Caste hierarchy creates a form of cultural wealth through inventing “meritorious” capacities for “people like us” and violent and uncivilised characteristics for others. (C R Sasikumar)
There is a popular idea in some sections of Indian society that describing the caste system actually intensifies its effects and that if you don’t talk about caste, it will, somehow, go away. The idea of not talking about caste as a strategy of addressing it has a relatively long history in the modern life of the nation. A 1980s’ official history of a famous boys’ public school noted that students “lost” their caste identity simply because the “school deliberately plays down these differences by a common uniform, the same food… irrespective of the background of the student”. The school had been part of a certain strand within early Indian liberalism and its students went on to occupy important positions in public life.
I remember a conversation with an ex-student of the same school, one that reiterated the point of view that caste is, in some undefined manner, merely a matter of memory, thought and conversation. And that it has no material reality: You just have to think yourself beyond it. After finishing school, my co-conversationalist proceeded to apply for college admissions. “The first shock that I got was when I filled my college form”, he narrated with incredulity. “It asked for my caste… I didn’t know! There was no discussion of caste at all at my school.”
If there is one thing Rahul Gandhi has learnt, it is that one can only afford to forget caste — and think yourself beyond it — if one does not suffer from any of its ill-effects. Those who do not think that caste is important are usually the ones whose life chances have not been affected by it. The ability to forget caste indicates privilege and not the absence of caste.
Caste discrimination operates both formally and informally, visibly and invisibly. There is no such thing as a “caste-free” context in India and caste identity is fundamentally related to one’s life chances. Informal discrimination (everyday attitudes, say) lead to low self-worth and formal ones (lack of material resources, for example) define the kinds of activities one is able to pursue and career choices that become available. When Rahul Gandhi speaks of the lack of “lower caste” representation in beauty pageants, he makes a fundamental point about the nature of caste discrimination. The comment is only tangentially about one particular event and much more about the importance of recognising that it isn’t just the clearly visible aspects of discrimination that cripple human capacity. The invisible shackles of caste attitude are just as important. There is a deep relationship between informal and formal processes of discrimination and the one reinforces the other.
Rahul Gandhi’s comment about beauty pageants is hardly about introducing “reservation” in such an event. Rather, it should force us to ask three questions: “What kinds of attitudes inhibit participation by certain groups?” “What kinds of material resources are required to take part in them?” And “Which groups possess both the cultural and economic wealth to take part in them and how did they come to have them?” The beauty pageant might seem like an unlikely context for these kinds of questions about the nature of power but, actually, it has much to tell us about the actually existing distribution of cultural and economic resources.
It is relatively easy to track the distribution of economic resources though the discipline of economics hardly has any worthwhile tools for thinking about cultural wealth that is passed down through upper caste families. For this, you need other means.
Conversations in household sitting rooms, university seminar halls and membership-only clubs are good places to get an idea of the nature of distribution of cultural wealth. Over the past few years, I have been talking to a variety of people about the booming land market in southern Haryana that has catapulted many peasant landowners into the league of the super-rich. Whenever I am in the company of middle and upper caste locals and bureaucrats, the discussion almost invariably veers towards descriptions of caste as a biological fact. Such conversations usually begin with establishing how people like “us” — my interlocutor and I — well understand the “genetic” basis of caste. Building upon this line of discussion, one of my co-conversationalists once noted that the history of certain castes was entwined with robbery and those of others with thieving and violence. “That effect”, he concluded, “is bound to remain”.
Caste as aptitude, inclination and behaviour has a relatively long history. Some of this history — such as that which relates to the nature of the so-called criminal castes and tribes — is of colonial origin. However, the key point is the manner in which it constitutes shared consciousness and cultural wealth among the privileged. Within this way of thinking, specific castes are “genetically” meritorious and inherently suited towards certain activities, while others lack the attributes of merit. As a university colleague and I recently discovered, it is an attitude that is also prevalent among some section of the academic community: An editor of a prominent UK-based academic journal informed us that a certain community had played a prominent role in the 1984 killings of Sikhs in Delhi as violence was in its nature as a caste. That almost every caste and class participated in the 1984 violence went unacknowledged.
Caste hierarchy creates a form of cultural wealth through inventing “meritorious” capacities for “people like us” and violent and uncivilised characteristics for others. It is this that forms the informal means of discrimination that Rahul Gandhi’s comments about beauty pageants should direct us to. The absence of “lower castes” from such events results from the persistence of both informal and formal processes of caste discrimination about who can do what. Simply not talking about caste does not make either process disappear. It only entrenches the existing distribution of cultural and economic wealth.
The writer is British Academy Global Professor, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS University of London
