“Untouchability is dreadfully evil ai than king cobra, but in the hands become a plaything,” an old man in west made a goodnatured crack last week A young Harijan of the same village, who wished to be called dalit (what he really is), instead of the euphemistic name given by Mahatama Gandhi, brashly picked up the conversation and said:*Our politics hinges on this single item of political hardware, or it will come unstuck. Don’t you know if the 10year reservation is ended and the inducements that keep the Dalits within the Hindu fold are no more, leading political parties (including the ruling party) would be found groveling in dust.” He painted a grim scenario in which 370 million SCs/STs might then decide to make common cause with more than 100 million Muslims and do, God knows, what.
The Indian polity does not want to fill the quota of seats reserved for the Dalits in various branches of Government, averred a young SC hopeful and narrated a recent personal experience. On July 25, when at a meeting of SC/ST Government officers in Vigyan Bhavan, the Prime Minister lamented the paucity of SC/ST candidates for Government jobs, he stood up to ask for which posts candidates were not available, he was brusquely asked to sit down as that was not the occasion for a debate. Neither has he been made wiser since then.
An old, wizened dalit made a sporting offer:
“Let reservation go immediately, provided discrimination also goes simultaneously.”
It is not that the dalits have not thought about a solution of their monumental problem. They suggest a seemingly small solution, which has a potential for far-reaching consequences, Let caste labels be ostracized for use as person’s surnames.
That is, no longer should Sharma, Misra, Dikshit, Goyal, Gupta, Singhal and Chauhan be tolerated and in their place no telltale surnames such as Singh, Prasad, Shankar and Dutt might be used by all, irrespective of caste.
The flaunting of caste surnames consigns the dalits to unequal treatment from the word “go” while universal use of no telltale sumames would help integration. A surname would no longer be an index of a person’s caste status. In examinations as well as interviews, who belongs to which caste would not be known and every candidate would receive fair and equal treatment.
Do SCs/STs have, intrinsically, low caliber? Most of those belonging to higher castes tend to believe it and attribute the SCs/STs presence in their midst as colleagues or seniors as a gift of reservation. It is not so, shout those at the bottom of the caste totem pole and ask derisively who wrote the two Indian epics and the Constitution. A Bhangi wrote the Ramayana, a Chamar the Mahabharata and a Mahar the Indian Constitution!
The SCs/ STs are themselves not averse to ending the reservation, which makes them unduly dependent on Government largesse, most of which does not in any case reach them. Why even after more than 40 years 18 earn for SCs/STs in Government service are unfilled, while reserved j with impunity? Jobs are regularly deserved.
In spite of the careful definition x SCs/STs and the laying down of, doers, the law is generally observed in its breach a caste police officials do not let themselves be shockers scandalized by gruesome atrocities against Even heinous rape cases are not Registered, are minor cases of discrimination at a well, a tea 6 bi 5 at shop. What the, SC5/STs ask, is the use of ness together yet another bill for the prevention of actress against SCs/STs and institute of special courts of expeditious disposal of police cases, if possible playing footsie with the violators of SCs/STs fundamental rights?
By the dictionary meaning, untouchability is what relates to one “who could not or should not be touched.” But SCs/STs are not looked down as essentially unclean.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 15, 1989
