discrimination broadly; it says that the government cannot discriminate against the citizens on the grounds ‘only’ of religion, race, caste, sex, language and pace of birth. (Granville Austin, 1999)

The government of India has, from time to time right since the constitution came into force on the 26^th of January 1950, made laws to provide protection to the weaker sections of the society. And right from that day the upper castes have challenged these legislations on the ground of being discriminatory. In 1951 The Supreme Court of India, struck down one such legislation (the communal GO) as being discriminatory and unconstitutional as it prohibited a Brahmin from getting entry into a medical school on grounds other than merit. (State of Madras Vs C Dorairajan, AIR 1951 SC 227, cited in Granville Austin, 1999) (Interestingly even the Higher judiciary in India is dominated by the upper castes, though at the moment we have a scheduled caste Chief Justice of India, a first in 60 years of Independence.)

The government had no option but to amend the constitution to accommodate such legislations and the Constituent Assembly acting at that time as the parliament of India promulgated the first amendment to the constitution of India inserting Article 15(4) which said that the state could make special provisions for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Socially and Educationally backward classes of citizens. Since then the constitution has been amended several times in order to remove disparities in the Indian Society. (It must be noted that Article 15 is a fundamental right and Article 15 (4) is no exception to Article 15(1) it is a separate fundamental right guaranteed only to those belonging to the backward classes. And it does not seek to create an exception into the concept of equal opportunities but as a matter of fact modify the definition of equal opportunities in the Indian context.)

Since the very beginning, the government of India has followed a policy of Positive Discrimination (Reservations) in favour of the backward castes. Though it is illegal in UK, it is perfectly legal in India and has shown considerable results in India. The representation of people belonging to the backward classes in the power elite has increased many folds since independence. And there has been a considerable change in the attitude of people as well in relation to their acceptance. Though this is mostly in the urbanised centres and the effect has still to reach the hinterland, where disabilities relating to caste are very much prominent.

The critics of this approach though would say that those who have reached the top never needed any reservations in jobs or education, because they belonged to economically well off families and had the capacity reach the top on their own. But all said and done they forget one major point and that is; discrimination within the organisation is not on economic lines but on caste lines. And even if they were meritorious, would the upper castes who dominate the power elite in India allow them to enter their bastion without resistance? The answer is plain and simple NO. The attitude now may have changed considerably in the cities, but it took 60 years of reservations, and how many more it will take so that it reaches the villages is anybody’s guess. (It must also be noted that more than 70% of India lives in Villages and another 15% in small towns where the effects have been only partial.)

Reservations as a means of positive discrimination has only been able to help the lower castes break free of the caste barriers and reach the top in the organisation even at the cost of merit, but it cannot change the attitude of people. It can only help where people are ready to accept change, and change is least accepted where it relates to losing power. The attitudes will never change if an upper caste worker keeps asking himself; how can a lower caste officer, issue me orders? It will only change if they start believing that both of them are EQUAL.

This also leads us to the modified concept of equal opportunities in India. Equal opportunities has a significance in societies where there is some sort of equality of status, and discrimination is practiced on extraneous factors such as workers not willing to work alongside a particular group of people. But both groups as such should not be treating themselves as any less than other. In other words the conflict is more on ideology, for example, conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Or the opinion among some that disables are any less competent than others or that some person doesn’t wish to employ someone of a different sexual orientation or on part-time basis. In all these cases the conflict is of opinion or ideology, and there is not much difference in the social status of the two groups.

In India the case unfortunately is not so. There is a large difference in the social status of people belonging to lower castes and those belonging to upper castes. In other words India is a primarily unequal society. And everyone cannot be treated equally. Because if we treat unequals equally, we will inevitably lead to more inequality in the society. And therefore in places like India, UNEQUAL TREATMENT AMONG UNEQUALS should be the guiding principle.