Caste, Racism and the Common Threads

Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste (The Lies That Divide Us) has been on my reading list for long. Though I bought it a couple of months ago, only recently I decided to take the plunge into this voluminous book. It delves deep into the race problem in the United States and draws parallels with the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany and the long-standing caste system in India. 

Wilkerson, a New York Times veteran turned academic, feels the term racism is insufficient to encapsulate the systemic oppression of African American people in the US and prefers to use the term ‘caste’, which in Indian society is used to describe a person’s social standing in the well-demarcated hierarchy. 

The term Caste originated from the Portuguese word Casta, meaning race or breed, and it was coined by Portuguese traders. While doing business with their Indian counterparts, these traders observed some well demarcated divisions within Indian society.

Caste has been present in the Indian subcontinent for over a millennium, while the first batch of slaves from Africa came to America around 400 years ago.

The first time I heard the term slavery was when I had to study a small portion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in school. The chapter described some of the sub-human living conditions of slaves in the US in the 18th century. 

Ever since I have been hearing intermittently about the friction between the African Americans and the whites in the US. They become a talking point when there is a Rodney King or George Floyd-type incident of police high-handedness towards African American youths, resulting in widespread protests. Even the term ‘African American’ is a refined and politically correct avatar of Negro or black that was freely used in the 1970s and 80s. 

Caste in India

In India, your status in society gets decided by the accident of birth with Brahmins figuring at the top of the pecking order, followed by Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, and a vast underclass - collectively called Dalits or Bahujans or outcastes. The widespread practice of marrying only within one’s own caste has kept this water-tight segregation alive for centuries. 

This hierarchical order, also known as Brahminical order, is well entrenched with each caste showing deference to those above them and riding roughshod over the less fortunate. The father of the Indian constitution and a Dalit himself, B R Ambedkar, had succinctly termed it as ‘graded inequality’.

Even religions like Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism that profess to be opposed to casteism tend to acknowledge this Brahminical order as a fait accompli of Indian society. In fact, some sects like Syrian Christians in Kerala take pride in their professed Brahmin ancestry before they embraced Christianity.

Racism in the US

In the US, when the founding fathers drafted the Constitution, the welfare of the blacks was not there in their minds. Slavery was considered an accepted practice and a vital element in keeping the US farm sector running on near-zero wage bills.

Even the White House had a slave quarter. The third president Thomas Jefferson, who had authored the epoch-making Declaration of Independence, had fathered six children from one of his slaves.

Though Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in 1865, after a four-year-long civil war, the subsequent rulers did precious little to help the newly freed slaves join the mainstream.

On the contrary, the southern states that had fought against the abolition of slavery during the Civil War introduced the Jim Crow laws (Jim Crow being a pejorative term for an African American). These laws supported racial segregation in public places and proposed a host of other discriminatory measures aimed at keeping the African American community on the fringes of society. 

‘Negroes and dogs not allowed’ boards were proudly flaunted in front of shops and restaurants. Even where they were allowed, blacks were served only after all the white customers had been attended to. Public buildings and movie halls in some towns had separate entrances for blacks and whites, and hospitals had separate wards for black patients. In the armed forces, they had separate barracks for white and black soldiers.

It is said that when World War II was drawing to a close, a school in Columbus, Ohio, held an essay contest with the topic “What to do with Hitler after the war.” An African American girl wrote just one sentence: “Put him in a black skin and let him live the rest of life in America.” The Jim Crow laws remained for around a hundred years in the southern states and were repealed during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. 

Pat from the Nazis

While studying ways and means to prosecute the Jewish community and other minorities, the Nazis were quite impressed by the way the United States had sustained its white supremacy by treating African Americans and other minorities as second-class citizens. 

They were particularly impressed by American eugenicist Madison Grant who firmly believed in Aryan supremacy and was considered close to US Presidents Herbert Hoover and Theodore Roosevelt. Grant had persuaded the US administration in the 1920s to tighten laws related to immigration and interracial marriages. He believed that ‘inferior stocks’ should be sterilized and quarantined in order to get them eliminated. His book ‘The Passage of a Great Race’ advocated ‘cleansing’ the gene pool and had a special place in Adolf Hitler’s library.

The common thread among the ruling class and elites of the US, India, and Germany was the zeal to maintain the purity of the bloodline. In the three countries, there were legal and societal curbs on interracial marriages. 

Another commonality was the ‘sanctity’ in the usage of water. In the US, offices had separate water fountains for white and black employees, and many beaches were out of bounds for African Americans. In India, the Dalits and other lower castes too faced similar restrictions and the Nazi Germany also barred Jews from using many beaches. 

Race Purity

Among the whites, anyone not having Anglo-Saxon blood was considered ‘polluted’. People from other European countries such as Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, and others fell into this category. In fact, Benjamin Franklin, another luminary of the American War of Independence, was concerned about the rising influx of German immigrants to Pennsylvania State and feared that they may ‘Germanize’ the state by imposing their language and culture. 

However despite all these intra-continental prejudices, the European immigrants always enjoyed a privileged status in the US as regardless of their country of origin or vocation, they were slotted in the ‘white’ category once they entered America. Whereas people migrating from Asia, Africa or South America were classified as ‘coloured’ or ‘blacks’. And however successful they are in their careers or businesses they are seen through the lens of their race.

By the 1880s the US policymakers started getting worried that the increased immigration might upset the white supremacy and began imposing curbs, especially those from the non-European countries. The axe first fell on the Chinese in 1882 and this tightening of curbs continued until the 1960s.

Trump Legacy

Donald Trump came to power by tapping the insecurities of white voters. He capitalized on their fears that whites would turn into a minority sometime in the 2040s. His presidency polarized the US society and opened the old wounds of the Civil War era. 

The neo-Confederates, who drew inspiration from the Confederacy movement that fought against the abolition of slavery, started gaining prominence in some of the southern states. Though the Confederacy movement was defeated and slavery was abolished, they remained a force in southern states and subsequent governments did little to keep them in check. The neo-Confederates saw the advent of Trump in the White House as an act of reclaiming their 'glorious past' and this further strained the tenuous racial equation in many cities, leading to violent clashes.

Personal Anecdotes

Wilkerson recounts a few personal anecdotes to highlight the subtle racism in the present-day US. As she lives in a predominantly white neighbourhood, salesmen coming to her house assume she is the housemaid and ask her to call the ‘madam’! She also recalls an unsavoury incident at a restaurant along with her white host. 

She also narrates an interesting nugget regarding Ambedkar. She happened to attend a seminar on casteism organized by a US-based Indian group. The organizers presented her with a small bronze bust of Ambedkar.

When she was in the airport undergoing a security check, the African American security officer spotted it and grew suspicious. He got it closely checked and asked, “Who is this?” Wilkerson thought telling him about Ambedkar would be a laborious process. So she told him: “This is Martin Luther King of India.” 

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Haves and Have-nots

Rohith Vemula's suicide is turning out to be the Rajeev Goswami moment for the Dalit students. The analogy may sound sacrilegious as Rohith and Rajeev espoused diametrically opposite causes, however, they have one thing in common. They both ceased being mere statistic and found their way to the viewfinder of national media and had long shelf lives in public discourse.

For the sake of post-Mandal generation a quick recap. The graphic picture of Rajeev Goswami, a Delhi University student, committing self immolation during an anti-Mandal rally in Delhi in 1990 made him the face of anti-quota agitation.

Back in 1990s the mass media mainly consisted of newspapers and magazines; 24/7 news channels was still few years away, and internet, video platforms like Youtube were still in the realm of science fiction.

Barring some niche publications such as Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) and Mainstream all the popular newspapers and magazines came down heavily against Mandal Commission findings, which advocated reservation for Other Backward Communities, and the then prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

The mainstream media, led by India Today and Indian Express (under Arun Shourie), converged to the singular narrative that reservations kill efficiency in government departments and drain nation's precious resources. Moreover, they argued it was being cornered by a select section among the beneficiaries. Anyone with a differing view had no platform to express - websites, blog posts were still eons away. Their only solace were the niche publications, whose reach was very limited.

Now with Vemula's death the pendulum has swung to the opposite direction. His death has become a rallying cry to highlight the plight of Dalit students in particular and treatment of Dalits by our society in general. Many other instances of suicides by Dalit students, following harassment by classmates and professors at prestigious institutes like IIT Rorkee and AIIMS have come to light. For some Dalits it has now become a 'coming out' moment by revealing their caste, something they had kept tightly under wraps for years.  

Thankfully this time the mainstream media's bias was not as pronounced as in 1990, there is much more diversity and heterogeneity over the issue. Views favouring quota for Dalits and other backward classes are appearing in popular publications, though sometimes with a disclaimer (the views expressed are personal and not that of the publication) and there are many bloggers and independent writers concerned about the plight of Dalits.

However internet trolls against reservation quota, who were quite active in various social media forums, are now working overtime. Even before this issue broke out there was always a steady supply of jokes and memes lampooning reservations and making it appear that those who got college admission or jobs due to quota were dunces and free loaders. After Vemula's death they are now busy digging 'facts' to cast aspersions on his caste. Since his father belongs to an OBC caste and his mother an SC, they have got a toehold to play on. However the fact that Vemula got admission based on merit has taken a lot of wind out of their sails.

But surprisingly the political section that got the most exposed and discredited out of this controversy was not the right wing casteists (their regressive views were quite well known), but the Left parties whose claims of being inclusive rung hollow. Vemula was himself a SFI activist and got disillusioned and joined Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). He had wryly claimed the Leftists may have discarded religion, but not caste!!

While the Vemula struggle was hogging national headlines, Chitralekha a Dalit woman auto driver from Kannur in Kerala was waging a low profile battle by going on an indefinite strike in front of the state secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. She has been waging a lonely battle for a decade against the alleged caste and gender 'intolerance' of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers in Kannur. The CPM-affiliated Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU) workers had prevented her from plying her autorickshaw and even burnt down her vehicle.

Hence it is no wonder that Dalits feel cold shouldered by most mainstream parties, even those professing to be progressive, and float Dalit specific outfits like ASA to fight for their causes.

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Badaun: Nirbhaya Redux

It is turning out to be Nirbhaya redux with Bharatiya characteristics. When Nirbhaya happened in Delhi there were some who said rape was a city phenomenon, it had to do with displacement of population, loose morals, short skirts and even Chinese food and rural India was an idyll insulated from such crimes. For them the verdant fields, cow dung plastered houses were repositories of all that was good with Bharatiya sanskriti (culture) and it blinded them from all the atrocities happening there. But the recent grisly footages of two Dalit women hung to a mango tree in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun district comes as a chilling reminder.

Most parts of rural India are no strangers to these kinds of ghastly crimes against women, done more out of sense of entitlement or to show someone their place than to satisfy lust. But the exploiter-exploited caste matrix seems to have changed. Earlier the oppressors used to be Thakurs and other upper castes, but now it is increasingly Yadavs, who figure among OBCs, thanks to the upward mobility and political clout acquired over the years. With it has come a sense of entitlement to oppress those in the lower rungs of caste hierarchy.

The flippant patriarchal mindset among our politicians which was on display during Nirbhaya tragedy is very much intact. In post-Nirbhaya days when laws on eve teasing were being tightened, Sharad Yadav wondered how will youths indulge in 'mohabattein'. Recently Mulayam Singh Yadav said boys make 'mistakes' and should not be hanged for crime like rape.

For Akhilesh Yadav under whom the state's crime graph has docked into an orbit unheard of even by UP standards, this is time for cheap retorts, with no room for remorse or sensitivity. His snide remark to a scribe asking whether she faced any danger was reminiscent of 'painted and dented' remarks by Pranab Mukherjee's son and Sanjay Nirupam's 'thumka' remark against Smriti Irani. But being a Chief Minister and responsible for the state's law and order this remark scores much higher in terms of crassness quotient.

For opposition parties, with next election in their minds, Badaun has now become a new 'rape tourism' destination. Long motorcades of red beacon Ambassadors and high-end SUVs on dusty roads, hurriedly constructed helipads and hordes of TV crew, it is indeed a mela time for all except for the bereaved girls' family.

One positive fallout of this incident is that the issue of toilets and sanitation have come to the fore with an added dimension of women's safety, as open defecation leaves them vulnerable to attacks. The issue had somehow tapered off after former minister Jairam Ramesh had triggered a national debate over it.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat