Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
This book examines the interplay between state identifications of groups and
their own sense of politicized identity. The quota system for disadvantaged
groups in government employment, higher education and legislative bodies fails
to reflect the complex interactions of caste, class, religion and gender. This book
seeks to address this by contrasting official classifications with social identities
as articulated by protest groups.
Using empirical data including court decisions, caste certificates, census
categories and contemporary interviews, the author challenges theories of
identity construction and illuminates the impact of colonial and contemporary
policies on identity politics. Jenkins assesses the impact of the dynamic
processes of intermarriage, religious conversion and migration on the process of
official classification.
This in-depth study, combining primary research with theories of identity from
a number of different fields in humanities and social sciences, will appeal to
scholars interested in identity politics, Indian politics and Asian studies.
Laura Dudley Jenkins is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University
of Cincinnati, USA.
Identity and Identification in
India
Defining the disadvantaged
Acknowledgments v
Appendices
Appendix I: Government documents 182
Appendix II: Interviewees 209
Notes 213
Bibliography 232
Index 252
Acknowledgments
meals to dynamic ideas, I owe a huge debt to Kristy Bright, Sushma Sharma,
Jeanette Dorner, Brian Axel, Maribeth Kobza, Durba Ghosh, Mona Siegel,
Melissa Brown, Elizabeth Frierson, Annulla Linders, Mira Seghal, Anne
Caldwell, Brenda Allwardt, Scott Kloek-Jenson, Kate Graney, Manu Bhagavan,
Chenyu Sun, Haimanti Roy, Sister Gemma, Chandra Mallampalli, David, Karen,
Bill, Vera, Jim and Michelle Dudley, Kim and Erin Jenkins and many others.
Above all, I want to thank Chris Jenkins, who helped in innumerable ways
through the whole project, and little Isabelle Maya, who showed up part way
through.
1
Identity and identification
Metcalf 1995); other examples are certain feminist and postmodern theorists who
focus on “hybridity” and the impossibility of unitary categories (Friedman 1995,
Bhabha 1994, Essed 2001) and literary figures whose personal experiences and
writings attest to the dangers of classification (Fanon 1967, Rushdie 1995).
Some scholars are particularly wary of categories when they are used by
governments in public policies. Arjun Appadurai is critical of the “officially
enforced labeling activities” associated with the colonial and postcolonial Indian
state’s policies. Eschewing the classification and counting of peoples, he argues
that “statistics are to bodies and social types what maps are to territories: they
flatten and enclose” (Appadurai 1993:326, 334). James C.Scott, examining
various ways states have organized societies schematically and treated people
according to these categories, discusses the disasters associated with even well-
intended “state simplifications” in authoritarian situations, ranging from
scientific forestry to compulsory resettlement (Scott 1998).6 Such critical work
raises corollary questions: What are the outcomes when similar simplifications
are used in colonial situations and, later, under democratic conditions, as in the
case of reservations in India? When simplified categories used to demean or
segregate become tools to undo the effects of that history, do the negative
consequences of using those categories evaporate or linger? To those skeptical of
official classifications, state categories seem unlikely vehicles for justice or
emancipation. My research challenges blanket assumptions that such categories
are dangerous but is attuned to the potential limitations and pitfalls of
categorization.
A second, and equally varied, group of scholars focuses on the instrumental
constructions of identities, illuminating how classifications not only can be a tool
of violence or oppression but also can be turned to the advantage of oppressed
groups. Since a focus on the multiplicity of identities fragments any given social
group, students of social movements have censured theoretical emphasis for
disabling transformative politics (Handler 1992). For example, in the United
States some African-American scholars criticize what has been called the
“postmodern conspiracy to explode racial identity” by constantly drawing
attention to the diversity within racial groupings (Fletcher 1994). Social theorists
have criticized the tendency of some constructivists to give equal weight to very
different axes of identity—all being constructions—and thus underemphasize the
particular oppression and lack of choice associated with racism or casteism.
This approach is echoed in former Indian Prime Minister V.P. Singh’s defense of
a reservation policy based on caste: “[I]f there is discrimination by birth, then in
delivering the remedy, identification of victims of such an order can be only
done by birth. So the remedy will also have to refer to birth, not because caste
has to be sanctified, but…there is a practical need to refer to birth” (Singh
interview 20 November 1996). In the United States, Supreme Court Justice
Blackmun made a similar argument: “In order to get beyond racism, we must
first take account of race. There is no other way.” Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke, 438 US 265, 407 (1978), Blackmun, J., concurring. Those
who advocate this approach contribute to the debate on categories by retaining a
practical and progressive concern with social and political outcomes, but at times
they fail to fully appreciate the implications of adopting and using certain
categories.
Blending these theoretical approaches, I accept the potential utility of
categories but also take into account the complexity of identity and dangers of
oversimplification. For example, I find that even previously degraded and
internally diverse caste and racial categories have been embraced as potent tools
of empowerment. In India, “[t]oday something quite different is happening: the
very sufferers from the system (including the caste system) are invoking caste
identity and claims” (Kothari 1994:1589). A poem of lower caste unity, “Hum
Dalit” (We the Oppressed), shared with me by a lower caste woman, transforms
the categories of oppressor and oppressed into the compensator and the
compensated.
Thus any category, even caste, may be turned into a tool of empowerment, but
categories often make blunt tools. By emphasizing her caste identity in this poem,
the author downplays her gender identity and distinct experience of oppression
as a Dalit woman. Adopting a category such as “caste” to fight against caste-
based discrimination can subsume other significant identities and result in
contradictions.
In India, where people are, ironically, claiming to be backward (at least in the
official sense) in order to benefit from reservations, such contradictions abound.
Anthropologist Dorinne Kondo notes that people may “simultaneously resist and
reproduce, challenging and reappropriating meanings as they also undermine
those challenges” (Kondo 1990:221). Such seeming paradoxes—embracing
backwardness or recycling older categories—are inherent parts of reservation
policies and politics, which reproduce yet also reconstruct certain categories of
identity in the name of ending oppression.
POLICIES OF IDENTIFICATION
The theoretical and practical conundrum I address through my research is that
people have multilayered identities; yet those who have faced discrimination
may choose to emphasize precisely those disparaged identities in order to
subvert more invidious distinctions through group-based organizations and
policies. I find that such organizations often contest boundaries even as they rally
around categories of identity. My findings challenge assumptions that group-
based policies are divisive and suggest that it is possible to develop policies that
both recognize disadvantaged groups and reflect some of the complexity of
identity. These findings about the potential and the perils of state classifications
have practical implications for the many countries using social categories for
public policies.
Policies of affirmative action, promoting educational and employment
opportunities for disadvantaged groups, can be found in many countries, ranging
from India to Northern Ireland (on the basis of religion) and the United States
(on the basis of race and sex) (Jenkins 1998, Wyzan 1990, Nesiah 2000). In
addition to affirmative action, several other policies to accommodate cultural
diversity depend on the official use of social categories such as ethnicity, race,
IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION 9
not “real” tend to confound race or caste with racism or casteism.11 It is racism
and casteism that affirmative action or reservation policies are supposed to
counteract, and these are all too real. Acknowledging this may necessitate the use
of categories for a while longer, yet must we give up on eventually achieving
“life without clear boundaries”? Can policies recognize both continuing
discrimination and the complexity of identity?
I contemplate revisions to group-based policies by considering the variety of
categories emerging from different institutions of government and by studying
protest groups that both utilize these categories and challenge their boundaries.
For example, some groups favor what they consider to be more scientific or
objective policies based on class or economic criteria. Policy-makers sometimes
combine different categories to better reflect society, as in the combinations of
caste and class criteria in India. Such attempts can be difficult, as in the
designation of the controversial lists of Other Backward Classes in India. Recent
efforts to exclude a so-called “creamy layer,” or well off members, from the
Other Backward Classes, have shown some promise, although a lack of reliable
economic data complicates enforcement. India also has experience with different
combinations of caste and religious categories and is facing competing demands
to combine caste, class and gender considerations in legislative reservations. The
periodic re-evaluation of policies and categories in India also helps to reflect
social changes, but there is a fine line between adjusting policies and descending
into a massive proliferation of categories for each and every possible
combination of identities. Moreover, the corruption that thwarts the
administration of increasingly complex policies and the political momentum that
hinders attempts to revise lists are challenges that should not be underestimated.
Despite these potential pitfalls, some proposals and innovations in India offer
models from which the rest of the world might learn.
identities. For example, in colonial India, the recording of castes in the census
contributed to the formation of interest groups that lobbied census
commissioners to try to improve their official caste rankings (Rudolph and
Rudolph 1967).
Colonial legacies shape contemporary identity politics. Fascinating accounts
trace conflicts between communities back to the legacies of colonial states or
discuss the wide-ranging after-effects of colonial rule on cultures and identities
(Pandey 1992, Prakash 1995). Building on this literature, I demonstrate in the
following chapters that some colonial practices persist in the postcolonial era.
One example is a court ruling that evidence of tribal affiliation from the colonial
era has more value than contemporary proof. Another example is that of
administrators and ethnographers who still refer to lists of “castes” made in
colonial times to codify two distinct and relatively fluid concepts, jati and
varna.12 By documenting the continuing influence of historical assumptions,
rules and practices, I build on criticisms of colonial states by demonstrating the
continuing relevance of such criticisms in the postcolonial era.
Contemporary states continue to shape social identities. Sociologist Ali
Rattansi describes the social construction of identities as a three-pronged
process, “involving processes of ‘self-identification’ as well as formation by
disciplinary agencies such as the state, and including the involvement of the
social sciences, given their incorporation in the categorization and distributive
activities of the state” (Rattansi 1995:257). Colonial anthropologists and census
takers were not the last data collectors to spark political responses. Michael
White and Sharon Sassler, in the field of population studies, draw attention to
how “issues of ethnic identification and assimilation are intertwined with the
data collection mechanisms used by official agencies” (White and Sassler 1995:
470). These contemporary analyses suggest that state identifications, whether
legal, administrative or scientific, continue to interact with and influence identity
claims.
Recognizing that reservation policies, and the group boundaries they depend
on, had precedents in India well before independence allows me to consider
whether current classifications for more progressive purposes are as divisive in
practice as colonial classifications, which have been characterized as “efforts to
render fluid and confusing social and political relationships into categories
sufficiently static and reified and thereby useful to colonial understanding and
control” (Stoler and Cooper 1996:11). Drawing a stark contrast between
oppressive colonial polices and benevolent postcolonial policies would ignore
the multiple actors and multiple motives at play in both periods. The imperatives
of state building in colonial and postcolonial times may be more similar than is
commonly assumed, and the Indian state’s colonial and contemporary impulses
to categorize and record identities have been remarkably resilient. Crispin Bates,
writing on racial theory in India, notes that “its applications were not uniquely
12 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
imperial but characteristic, much more generally, of the modus operandi of the
modern, centralized, bureaucratic state” (Bates 1995:222). Whether inspired by a
desire for control or for equity, or by a complex combination of these motives,
official classification often goes hand in hand with centralization; simplification
accompanies administration. That said, the shift to an independent, democratic
Indian state in 1947 resulted in new dynamics and dilemmas as the government
decided not only to use some colonial-era categories but also to create a modified
system of reservation policies.
When a government identifies certain groups of citizens as the targets of a
policy, state identification and social identity become intertwined. Charles
Taylor recognizes this “dialogical” nature of identity construction: “[O]ur
identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the
misrecognition of others.” He argues that “the supposedly fair and difference-
blind society is not only inhuman (because suppressing identities) but also, in a
subtle and unconscious way, itself highly discriminatory” (Taylor 1994:34, 25,
43). According to this line of argument, states that use social categories for
policies like reservations risk “misrecognizing” some people, but the alternative,
not recognizing any particular groups, may be even more damaging to groups
and their identities. My research shows that groups who feel they have been
misrecognized (or inaccurately targeted by state policies) often protest against
the boundaries of state categories but still prefer the use of the categories to
nonrecognition. This finding highlights the continuing importance of state
recognition in constructions of group identities.
My interest in such state-society interactions through time also inspires my
focus on social resistance to state definitions, both historical and contemporary.
Even in colonial states, “the novel communal partitioning of society was not
simply implanted from above and beyond. An intricate dialectic unfolded”
(Young 1994:234). Various societal voices have been overlooked in the rush to
describe state, particularly colonial state, constructions of societies. Historian
Robert Eric Frykenberg points out that many scholars:
give too much credit to Europeans and too little to hosts of Native Indians
(mainly Brahmans and others imbued with Brahmanical world views; but
also Muslims imbued with Islamic world views) for the cultural
constructions (and reconstructions) of India. These Indian elites did as
much to inculcate their own views into the administrative machinery and
the cultural framework of the Indian Empire.
(Frykenberg 1993:534)
For they have many stories to tell—stories which for their complexity are
unequaled by statist discourse and indeed opposed to its abstract and
oversimplifying modes.
(Guha 1996:3)
My historical and contemporary focus on individuals and groups who resist the
state classification schemes gives me a unique view of the “meeting point of
state and society” (Skocpol 1985:27), where simplified state identifications and
complex social identities coincide or clash.
THE CATEGORIES
“Caste” has historically been used as a rough translation of the indigenous term
jati, referring to countless “birth groups” that vary depending on context and
region, or of another term, varna, which literally means “color” and refers to an
idealized hierarchy of brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas, shudras, and, below all of
these, the avarna (castes outside the varna system), sometimes referred to as
“untouchables.”14 These divisions, codified in ancient writings of the
subcontinent such as the Vedas (1500–1000 BC) and the Manavadharmasastra
(first century AD), are associated with different occupations and accompanied by
rules of behavior and ideas of purity. In reality such divisions are more
ambiguous and regionally varied than the codifications suggest; nevertheless,
caste continues to play a major role in the lives of many Indians, often having a
profound effect on opportunities in terms of residence, education, occupation,
social interaction and marriage (Bayly 1999:8–10, Searle-Chatterjee and Sharma
1994, Quigley 1993).15
The official Scheduled Caste category encompasses the “untouchables” or
Dalits, who are considered to be at the bottom of the caste system. Dalit, which
means “oppressed” or “ground down,” is the name currently preferred by
many.16 Previously known as the “depressed classes,” the Scheduled Caste
category was created by the colonial government in 1936 in order to implement
the 1935 Government of India Act. This act gave special electoral representation
to certain minority groups, including untouchables. After independence the
14 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
Scheduled Caste list was re-enacted with the Scheduled Caste Order of 1950,
prepared for the purpose of reservations.
The Scheduled Tribes, also known in parts of India as adivasis, are “those
groups distinguished by ‘tribal characteristics’ and by their spacial and cultural
isolation from the bulk of the population” (Galanter 1984: 147). In many cases,
Scheduled Tribes are hardly as isolated as many official and scholarly
descriptions make them out to be (Guha 1999). Historically, several groups have
crossed the line between tribe and caste, as tribes became absorbed into their
local caste hierarchies, generally in the lower ranks (Roy 1994). Although the
term “tribe” evokes a “problematic legacy of evolutionary anthropology,” tribes
in some cases have “transformed it from a stigmatized label into a political asset
and collective identity” (Karlsson 2001:37, n. 4). In spite of such instances of
social interaction and mobility, the groups dubbed Scheduled Tribes are among
the most socially and economically disadvantaged groups in India (Karlsson
2001:11). Survey data confirms that “Scheduled Castes and Tribes are more
likely to be among the most deprived of India as compared to the upper castes”
(Mitra and Singh 1999:196).17 The Scheduled Tribe category was also listed and
included as a protected minority in the 1935 Government of India Act and later
recognized in the Indian constitution for policy purposes including
reservations.18
No method is specified in the constitution to define a third category in India,
the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), except that the President should appoint a
Backward Classes Commission (Article 340). Several states within India have
had such commissions from time to time, and some have long histories of special
policies for the Other Backward Classes at the state level (Brass 1994:253–64,
Bayly 1999).19 Prior to the current National Backward Classes Commission,
which was recently institutionalized as a permanent government office to
monitor the lists of backward classes and policies for them, there were two other
national level commissions which submitted reports in 1955 and 1980. The
latter, known as the Mandal Commission Report, served as a basis for extending
reservations in central government jobs to the Other Backward Classes in 1990.
The term Backward Classes has had a variety of local usages, but notably, in
spite of the use of the word “class,” the category has generally not been defined
by applying solely economic criteria to individuals. The constitutional debate
suggests that Backward Classes were to be a list of castes or communities, rather
than lower classes in general (Kumar 1994:1). The Supreme Court in Indra
Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) ruled that both caste and poverty should be
considered when determining the backwardness of groups (Faundez 1994:23–
4).20 Generally speaking, the Other Backward Classes are economically
and socially depressed castes or communities, such as lower castes that are not
considered untouchables or other similarly disadvantaged non-Hindu
communities.
IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION 15
and Tribes have made gains in public employment but not enough to close the
gap between them and the general population (Sudarsen 1994).
Reservations also assure Scheduled Castes and Tribes representation in
legislatures and higher educational institutions. In the 1996 elections, for
example, over 19 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha were held by members of
Scheduled Castes or Tribes (Planning Commission 1997–2002:3.9.23). In the
educational sphere, the Ministry of Education requested all states to reserve 15
per cent of seats for Scheduled Castes and 5 per cent for Scheduled Tribes in
their universities, and such quotas have been widely adopted although, again, not
always effectively implemented (Galanter 1984:63, Dushkin 1979). While
Scheduled Castes and Tribes have increased in general courses, their proportion
in professional courses such as medicine and engineering has lagged and, at
times, decreased (Chanana 1993). Other Backward Classes, on the other hand,
have substantial reservations in professional schools in a number of states
(Galanter 1984). Quantitative generalizations about the effect of reservations on
the Other Backward Classes are complicated by the disparate policies in
different states, the gradual implementation of new policies in recent years, and
the lack of census data on this category, all issues to be addressed in the
following chapters.
Many evaluations of these policies implicitly or explicitly point to the
difficulties of defining which sort of groups are the most appropriate beneficiaries
of reservations. For example, some argue that women of the Scheduled Tribes or
other targeted groups remain “doubly disadvantaged” (Dunn 1993:53, Chanana
1993). Although female literacy rates have risen, a significant gap remains
between the literacy rate of women of all communities (39 per cent) compared to
Scheduled Caste women (24 per cent) and Scheduled Tribe women (18 per cent),
making reservations of university admissions or of higher level government jobs
irrelevant for many (Planning Commission 1997–2002: Table 3.9.2, data from a
1995 Department of Education study). On the basis of a survey of low caste
elites, some scholars argue for economically based reservations, pointing to those
who benefit under the current system and use their new status “as a spring board
for further advances leaving behind not only their recollected history but also
their unfortunate community” (Roy and Singh 1987:142, 152). Subgroups may
be left behind, but others point to the positive effects of even a section within
each category advancing. “[T]here is a sizable section of these groups who can
utilize these opportunities and confer advantages on their children; their
concerns are firmly placed on the political agenda and cannot readily be
dislodged” (Galanter 1986:139). In short, the effectiveness of these policies
varies within the categorized groups, a situation which has sparked some of the
protests and proposed policy revisions featured in the following chapters.
IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION 17
OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS
Part I:
State simplifications
The chapters of Part I document how states try to fit complex social groups into
standardized categories. Drawing on government documents and interviews with
state officials, including administrators, judges, and anthropologists, I examine
how these authorities execute reservation policies. The oversimplifications of
society which have accompanied reservations bear some resemblance to their
historical precedents, as they sometimes “freeze” identities. State authority can
add longevity or clout to categories, even when officials themselves often
recognize that they are oversimplified.
The courts are the focus of Chapter 2. I consider three contemporary court
cases featuring people making ambiguous claims for reserved opportunities. The
cases involve two sisters admitted into a college due to dubious certification as
members of a Scheduled Tribe, a woman in an intercaste marriage employed in a
reserved job on the basis of her husband’s status as a member of a Backward
Class, and a convert to Hinduism who claimed his Christian parents’ former
Scheduled Caste status. The circumstances leading to these cases illustrate the
malleability of some identities. The decisions demonstrate the legal imperative to
fit individuals into the official policy categories. Even while trying to assure a
progressive outcome for the most disadvantaged citizens, judges’ decisions over
reservation categories have had conservative outcomes, including legal
reinforcement of the notion that caste is determined at birth.
In Chapter 3, I examine legacies of colonial anthropology for current
government classifications. A comparison of Herbert Risley’s turn of the century
People of India and the contemporary “People of India” project carried out by
the Anthropological Survey of India demonstrates that both projects emphasized
caste classification, blurred the line between anthropology and administration
and became embroiled in political controversy. Whether colonial or postcolonial,
these projects served the needs of the state in similar ways. The reaction to these
projects differed, however, since the new study used some of the administrative
categories associated with reservations. In response, various groups complained
of imposter communities in the Scheduled Caste volume, criticized reservations
on the basis of the project’s findings, and even sponsored alternative studies in
order to demonstrate their own qualifications for backward status.
Chapter 4 turns to bureaucrats and regulations involved in codifying status in
the form of caste certificates and lists. Getting an individual caste certificate is a
necessary step to qualify for reservations. Interviews with bureaucrats and a
review of their rules demonstrate the risks of labeling and stigmatizing
individuals in the process of implementing reservation policies and the
18 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
Part II:
Political complications
Various protest groups are refusing to be “simplified” by the state. Based on my
interviews with political activists, officials, and politicians as well as my review
of protest group literature, I compare diverse attempts to reconstruct reservation
policy categories by disrupting the previous boundaries of eligible groups.
Various groups challenge the existing policies, and each other, by prioritizing
caste, religion, class or gender. These overlapping identities splinter both the
official categories and the political groups calling them into question.
The intersection of religion and caste has resulted in competing demands,
which are the topic of Chapter 6. I focus on protest groups from two minority
religions. First, some Muslims are asserting that all Indian Muslims should be
eligible for reservations, while others argue that class and even caste distinctions
within the Muslim community must be the basis for reservation categories.
Second, Dalit Christians are demanding recognition as Scheduled Castes in spite
of their doctrinally caste-free religion. These “Scheduled Caste Christians” face
challenges from other Christians opposed to an official caste distinction within
their community and from other Scheduled Castes opposed to an increase in the
number of competitors for reserved opportunities. These cases demonstrate how
IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION 19
State simplifications
2
Adjudicating identities
In the novel The God of Small Things, the protagonist Rahel grows up between
communities. Having a Hindu father from north India and a Christian mother
from the south makes her unclassifiable; an intercaste relationship that defies
classifications underlies the central tragedy of her story. Like Rahel and her jam,
some people do not fit into a clearcut schemata provided by the state. Scholars may
carry on open-ended debates over the complex and contingent meanings of
religious, regional, or caste-based identities, but when such terms are used in
public policies, government officials—and, in particular, judges—are often
forced to draw boundaries.
Reservation policies based on categories defined by caste, tribe or class have
resulted in much litigation involving people with identities that are difficult to
categorize. Three recent Supreme Court cases illustrate the challenges of legally
defining the disadvantaged in India. One case involves a family that cannot
“prove” that it is in a certain category; a second features a person who falls
between categories due to her intercaste marriage; and a third considers a person
who changes categories through religious conversion. These borderline cases
challenge a policy framework dependent upon social classifications that, often
necessarily, oversimplify society. As Christopher A.Ford discusses, one of the
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 23
Judges and administrators are less fortunate than social scientists: they
must at some point draw lines between rival claimants, rewarding one and
sending the other home empty handed. However analytically “soft” a
particular classification may be, making it a centerpiece of governmental
resource-allocation will require that it be “hardened” dramatically.
(Ford 1994:1234)
arose due to a rule that, to benefit from reservations, people must apply to the
government for certificates verifying that they are members of a Scheduled
Caste, Scheduled Tribe or Other Backward Class. The sisters in question had in
fact applied for and received Scheduled Tribe certificates as members of the
“Mahadeo Koli” tribe and were admitted into the college, but they still had to
apply to the state government’s “verification committee” (also referred to as a
“scrutiny committee”) to confirm their status as members of a Scheduled Tribe.
The verification committee eventually decided that the sisters were actually
“Koli” rather than “Mahadeo Koli.” In their state, Maharashtra, the “Mahadeo
Koli” are an officially recognized Scheduled Tribe, but the “Koli” are an Other
Backward Class (208). The verification committee “canceled and confiscated”
their Scheduled Tribe certificates, throwing their admissions under the Scheduled
Tribe reservation into question (208). In this case the sisters appealed to the
courts in order to continue their studies.
The Supreme Court ruled that the sisters were indeed Kolis and members of the
Other Backward Classes, a category which is considered less backward than the
Scheduled Tribes and which, in this case, would not have been as beneficial for
gaining college admission. Although Other Backward Classes do benefit from
reservations in higher education in many states, the Scheduled Tribes reservations
more often go unfilled, thus making this a potentially more useful designation
for admission purposes. For example, although the number of Scheduled Tribe
university students has increased, their numbers in certain subjects, particularly
medicine, is “too small and insignificant” (Chanana 1993:136). Only 2101
Scheduled Tribe students were studying medicine in India in 1988–9, and only
526 of these were Scheduled Tribe women, who made up less than 1 per cent of
all medical students (Chanana 1993:136). Thus it was easier for the Patil sisters
to get into their medical college as members of a Scheduled Tribe.
The court agreed with the verification committee that the sisters’ Scheduled
Tribe status should be revoked, although they allowed one sister, who had by the
time of their decision almost completed her studies, to sit for the final year
examination. The court ruled that the second sister could continue her studies if
she was eligible for admission as a “general candidate,” that is, without the
benefit of the seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes (218). The court concluded that
such identity claims “must be judged on [a] legal and ethnological basis. Spurious
tribes have become a threat to the genuine tribals and the present case is a typical
example of [how] reservation of benefits given to the genuine claimants have
been snatched away by spurious tribes” (213). The decision goes on to spell out
in great detail the proper procedure for verifying identities for the purpose of
social status certificates.
The court’s suspicion regarding “spurious” claims to Scheduled Tribe status is
a response to a perceived trend associated with reservations, the proliferation of
people claiming to be in one of the various backward categories. In contrast to
26 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
the process which eminent sociologist M.N. Srinivas called sanskritization (the
process of lower caste groups raising their status by emulating the practices of
upper castes), some individuals and groups are engaging in “desanskritization”
by purposefully making claims to belong to lower status caste or tribal groups
(Srinivas 1966:6, 1989:20, 56–7, Karanth 1996:94–5).2 Ironically, there are now
benefits to gaining one of the Scheduled or Backward labels, at least in a legal
sense. Such a designation carries potential opportunities, such as preferential
admission to college or quotas for government jobs, which may motivate some
individuals and even entire groups to try to claim a backward status, despite the
continuing social stigma of such a label. For example, whereas without the
incentive of reservations, the Patil sisters might have aspired to claim the Koli
status (still backward but arguably less so), in this case they claimed the more
backward Mahadeo Koli status.
Policy incentives to claim a previously degraded social category as one’s own
could conceivably have some broader, positive social and cultural implications,
perhaps by gradually reducing the stigma of such a category or at least blurring
the boundaries. On the other hand, at a practical level, such claims could
undermine reservations by taking economic and educational opportunities away
from what the court calls “genuine” Scheduled Castes or Tribes. Yet the term
“genuine” implies a clarity that many identities do not have.
Although this is not addressed in the court’s decision, it is notable that the
Koli of Maharashtra have organized as the Adivasi Koli Mahasangh (AKM) to
demand Scheduled Tribe status on the grounds that “real tribals” should get
reservation benefits; moreover, the state home minister told a crowd of 35,000
that “their demands are genuinely legal and correct” (Times of India, 27 July
2001).3 This development not only provides an example of group-level
desanskritization but also highlights the ambiguity clouding the very category
claimed by the sisters, which precludes definitive conclusions about their
“genuine” or “spurious” identities.
In the Patil sisters’ case, the court admonished people attempting to stretch the
boundaries of the Scheduled Tribe category, characterizing them as
“unscrupulous persons who come forward to obtain the benefit of such
reservations posing themselves as persons entitled to such status… The case in
hand is a clear instance of such pseudo status” (211). In the process of protecting
the Scheduled Tribes, however, the court reinforced their boundaries to such an
extent that even the so-called “genuine” group members may feel trapped. It did
so in two ways. First, the court said that group boundaries are to be policed
through a rigorous social status verification process. Second, the court treated
identities as static attributes by relying on the idea that caste or tribal
membership corresponds with genetic and cultural traits passed on from
generation to generation and by giving more weight to colonial-era evidence
about identities.
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 27
The Kumari Madhuri Patil decision includes a detailed description of how the
states should go about policing identity boundaries. Revenue officers originally
issue social status certificates to Scheduled Caste and Tribe members after “due
verification,” but this is followed by further scrutiny (211). In this case, for
example, the social status verification committee called on the medical students’
father to “furnish in the prescribed form the detailed information regarding his
family background, ancestry, and anthropology of ‘Mahadeo Koli,’ Scheduled
Tribe, to verify the veracity of his claim of status as S.T.” (208). This “scrutiny
committee” relied on “a report of an expert committee which had gone into the
sociological (sic), anthropology, and ethnology of the Scheduled Tribes
including Mahadeo Koli” (209). This report was the basis for a “questionnaire
prepared by the government and…given to and answered by the father of the
appellants,” as a sort of quiz on his knowledge of his claimed identity (209). The
court noted that the father “failed to satisfy the crucial affinity test” (212).
M.N.Srinivas’s concept of sanskritization is again illuminating, for he pointed out
that caste or tribal practices often change rather than remain static. Thus the
father’s practices may not correspond to a test based on older research on his
community, due to a prior history of sanskritization or emulation of groups with
higher status. This legal ruling, then, not only scrutinizes change in the form of
desanskritization but also sanctions sanskritization.
After describing the verification procedures followed in this case, the court
recommended several general guidelines to best scrutinize social status: In cases
of Scheduled Tribes, for example, the scrutiny committee should include a
research officer who has “intimate knowledge in the identification of the
specified Tribes” (213). An additional “vigilance cell” should include “police
Inspectors to investigate social status claims” by going to each person’s place of
residence and birthplace to “verify and collect all the facts of the social status
claimed” (215). In addition to examining birth registrations and school records,
the “vigilance officer” is to “examine the parent, guardian or the candidate in
relation to their caste etc. or such other persons who have knowledge of the social
status of the candidate” (215). The officer should then submit a report including,
in cases of Scheduled Tribe claims, information “relating to their particular
anthropological and ethnological traits, deity, rituals, customs, mode of
marriage, death ceremonies, method of burial of dead bodies etc” (215).
If the director reads the report and finds the claim “‘not genuine’ or ‘doubtful’
or spurious or falsely or wrongly claimed,” a notice and the vigilance officer’s
report are to be sent to the candidate “or through the head of the concerned
educational institution in which the candidate is studying or employed” (215).
The candidate may demand a hearing to present more evidence, and a “public
notice by beat of drum or any other convenient mode may be published in the
village or locality and if any person or association opposes such a claim, an
opportunity to adduce evidence may be given to him/it” (215). After additional
28 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
inquiry, if “the certificate obtained or social status claimed are found to be false,
the parent/guardian/the candidate should be prosecuted for making false claim. If
the prosecution ends in a conviction and sentence of the accused, it could be
regarded as an offense involving moral turpitude,” which would disqualify that
person from elective posts (216). (The Patil sisters’ case was not a criminal
prosecution, so this question was not decided; rather the sisters were the appellants,
arguing to be allowed to continue their studies.) By laying down these guidelines,
the court sought to uphold constitutional objectives for “the genuine Scheduled
Castes/Scheduled Tribes or backward classes,” which it perceived as threatened
by “unscrupulous persons” (216). These guidelines have served as a model in
subsequent litigation.4
Such protective measures for “true” beneficiaries may be well intentioned, but
this case and other cases about reservations illuminate the stringent demands
placed on anyone trying to benefit from these policies, since the burden of proof
of social status rests on them.5 “Mere recitals in documents” that an individual is
in a particular caste, if not “supported by independent corroborative material”
cannot form a basis for a caste certificate.6 Despite the elaborate verification
processes that have developed, committees have overlooked important
documents submitted to them and denied caste certificates to members of
Scheduled Castes or Tribes, depriving them of their rights under the Constitution
and resulting in appeals and lost time, money and opportunities for applicants.7
Moreover, continuing scrutiny and repeated inquiries into the social status of
beneficiaries throughout their careers have been oppressive enough to result in
claims of harassment.8
This pattern of repeated surveillance and investigation of citizens’ identity
claims is one way the state may reinforce caste or tribal distinctions in
communities and workplaces, in the very process of implementing policies
meant to undermine discrimination. Police inquiries in hometowns, letters sent to
universities or employers, and announcements calling for public comment about
the identities of people applying for certificates both publicize and tarnish their
status. The use of police to investigate at the local level could intimidate
applicants for certificates and imply to their neighbors that they are not
trustworthy. Moreover, the policing of identities is largely limited to the
disadvantaged communities, as only those who hope to benefit from reservations
need social status certificates.
In addition to police power, the state uses the power of “expert” knowledge, with
particular attention to anthropology, to classify Scheduled Tribes. The expert
committee on ethnology and the cultural affinity test illustrate this aspect of the
government’s power to classify; moreover, the court’s faith in anthropological
“proof” reveals an assumption that identities, particularly in the case of the
Scheduled Tribes, are unchanging.
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 29
In the Patil sisters’ case, the court ultimately portrayed tribes and castes as
static social groupings. First, the court held that “[t]he caste of the person…is
determined on the basis of the caste of their parents, basically for the reasons
[sic] that caste is acquired by birth” (213). This seemingly straightforward rule
relies on an assumption about the reproduction of caste or tribe from generation
to generation, an assumption that is challenged in all three of the cases discussed
in this chapter, as cultural change, intermarriage and religious conversion each,
in their own way, thwart identity replication. The court, nevertheless, discussed
Scheduled Tribe identity in terms of “genetical traits” passed on from one
generation to the next. This term evokes notions of biological inevitability, but,
in this decision, the court also used it to refer to cultural continuity, arguing that
cultural traits are passed on like genetic traits. For example, responding to the claim
that social mobility or modernization could explain the failure of the father to
pass the “affinity test,” or government questionnaire about the culture of the tribe
in question, the court argued that certain traits and customs will inevitably
continue: The “argument of social mobility and modernization often alluringly
put forth to obviate the need to pass the affinity test is only a convenient plea to
get over the crux of the question. Despite the cultural advancement, the genetical
traits pass on from generation to generation and no one could escape or forget”
(209).
In a later passage decrying the father’s lack of knowledge of the culture of the
Mahadeo Koli, this genetic metaphor for cultural continuity resurfaces: “His
feigned ignorance of the ancestry is too hard to believe…. The anthropological
moorings and ethnological kinship…gets genetically ingrained in the blood and
no one would shake off from [the] past, in particular, when one is conscious of
the need of preserving its relevance to seek the status of Scheduled Tribe or
Scheduled caste” (212). This passage reiterates the idea that identity is
determined by birth or blood, while also noting that reservations themselves may
further reinforce cultural continuity by the very processes of identity verification
laid down in this case. Both points illustrate how the legal implementation of
reservations, meant to change the status quo, can simultaneously reinforce the
notion that identities are permanent.
Using another static approach, the court credited older evidence of tribal
membership over newer evidence. The certificates of membership issued by a
contemporary “caste association” did not, according to the court, bear any value
as evidence, but a school certificate of the students’ father, “being pre-
independence period, it bears `great probative value' ” (208, 213 emphasis in
original). Contemporary evidence is arguably politicized, sometimes coming
from the very groups or associations that are seeking Scheduled Tribe status.
Thus, in its arguments, the court referred to official government classifications of
the tribe from as far back as 1933, and painted a picture of the Scheduled Tribe’s
30 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
INTERCASTE MARRIAGE
In the case of Valsamma Paul v. Cochin University (Supreme Court of India
1996), a rejected applicant for a lecturer position in the Cochin University
department of law challenged Valsamma Paul, who had claimed her backward
husband’s status to successfully apply for that same position, which was reserved
for a member of a Backward Class.9 Valsamma Paul, described as “Syrian
Catholic (a Forward Class),” was married to a man described as “Latin Catholic
(Backward Class Fisherman)” (546). Assuming her husband’s status, she applied
for and was appointed as a lecturer in the law department of Cochin University,
in a position that was reserved for Latin Catholics.
Although Christians are not eligible for Scheduled Caste status (a critical point
in the next case on conversion), caste-based stigma persists in some Christian
communities. Therefore, some Christian castes, including that of Valsamma
Paul’s husband, have been recognized as Other Backward Classes and are
eligible for various central or state level reservations. Other Backward Classes,
as discussed in Chapter 1, are actually lists of disadvantaged castes or
communities. Thus, despite the fact that the couple at the center of this case is
Christian, the court quite matter-of-factly discussed them in terms of their
“castes.” The court focused on whether the lecturer became a member of her
husband’s caste and, if so, whether she should be counted as a Backward Class
member eligible for the reserved job.
The court concluded that, upon marriage, a wife becomes a member of her
husband’s family. She also becomes a member of her husband’s caste.
Nevertheless, she is not entitled to claim the benefits of reservations using her
new caste identity. While recognizing and even giving a legal nod to patrimonial
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 31
notions of identity based on the husband’s status, the court did not permit
reservations for women in intercaste marriages on the basis of their new status.
This defendant and her husband are part of a small but growing group of
Indians willing to ignore strong socio-cultural taboos and marry across caste
lines. Caste endogamy (“marriage within the same or allied castes”) means that
marriages occur within a limited “marriage circle,” and such social stratification
continues to influence marriage practices in contemporary Indian society
(Banerjee 1999:650–1). Intercaste marriages are being facilitated by the
increasingly diverse universities and workplaces resulting from reservation
policies. A study of attitudes toward intercaste marriage, based on interviews
with post-graduate students at Calcutta University, suggests that attitudes are
changing, as students are becoming more accepting of intercaste marriage than
their parents (Kundu and Sherif 1982:324). Yet, one should not exaggerate this
trend. A study of under-graduate and post-graduate students at Rajastan
University found that one in four women would not oppose their own arranged
marriage even if it was contrary to their wishes and indicates that their reasons
still include “because of tradition” and “because it would not be liked by caste
people” (Upreti and Upreti 1982:249–50). Despite “increased opportunities for
young people of both sexes from different castes to socially interact and fall in
love, the number of intermarriages…is still very small” (Saroja 1999:186–7).10
Reservations could serve to ameliorate the particularly strong social stigma
associated with women in intercaste marriages. The study of Calcutta University
students and their parents found that whereas 68 per cent of parents would accept
intercaste marriage for their sons, only 45 per cent would accept it for their
daughters (Kundu and Sherif 1982:324). Women marrying, “down” is more of a
taboo than men marrying lower caste women. Even the Valsamma Paul decision
noted that, historically, marriages such as hers, between upper caste females and
lower caste males, have been considered “invalid,” even when the opposite
combination was recognized as legitimate (560). The court explicitly asserted the
importance of social trends toward more intercaste marriage, noting the potential
for the institution of marriage to encourage “harmony and integration” as well as
“national unity and integrity” (547). Although recognizing the benefits of
intercaste marriage, the court ultimately did little to encourage this trend by
denying the woman the right to claim her husband’s status.
The court justified its position by pointing to the advantages such a woman
would have had in her early life; she lacked the extensive experience of
indignities and sufferings comparable to the Backward Classes. In addition to
these discussions of identity as defined by early childhood socialization and
experiences, the court also referred to biologically determined identity, resting its
decision on the troubling ground that caste is determined at birth. The court cited
a key case regarding reservations for the Backward Classes, in which caste is
described as a “socially homogeneous class.” “One is born into it. Its
32 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
CONVERSION
In the case of S.Swvigaradoss v. Zonal Manager (Supreme Court of India 1996),
the petitioner’s parents had at one time been Hindus of the Adi-Dravida caste, a
recognized Scheduled Caste in the state of Tamil Nadu.13 Prior to
Swvigaradoss’s birth, his parents had converted to Christianity. According to
Swvigaradoss, he converted to Hinduism at age 14 and became a member of his
parents’ former caste. Subsequently he was employed by the Food Corporation
of India. The next year, however, he married “according to Christian rites in a
church,” and “[on] these facts, notice was given to the petitioner to show cause
34 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
how the petitioner would be entitled to benefits and privileges extended to the
Scheduled Caste candidates in the future” (101). Swvigaradoss filed a suit
arguing that he was baptized as a minor and that “[a]fter he became a major, he
is continuing as an Adi-Dravida” (101). Thus he wanted to be recognized as a
Scheduled Caste member, eligible for Scheduled Caste reservations. Unlike the
Other Backward Classes category, which can include some Christians, the
Scheduled Caste category does not include any Christians. Thus, the act of
conversion is a key element in this case. The court ruled that regardless of the
conversion, “the petitioner was born of Christian parents” and thus was not born
into Hinduism or the Adi-Dravida caste (103). Since a “Christian is not a
Scheduled Caste,” they denied his suit and declared that “the petitioner cannot
claim to be a Scheduled Caste” (103).
This case is an example of another form of social fluidity, conversions and,
occasionally, reconversions among lower castes, sometimes due to religious
convictions, sometimes for political or material motivations, and often for a
combination of reasons. Lower caste members may seek nominally caste-free
religions such as Islam or Christianity, and, historically, entire groups of lower
castes have converted from Hinduism. Such conversions, whether individual or
mass, are arguably not only spiritual decisions but also a form of political
protest. The mass conversion of untouchables to Buddhism in 1956, led by
B.R.Ambedkar, continues to inspire mass conversions to that religion (Zelliot
1996, Omvedt 1994: 247–9, BBC News 4–5 November 2001). Mass conversions
to other religions, such as Christianity in the late nineteenth century and Islam in
1981–2, were also in part protest strategies (Pickett 1933, Oddie 1997, Mujahid
1989).
Conversion involves complex and varied motivations, as a list of reasons
given in survey of Indian converts to Christianity illustrates: “To escape from
cholera… Because land owners oppressed us… Because our missionary helped
us against the Brahmans and the Rajputs… Because the love of Jesus won me…
To get a wife for my younger brother… To be saved from forced labor…
Because I wanted to know God… Because the wise men of my caste said I
should” (Pickett 1933:159–60). Adding to such divergent calculations,
contemporary reservation policies provide another material motivation for
conversion, the possible advantages of joining one of the religious communities
which include legally recognized Scheduled Castes, namely Hindus, Sikhs and
Buddhists.14
Fearing a spate of conversions inspired by reservations, the government has
taken steps. For example, a government circular in Tamil Nadu states that
members of Scheduled Castes who convert to Christianity, revert to Hinduism
(on the basis of which they obtain jobs in government service), and finally
reconvert back to Christianity, can have their employment and scheduled caste
status revoked.15 When litigation involves reservations and conversions, judges
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 35
caste and form both into one caste. That would be striking at the very root of
caste autonomy.”19 In 1976, the Supreme Court of India adopted this rationale in
a case which, like Swvigaradoss, involved the offspring of converts by holding
that conversion to Hinduism would not automatically give a person membership
in his parents’ former caste “but he would become such member, if the other
members of the caste accept him as a member.”20 This decision reflected the
reasoning of a 1940 ruling that “the caste itself is the supreme judge.”21 Not all
court decisions in cases involving reservations and the offspring of converts have
been this sensitive to community sentiment (Galanter 1984:120, n. 60), yet in
1996 the Swvigaradoss court did not even address the communities in question.
In this case, Swvigaradoss’ community was hardly mentioned, except for his
possible ties to the Christian community, implied by the reference to his
marriage ceremony. The court did not discuss the opinion of any Adi-Dravidas
regarding his claim to be one of them. Rather, the conclusion emphasized birth
status and the government’s lists. Not only was the petitioner “born of Christian
parents” but also his parents were “converted prior to his birth and no longer
remained to be Adi-Dravida, a Scheduled Caste for the purpose of Tirunelveli
District in Tamil Nadu as notified by the President;” therefore the “petitioner
cannot claim to be a Scheduled Caste” (103). The court repeatedly emphasized
that it did not have the power to change the lists of Scheduled Castes, which
were constitutionally issued by the President and subsequently amended by
Parliament. However, the petitioner did not ask the court to change the lists;
rather he changed his identity and asked the court to find that he fit within the
current lists. Perhaps the court’s emphasis on the lists was a response to activists
trying to expand the definition of the Scheduled Castes to include Christians.
However, notably, their demand is quite different from Swvigaradoss’ argument
that, by converting from Christianity to Hinduism, he fit into the existing
category.
This decision applied an “identity as birth group” standard not only to caste
identity but also, more surprisingly, to religious identity. Perhaps the difficulties
of “proving” in legal terms who is a genuine Hindu contributed to this rather cut
and dried demarcation. Characterized by historian Robert Frykenberg as “[t]his
soft concept, this jumble of inner contradictions,” Hinduism is particularly
susceptible to open interpretations and porous boundaries (Frykenberg 1993:
523). In a reservations case that necessitated categorizing a Hindu-born convert
to Buddhism, the Supreme Court of India commented: “Hinduism is so tolerant
and Hindu religious practices so varied and eclectic that one would find it difficult
to say whether one is practicing or professing Hindu religion or not” (Galanter
1984: 309).22 Perhaps it was this ambiguity that inspired the court in
Swvigaradoss to consider religion and caste only at birth, rather than heeding
choices made later.
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 37
There are other possible explanations for the legal shift from a more open
interpretation of caste or religious identity to one in which birth groups and the
state’s official lists of castes reign supreme. One is the government’s long held
but increasing concern over the influence of foreign missionaries on Indian
citizens and its reluctance to back any policies that might facilitate or encourage
conversions (Sarkar 1999). Another explanation for the court’s inflexibility in
such cases is concern about conversions inspired by the reservation policies
themselves. The court is, in other words, increasingly preoccupied with
distinguishing between conversions of convenience and conversions of
conviction (Viswanathan 1998). The complex relationship between religious and
caste identities makes cases involving conversion particularly ambiguous.
Whether intergenerational conversions can or should allow a person to re-enter a
caste is a challenging question for a court trained to interpret the law. In a
psychological sense, the court would have enormous difficulty gauging
Swvigaradoss’s motivations for conversion. In a sociological sense, whether his
parents ever left their caste upon conversion is unclear; the question of whether he
rejoined it is even more complex. Growing more suspicious of conversions and
facing increasingly ambiguous claims for reservations, the court shifted from
reliance on self-definitions of castes to a top-down, birth-based approach to
categorizing citizens, which could undercut any existing flexibility in caste or
religious boundaries.
CONCLUSION
These three recent court cases bring to light the variety of social processes which
are helping to undermine identity-based inequalities, and they also illustrate how
the courts have responded to a variety of liminal identities. To summarize, the
case of the “spurious” tribe shows how the court, with the aim of securing social
justice for “genuine” beneficiaries, contributed to the construction of tribes as
timeless and unchanging categories and ordered strict policing of identity claims.
The decision on intercaste marriage reinforced the notion of caste as a category
determined at birth when reservations are at stake, with no recourse to voluntary
change through any means, including marriage (with the notable exception of a
state court ruling denying a woman reservations after marrying “up”). The third
case involving conversion suggests that in the court’s eyes, religion, like caste, is
determined by birth, and the state rather than the community in question is the
ultimate arbiter of identity.
The social circumstances highlighted in these three cases reveal some of the
ways reservation policies contribute to the blurring of social boundaries by
changing the incentives for desanskritization, intermarriage and conversion. At
the same time the legal decisions show the state’s tendency to react to these
changes by reinforcing group boundaries, even in the act of trying to reduce
38 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
group disparities. In the third case, the court’s decision on caste membership was
even more top-down and inflexible than some pre-independence court decisions.
These cases demonstrate that in spite of a postcolonial shift in the objectives of
state classifications, reservation policies, being dependent on the categorization
of social groups, may have unintended side effects, such as a strict state scrutiny
of identity claims.
These are the dilemmas of a group-based solution applied to individuals. At a
practical level, “spurious” claims could hurt the individuals who would
otherwise benefit from reservations. At the same time, incentives to claim
membership in a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe could reduce the stigma
associated with these categories. In the Patil sisters’ case, the court credited
precolonial evidence and precluded a dynamic interpretation of caste identities in
the process of attempting to protect the rights of the “true” beneficiaries of
reservations. By uncritically adopting colonial-era categories, the court
emphasized supposedly immutable characteristics of categorizable peoples. The
intercaste marriage decision, denying reservation benefits based on claims to be
Backward through an intercaste marriage, could keep benefits from women of
privileged backgrounds, but did nothing to encourage such marriages. In the third
case, the court tried to squelch conversions to more expedient religious
identities, but in the process, it shifted from precedents supporting community
self-definition toward state definition of identity.
Should we judge a policy by how it deals with exceptions? Arguably many
other people fit into the state categories more easily. Moreover, imperfect or
poorly implemented reservation categories may be better than no categories at all
for most of the disadvantaged citizens in India. The legal treatment of anomalous
or exceptional cases is important, however, because, given the goals of
reservations, such cases are not necessarily “problems” but rather signs of social
change. As articulated in the three cases discussed here, such cases have inspired
an unfortunate legal distinction between “genuine” and “not genuine” identities.
If the courts acknowledged that such cases are ambiguous, rather than assuming
fraud, the categories could be implemented in a way that recognizes and fosters
changes and choices already occurring in society. A more nuanced adjudication
of identities might recognize that even “tribal” cultures can alter over time, that
women in intercaste marriages may be stigmatized enough to become Backward,
or that religious and caste communities may accept new or returning members. Yet
courts are somewhat limited by the categories embedded in the policies
themselves. Legislative changes could put into practice at the national level a
category of reservations for people who have an intercaste marriage, one
alternative model that would not penalize people for stepping across social
boundaries (Paswan interview 29 December 1996).
Group-based policies, by upping the stakes attached to certain group
identities, draw attention to these divisions but also inspire challenges to the
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 39
boundaries between them. As seen in the court cases discussed here, the legal
response has been, at times, conservative and static rather than flexible, but this
state crackdown on categorization is not the whole story. Although judges may
try to force an unwieldy social structure into neat legal boxes, these group-based
policies inspire further struggles over the gray areas between categories.
3
Official anthropology
Caste was just one category out of many others, one way of organizing and
representing identity. Moreover, caste was not a single category or even
logic of categorization… To read and organize social difference and
deference—pervasive features of Indian society—solely in terms of caste
thus required a striking disregard for ethnographic specificity, as well as
systematic denial of the political mechanisms that selected different kinds
of social units as most significant at different times.
(Dirks 1992a:60)
caste persists, it is difficult to see how the sentiment of unity and solidarity can
penetrate and inspire all classes of the community” (Risley 1915:286, 293). The
new People of India project is an attempt to move beyond the colonial emphasis
on India as a place distinct from the West and divided internally. Yet, this
project embodies the ongoing tension between caste and nation, as it
simultaneously categorizes people as did Risley and, whenever possible,
emphasizes national unity and linkages.
In the following comparison, I find several continuities. Even post-colonial
anthropologists espousing national unity can be haunted by the ethnic and racial
categories bequeathed by colonialism (Young 1985). The current People of India
project breaks from the past in its optimism about Indian nationalism, yet its
nationalist conclusions are rooted in some much older ideas and practices. The
current project justifies the notion of a unified People of India by drawing on
methodologies such as nasal indexes and trait counting, as well as colonial era
assumptions, such as the idea that India is essentially communal in nature. The
project both classifies the people of India and includes optimistic arguments that,
in the end, these various categories are really quite similar. Such conclusions
reflect the difficult position of diverse postcolonial states, as the “emergent civil
societies of the terminal colonial era were simultaneously becoming one and
many” (Young 1994:39). The danger of this official, nationalist anthropology is
that categories such as the Scheduled Castes and Tribes get both a scientific and
an official stamp of approval, while some persistent disparities between these
categories get swept under the carpet.
The rise of caste as the single most important trope for colonial Indian
society, and the complicity of Indian anthropology in the project of colonial
state formation, is documented in a great many texts, perhaps nowhere
more fully, though complexly, than in Risley’s classic work, The People of
India.
(Dirks 1992a:68)
Sir Herbert Risley’s book, The People of India, is based on the extensive report
on caste he produced as Census Commissioner for the 1901 census. In the wake
of the mutiny by Indian soldiers of the colonial army in 1857, more and more
information was collected about the inhabitants of India. Anthropologist
G.G.Raheja argues that “the colonial imagination had seized upon caste
identities as a means of understanding and controlling the Indian population after
the blow to administrative complacency occasioned in 1857” (Raheja 1996:
495).6 The first nation-wide Indian census occurred in 1872, and subsequent
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 45
Classification
Regarding caste, Risley lamented that “no column on the census schedule
displays a more bewildering variety of entries, or gives so much trouble to the
enumerating and testing staff and to the central offices which compile the
results.” Nevertheless he described a process of “sorting, referencing and cross
referencing and corresponding with local authorities, which ultimately result in
the compilation of a table” (Risley 1915:109–10). He presented his theory that the
caste system originated in the interactions between racial types, offering his
contribution to the broader “scientific” study of race, including racial typologies
and anthropometry. He felt India’s caste system provided an ideal setting for
such physical measurements since “it seemed that the restrictions on
intermarriage, which are peculiar to the Indian social system, would favour this
method of observation, and would enable it to yield particularly clear and
instructive results” (Risley 1915:20). Most notoriously, he commented on the:
Applying racial theories to his study of caste, Risley devoted much of his study
to detailed measurements and classifications of “physical types.”
In addition to physical types, Risley included many more chapters describing
caste in terms of “social types,” “proverbs,” marriage practices, religion, and the
origins of caste.8 During the colonial era, the search for order that dominated
science became enmeshed with the search for justifications for imperial rule
(Metcalf 1995:66–8, Fernandez-Armesto 1995:433–62). Studying racial
classifications and phenomena such as India’s caste system helped to distinguish
colonies from the West in order to “justify” foreign rule. Whether designing a
racial hierarchy or documenting practices seen as “uncivilized,” such studies
could undergird claims about the right to colonize. The obsession with
classification, however, was not only for academic interest and colonial
justification but also for the more practical goal of administration.
46 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
Administration
Anthropologist/administrators, a rather common hybrid in India, were aware of
the administrative uses to which their work could be put. One of Risley’s last
public addresses noted the value of teaching Indian anthropology to the men in
the Indian services (Risley 1969:xiv). Clearly, British classifications of castes
and tribes in India were inspired in part by their administrative uses. Notably,
Risley was an administrator before he was an anthropologist. Educated in law
and modern history at Oxford, he gained his experience in anthropology after
joining the Indian civil service (Risley 1969:xi-xii, Bates 1995:241–2).
Nevertheless his work in India allowed him to become president of the Royal
Anthropological Institute in 1910. He held a variety of administrative positions
throughout his career, serving as a member of a commission studying the
working of the Indian police and as the honorary director of the Ethnological
Survey of the Indian Empire. These posts are not as far afield as they may seem.
The labeling and registering of the so-called “criminal tribes” in colonial India
is a particularly striking example of the nexus of anthropology and
administration. In the People of India, Risley described one tribe as “habitual
thieves and burglars,” another as “the most treacherous and aggressive of all the
North-Eastern tribes,” and a third as “hunter, blackmailer, and highway robber”
(Risley 1915:Appendix Plates II and XXXV, 139). As part of what Bernard
Cohn calls their “surveillance modality,” the British developed criminal
ethnography archives and aspired to have systematic anthropometric methods to
identify criminals (Cohn 1996:10–11, Major 1999: 657). Criminal categories
were not the only ones of administrative interest: “Other categories of caste such
as money lending, agricultural or ‘martial’ were used as a basis for legislation
controlling land transfers, the grant of proprietary rights, and the regulation of
rents, as well as a basis for distinguishing between the loyal and the disloyal, and
for recruiting to the armed forces” (Bates 1995:228). In the post-Mutiny context,
administrators, based on their beliefs in the power of primordial ties and “martial
races,” wanted group studies, including evaluations of which groups were loyal
fighters and which were potential threats to order, as part of their efforts to avoid
such revolts in the future (Raheja 1996:504, Des Chene 1999:121–36, Metcalf
1995:122–8). In short, the line between administration and ethnography was
thin.
Politicization
Politicization of these studies was an inevitable result of the overriding
administrative concerns of those carrying them out. As described above, Risley
ushered the census process from a “bewildering variety of entries” on caste to a
final table, which could be easily consulted by administrators. Risley threw this
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 47
whole process into the political limelight with his decision to try to arrange the
castes in order of “social precedence” in the 1901 census, generating, in the
words of Ronald Inden, “a mountain of petitions and polemical literature
concerning caste standing” (Inden 1990:59). Various caste associations emerged
to attempt to increase their official status (Caroll 1978). As Risley himself
reflected, “The best evidence of the general success of the experiment, and
incidentally of the remarkable vitality of caste at the present day, is to be found
in the great number of petitions and memorials to which it gave rise” (Risley
1915:112). Optimistically, Risley went on to argue: “If the principle on which
the classification was based had not appealed to the usages and traditions of the
great mass of Hindus, it is inconceivable that so many people should have taken
so much trouble and incurred substantial expenditure with the object of securing
its application in a particular way” (Risley 1915:112). Whether the reaction was
due to his perceived accuracy or inaccuracy, clearly Risley’s attempt to arrange
castes in a hierarchy inspired many to try to interact with and influence the
colonial government.
One of the many classifications Risley drew on was the varna system. One
possible translation of the term “caste,” varna, as discussed in Chapter 1, refers
to an idealized hierarchy of brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas, and shudras,
corresponding with occupation and status. This type of codification has come
under criticism, both by some of Risley’s contemporaries as well as current
scholars, since variations in understandings of the varna system have always
confounded attempts to come up with such a classification scheme for all of
India (Cohn 1987:243, Quigley 1993:16, Pant 1987:155). Although recognition
of this system and its meaning varies tremendously, Risley saw it as a potentially
neat, if imperfect, typology to aid in the organization of status rankings, which
were carried out at the provincial level (Risley 1915:114). In response, petitions
for higher status were often attempts to claim a different varna status in the
census records, as in the Khatris’ objection to being classified as vaishyas: “A
meeting of protest was held…and a great array of authorities was marshaled to
prove that the Khatris are lineally descended from the Kshatriyas of Hindu
mythology,” considered a more forward caste (Risley 1915:112).
Colonial categorizations of caste for anthropological and administrative
purposes led to caste associations and caste-based organizing and lobbying to
increase official caste standing (Rudolph and Rudolph 1967). The jockeying for
position of Risley’s era takes an ironic twist in contemporary Indian politics,
when membership in an officially Backward Class can make one eligible for
reservations. The ongoing People of India project continues the traditions of
classification, administration and politicization, although the current politics of
reservations draws more attention to the question of who may become
“backward” than who may become “forward.”
48 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
Classification
Six hundred investigators participated in the study of 4693 communities in all of
the states and union territories. They interviewed 24,951 people, out of whom
4981 were women. They based their findings about each community on an
average of five key informants—described as “informed informants”—and spent
an average of 5.5 days researching each community (Singh 1998:x).9 Most
fieldwork was done between 1985 and 1994, followed by additional fieldwork
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 49
between 1994 and 1996, and the expected 43 volumes are gradually being
released. These volumes include, in addition to separate volumes on the
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, national and state-by-state volumes on
“all” communities, as well as volumes on languages, biological variations and an
anthropological atlas. Former Director-General of the Anthropological Survey of
India from 1984 until 1993, K.S.Singh has “spearheaded, authored and edited”
the People of India project (Singh 1995: cover). Like Risley, Singh is both an
administrator and anthropologist. Singh’s discussion of this project and his own
previous administrative and scholarly work with Scheduled Tribes show a
genuine concern for the plight of disadvantaged communities (Singh interview
11 April 1996, Singh 1985:ix-xi). Yet the legacies of colonial anthropology haunt
aspects of the new project.
Colonial traditions of classifying castes and tribes—and even some of the
same classifications—persist in the current project. Lists of castes were drawn
from census and ethnographic surveys from as far back as 1806; although attempts
were made to update such lists, some characteristics of the previous People of
India project continued. For example, informants were asked to try to place
themselves in the four-fold hierarchical varna system, reminiscent of Risley’s
similar efforts to arrange castes in order of social precedence (Singh 1995:6,
1992a, 1994:7, Risley 1915:114). Singh writes, “There is a widespread
awareness of the varna system among Hindu communities (68.5 per cent), about
half of whom recognize their place in it (52.6 per cent)” (Singh 1998:xvii). A
telling finding is that “Most of the communities (62 per cent) construct their
identity from ethnographic accounts” (Singh 1998:xv), leaving readers of the new
People of India project to wonder whether repeated anthropological inquiries and
accounts about varna have contributed to the public’s “awareness” of such
categories. In spite of the inquiries about varna, the national volumes are
organized alphabetically rather than by social precedence. Notably, however, two
lower status categories, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, almost
always considered outside the varna system, have been singled out and
scrutinized in their own, more detailed, volumes.10
A form of classification that bears a strong resemblance to Risley’s project is
the use of biological data, including cephalic and nasal indexes and
“dermatoglyphics.” The organization of this data is also reminiscent of colonial
categories:
This list of categories is interesting for several reasons. The authors’ desire to
conduct anthropometric measurements on these “presumably related groups”
echoes Risley’s enthusiasm for India as an ideal laboratory for such methods due
to community endogamy. The labeling of the categories is also notable, signaling
which are the dominant groups and adopting administrative categories into an
ethnographic study. Upper caste Hindu “others” are also known as the “general
population” as opposed to other “others,” presumably sundry minority
communities. The lower castes, tribes and related minorities singled out by
colonial anthropologists and administrators prior to independence are also
singled out here. The organizing assumption seems to remain that religious, caste
and even administrative distinctions are the logical categories to use when
looking for actual physical differences, although the findings of this study
ultimately confound this assumption. The use of the government’s officially
listed, or “scheduled,” categories in this anthropological study brings us to the
administrative tendencies shaping the People of India project, another continuity
with colonial traditions.
Administration
The government of India continues to focus special research efforts on the
“empowerment of the socially disadvantaged groups,” including the Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes. In the Ninth Five Year Plan, the government’s
“research, evaluation and monitoring” needs included studies of “the problem
areas, the problem groups” as well as “special problems related to frontiers/
forest dwelling tribals; malnutrition and alcoholism among SCs and STs; the
emerging problems like the drug abuse/drug addiction” (Planning Commission
1997–2002:3.9.93). The focus on “problem” groups and behaviors is a thread
running from Risley’s project to the present. Even couched in terms of
empowerment, the assumed association of scheduled groups with alcoholism and
criminality continues in the present day. For example, alcohol consumption
practices are more consistently noted in the People of India volumes on
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes than in the volumes on all communities.
The most striking parallel to the dark side of colonial administrative
anthropology, particularly its focus on “criminals,” is another contemporary
Anthropological Survey of India project called the “Portrait Building System.”
This was an attempt to aid in apprehending criminals through collecting photos of
different population or “ethnic” groups. This initiative took place after the
assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and was a joint endeavor of the Bureau of Police
Research and Development and the Anthropological Survey of India. A total of
698 “ethnic groups” from all over India were photographed for this project.
Different features were clipped, classified and stored: “Hairline was classified
into 7, forehead 6, eye 11, nose 9 and chin into 9 classes” (Basu 1990:114). This
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 51
effort epitomizes the imperative to classify and administer, which guided both
colonial and postcolonial official anthropology.
The People of India project also included a collection of 21,362 photographs; the
goal was to take at least five photographs of each community. Although there is
no official connection between the two projects, the portrait building system
shows that a recent project involving the same organization, the Anthropological
Survey of India, was motivated by administrative concerns about criminality.
Materials collected for the People of India project could be useful for the portrait
building system; even if they are not used, the portrait project illustrates the
effect of administrative concerns on official anthropological agendas.11
Another crossover between anthropology and administration is the People of
India project’s use of the administrative categories of Scheduled Castes and
Tribes and subsequent entanglement with reservation policies. I asked the head
of the current project, K.S.Singh, whether the Anthropological Survey of India
had any influence on the schedules, or lists, of groups eligible for reservations,
given their official capacity as the anthropological advisor to the government of
India. Singh responded that “anthropologists of the Anthropological Survey of
India are serving on the committee of the government of India which
recommends the listing of particular communities as Scheduled Tribe or
Scheduled Caste” (Singh interview 11 April 1996). Administrators of the
Ministry of Welfare who had dealt with group petitions for Scheduled Caste
status had used some Anthropological Survey of India materials, sought advice
from the Survey, and included someone from the Survey on a nonpermanent
committee that initially went through such petitions (Choudhary and Khan
interviews 17 December 1996). A census administrator who, in his previous job
in the Census’ Social Studies Division, had responded to queries from the
Ministry of Welfare on the makeup of Scheduled Caste lists noted that the
Anthropological Survey of India had not generally been associated with this
work of submitting recommendations about lists but had more recently been
included in meetings on the subject (Chakravorty interview 16 December 1996).
52 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
Due to the use of official categories and the benefits at stake, this
anthropological project’s commitment to honor the self-identification of groups
was compromised. In an early description of the project, Singh wrote, “We decided
to go ultimately by how a community identifies itself in practice” (Singh 1987:
241). Yet later Singh wrote, in many cases, “a community, attracted by the
facilities extended to the SC or the ST, twists ethnographic accounts in its
endeavor to identify itself with either of the constitutional categories” (Singh
1995:25), accounts which, it seems, he felt he must untwist. The Scheduled
Castes volume was “guided by government of India notifications,” followed by
the “perceptions of the people” (Singh 1995:2). Although initially preferring self-
identification and continuing to recognize the “dynamic” nature of the caste
system, Singh faced an administrative reality: “The problem is the scheduled
castes and tribes categor[ies] have been listed in India. The list is there” (Singh
interview 11 April 1996).
In 1990, while the People of India project was in full swing, Prime Minister
V.P.Singh announced his intention to expand the reservations program for
central government jobs to benefit not just the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes, but also the Other Backward Classes. D.L.Sheth, a sociologist and
member of the National Commission for Backward Classes, set up to help
implement these new policies, said the commission sometimes used People of
India data in its work, which dealt with disputes over which groups were really
Other Backward Classes (Sheth interview 6 September 1996). A former head of
the commission said he had no interaction with the project but that such a study
might be useful to them (Prasad interview 18 September 1996). Aside from its
utility for the administration of reservations, the project became involved in the
public controversy over the extension of central government job reservations to
this wider range of disadvantaged groups. As the name “Other Backward
Classes” suggests, this is an ambiguous category; moreover, some people were
adamantly opposed to increasing the percentage of reserved jobs. The People of
India project soon became a weapon in the debate.
Politicization
K.S.Singh downplayed any direct involvement between his scholarly endeavor
and the debate over reservations, yet in his writing on the People of India
project, Singh has commented critically on the definitions of the Other Backward
Classes used for reservation policies, classifications which at times must rely on
census data from 1931, the last time caste was comprehensively recorded (Singh
1987:240, 244). The official ceremony releasing the People of India data, in
October 1990, coincided with protests over Prime Minister V.P.Singh’s
announcement that he supported the 1980 Mandal Commission’s report on the
Other Backward Classes and that he wanted to extend 27 per cent reservations in
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 53
central government jobs to these groups. This was one of the most controversial
decisions of the V.P.Singh government and contributed to its fall from power
shortly thereafter. As upper caste students engaged in demonstrations, including
several self-immolations, the People of India data were released. The new study
was cited in critiques of the policy, since the People of India project listed a
smaller total number of backward classes than the older Mandal report, which
was used by the government:
As the row over the number of backward communities listed in the Mandal
Commission’s report continues a just-concluded study of the
Anthropological Survey of India has identified 1051 backward classes in
the country… The Mandal Commission has listed more then 3000
communities as socially and educationally backward.
(The Statesman, 1 October 1990)
This report was followed the next day by a similar report, entitled “Mandal’s
many mistakes,” in the Indian Express:
The findings of the People of India Project study of all castes and
communities in the country, conducted by the Anthropological Survey of
India, are a[t] great variance with the Mandal Commission’s report in
terms of the number of other backward classes… According to the study,
the most exhaustive and definitive work on communities in India so far,
there are 1051 backward communities whereas the Mandal Commission
has recorded 3743 OBCs… Investigators and scholars who participated in
the five-year project found that in all states and Union territories, the number
of SC, ST and OBC communities was actually far lower than recorded
previously.
(Indian Express-New Delhi, 2 October 1990)
The numerical disparity between the People of India project and the Mandal
report can be partially explained by repetitions of the same community in the
latter, due to synonyms and alternate spellings, yet such newspaper headlines and
articles implied that Mandal advocated including a large number of illegitimate
beneficiary groups on the reserved lists.
Entangled in the protests against reservations, the People of India project
became overtly politicized. Delhi University sociologist Andre Beteille argues
that this study, organized along caste lines, “cannot be passed off as a
disinterested piece of research, because it has the stamp of the authority of the
Government of India and becomes, therefore, in some sense an officially
acknowledged if not an officially affirmed classification” (Beteille interview 9
September 1996). Not only is a government bureaucracy behind the project but
54 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
Evoking ancient references to the most far-flung regions of the modern Indian
state, in all four directions, Singh implied that India had an “ethnographic”
coherence as a civilization or cultural unit in the past that justifies its status as a
political unit in the present. Given the relatively recent development of the Indian
nation with its existing boundaries, these allusions to ancient unity are
historically dubious, yet imagining India in such a way is useful to the modern
Indian state funding the project and trying to keep a diverse country intact. The
difficult role of nationalist anthropologists is epitomized in the explanation of
K.S.Singh, who uses ancient textual references to justify novel political
boundaries largely inherited from colonial rule.
Singh noted that although Risley made some comments about “national
character” in the Indian context, “colonial ethnography generally ignored
linkages of communities” (Singh 1987:244). Singh emphasized his own focus on
linkages to counter the argument that a study based on communities might, like
previous colonial studies, accentuate community distinctions or competition. In
the study’s early stages, Singh noted that there was as yet no anthropological
explanation for India’s unity: “It is with this integrational interaction…that this
project is largely concerned” (Singh 1987:246, 248). At the official release of
quantitative data generated by the project, Arjun Singh, then Minister for Human
Resource Development, felt that this “mapping of the human surface of India”
might be used to “strike an authentic chord for national integration” (Singh 1990:
100).13 Thus, in spite of its organization along the lines of subnational
communities, this project emphasizes national unity wherever possible.
The national scope and nationalist sentiment of the project are reasons for the
choice of the word “community,” rather than caste or jati, to label the units of
analysis. Rather than emphasizing divisions, community implies fellowship;
58 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
moreover the term could be applied all over India to countless types of
categories. An article from the project’s early years includes a discussion of this
decision:
Integration is sharing, and this is, precisely, what this project is about. We
have tried to identify those traits which are shared by our people.
According to our findings, out of 776 traits that we have identified, as
many as 250 traits are shared by all of us. It shows that we are by and large
a cohesive society.
(Singh 1990:100–1)
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 59
Based on this analysis of traits, Singh argued that “there is a very high
correlation of traits between the SC and the ST, between ST and Hindus,
between the Hindu and Sikh, the Hindu and Muslims (which is very high
indeed)” (Singh 1990:100–1). Given ongoing tensions between these groups,
including some secessionist movements, this conclusion seems like an attempt to
“scientifically” justify Indian unity.
“Bio-anthropological parameters,” such as head measurements, are still cited
in the current study, not to make an argument about the racial origins of caste as
in Risley’s book but, quite the contrary, to make arguments about inter-caste
similarities: “The head shape of the dolichocephalic type is predominantly
distributed in most of the populations, including scheduled castes…there is less
variation at inter-group [caste] level than at inter-regional level” (Singh 1995:4).
More modern techniques produced similar arguments: “regional variations in
gene frequencies seem to be greater than the variation between castes or
religious groups” (Singh 1992:99). The message that physical differences are more
geographic than caste-based was, however, less clear in the People of India
project’s anthropological atlas (volume 11), which demarcated ten
“physiographic” zones, corresponding to both geographic and physiological
indicators, yet included the observation that “there is a tendency for relatively
broad noses in the scheduled castes in comparison with other communities.”
Such “rogue data” on noses bears a striking similarity to Risley’s infamous caste-
nose correlations (Pinney 1994:22). Although the continuity of the tradition of
taking head measurements is troubling, most major conclusions, at least, were
different.
In addition to anthropometric and biological analyses to reinforce the idea that
caste is no impediment to national unity, Singh also recognized some fluidity of
identity and lower caste progress, even evoking the constructivist notion of the
Other.
In this project on people of India, two things which have come out very
sharply in terms of change are, number one, people’s own aspirations,
people’s own perceptions of themselves and their relations with others, and
secondly, the changing economy, the diversification of occupations which
has taken place…. Better opportunities are opening up; migrations are
taking place; so these are the factors which make these communities or
caste[s] more dynamic than we imagined.
(Singh interview 11 April 1996)
A book reviewer of the initial People of India volumes rejoiced that the “very
popular concept of ‘Indian unity in diversity’ has been perfectly manifested here
not through any sentimental view point but by way of the application of
scientific methodology” (Sarkar 1992:366). The contemporary People of India
project imbued some colonial era methods and classifications with a new spin, the
viability and progress of the Indian nation.
In spite of these nationalist conclusions, however, the overall structuring of the
project along caste lines offers political ammunition to those who choose to
emphasize their caste identity. A Dalit publication, for example, rather than
challenging the caste distinctions, has taken up the Anthropological Survey of
India’s recognition of distinct communities. An article in Dalit Voice, a rather
polemic publication for Dalit solidarity, reports that “The ASI verdict is that the
Indian society continues to be a collection of castes and communities…
scheduled castes have 450 jatis;” whereas “Upper castes want to destroy our
caste consciousness by promoting national consciousness. In other words, they
want to destroy the national consciousness of each jati and get them assimilated
in the Hindu nationalism…‘The People of India Project’ has warned that such a
Hinduisation of SC/ST/BCs has not worked and it will not work” (Dalit Voice
16–31 March 1996). One example of the project’s recognition of subnational
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 61
Actually, 54 per cent of the reserved quota of central government jobs for
Scheduled Castes go unfilled, according to the National Commission for
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Human Rights Watch 2001). Moreover,
“the predominant occupation of the Untouchables is agricultural work… In
agriculture Untouchables are almost always paid labourers or sharecroppers,
rather than self-employed landowners” (Mendelsohn and Vicziany 1994:79).
Although the majority of the scheduled communities are stuck in the lowest
levels of employment, the People of India project provided fodder for the anti-
reservation agitation. The project’s positive spin on the data and the media’s
idyllic pictures of professional opportunities for Scheduled Castes and Tribes do
challenge stereotypes of disadvantaged communities. Yet, the project’s official
commemoration of communities, in combination with such exuberant
commentary, both reinforces caste and tribal categories and undermines the
political utility of the categories for those in them. Perhaps due to fears of the
clash between caste and nation, a specter raised by Risley’s earlier work, this
reincarnation of the People of India tries to gloss over caste disparities while it
continues to record caste for posterity.
CONCLUSION
The head of the current project, K.S.Singh, feels “we have laid the firm
foundation of postcolonial ethnography in our country” (Singh 1990:101). Yet the
People of India project fails to fully address the problems of the colonial
ethnographic tradition, especially the classification of peoples, the use of these
classifications for administrative purposes, and the subsequent politicization of
anthropology and the categories themselves. In some ways, the new project does
move beyond the work of Risley, particularly when there are attempts to reflect
changes, linkages and the development of a nation. Nationalism characterizes
this “postcolonial” ethnography, reflecting the changing needs of the state, which
shifted from an old concern with maintaining colonial rule by reinforcing social
divisions to a new preoccupation with maintaining national unity and integrity in
an independent and diverse country.
Persistent parallels between colonial and postcolonial anthropology can be
traced to some ongoing imperatives of governing. Rajni Kothari’s (1968)
description of governmental impulses to collect information in the “‘information
and communications explosion’ of our times,” was as applicable in Risley’s time
as our own:
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 63
in many ways. Concern for national unity has inspired a “rose colored glasses”
approach to analyzing the still limited progress of low castes, an approach
epitomized in the People of India project by the grubby yet happy cover girl on
volume two.
4
Caste certificates and lists
Theda Skocpol, an important area of study is “the ways in which the structures
and activities of states unintentionally influence the formation of groups and the
political capacities, ideas, and demands of various sectors of society” (Skocpol
1985:21). In other words, the “constant redefinition of group identities in the
political arena is an effect of politics and policy as much as a cause” (Lieberman
1995:441). The following discussion of the administration of caste lists and
certificates focuses on how bureaucrats disentangle and reassemble identities for
policy purposes. Such administrative practices can reiterate older status
distinctions and structure group identity claims.
Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram’s research highlights the links between
public policies and social constructions of the groups targeted by these policies,
which they call “target populations” (Schneider and Ingram 1993, 1995). An
example would be welfare policies and “welfare mothers” in the United States.
Government officials tend to impose burdens on less powerful or negatively
constructed policy targets (Schneider and Ingram 1993:337–41). Often policies
are based on the assumption that their target populations are readily definable
(Schneider and Ingram 1993:335). Depending on their policy experiences,
members of the targeted population may either favor collective action or
individual interaction with the government (Schneider and Ingram 1993:341).
Other scholars have applied some of these ideas in studies of policies and the social
constructions of groups as varied as landlords, the elderly, immigrants, and
people with AIDS (Hunter and Nixon 1999, Hudson 1999, Coutin 1998, Drass et
al. 1997). The various officially backward groups in India constitute striking
examples of target populations. Applying ideas inspired by this literature in the
quite different setting of India can increase our understanding of the
ramifications of group-based policies.
The administration of reservation policies in an exceedingly complex society
is a feat not well understood, especially since scholars have tended to focus on the
development, legalities, and political fallout of India’s reservation policies
(Galanter 1984, Mitra 1994, Nesiah 1997, Parikh 1997). Here I address several
aspects of the relationship between administration and identity, including
identifying and labeling, untangling identities, and individual and group
processes. Several conclusions emerge: Bureaucratic procedures associated with
reservations tend to burden, label and stigmatize the very groups they are meant
to help, particularly the least powerful groups. Reservation policies are based on
an assumption that target populations have objective parameters, even as
administrators struggle to define those parameters. Reservation policy processes
sometimes focus on individuals, as in the case of caste certificates, but the
process of officially listing Other Backward Classes necessitates that aspiring
groups must be somewhat organized, gather aggregate data, and compare
themselves to groups above and below them. Such policies and procedures
68 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
increase the efficacy of collective rather than individual interactions with the
government and administratively reinforce social groups and gradations.
about policies for the Scheduled Castes is apt: In practice, “the so-called
beneficiaries have to have a great deal of stamina and political expertise” (Dushkin
1979:665).
Other generally more powerful or more positively viewed groups who benefit
from special “concessions” in government employment policy, such as ex-
servicemen or sportsmen, also have to furnish certificates and document their
eligibility, but they have not inspired the copious memos, rulings and court cases
over how best to scrutinize their claims (Muthuswamy and Brinda 1996, Nabhi
2001). Moreover, in the case of the less powerful and negatively constructed
backward classes, even after caste certificates have been issued, repeated
verifications throughout their careers can haunt beneficiaries. These verifications
involve patrolling the parameters of reservation categories and implementing
procedures that identify but also label and stigmatize beneficiaries.
The sheer number of names used over the course of history to label the
Scheduled Castes indicates how difficult it is to give the many so-called
untouchable groups a common label and how easily such labels fall from favor
as they come to be seen as inaccurate, stigmatizing or simply out of date. As
Michael Banton points out, “The doubts about what are the best names for
groups, and where the boundaries are to be drawn, show that the groups people
recognize in everyday life are often multidimensional” (Banton 1997:13). A list
compiled by Simon Charsley and paraphrased here hints at the scope of the
countless labels used over the years to refer to Scheduled Castes. Some names
emerged from social or political movements and others were coined or at least
passed into common usage by administrators: Aprishya Sudras (used by Census
Commissioner Herbert Risley); impure castes, avarna, outcastes (outside of
varna or caste); Pariah (a jati name that became generalized); Pancham Bandum,
the Fifth Caste, Panchama (all meaning a fifth group outside of the “touchable”
categories); AdDharm, Adi-Karnataka, Adi-Dravida, Adi-Andhra (all emerging
from various regional movements trying to establish untouchables as distinct
religious or regional groups seen as “original”); untouchables, ex-untouchables,
Depressed Classes, suppressed classes, exterior castes, Scheduled Castes;
Harijans (coined by Gandhi), Dalits (coined by Ambedkarites), and Naaga
Holeya (in the Mysore area, “a neo-traditional term associated with a Buddhist
challenge to converted Christians to reunite with them” (Charsley 1996:17).
Of these labels, those which were adopted for administrative uses include
“Depressed Classes,” which first appeared around 1880 and which the British
used for the 1921 Indian census. J.H.Hutton, the Census Commissioner in 1931,
however, saw fit to replace what he called an “unfortunate and depressing label”
with another, namely, “exterior castes” (Charsley 1996:14). In the 1935
Government of India Act, this label in turn was replaced by a purely
administrative term, Scheduled Castes. In addition to the Scheduled Castes, the
Backward Classes label also extends back to the colonial era and was later used
70 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
in the 1950 constitution. The term “backward,” in contrast to the more neutral
term “scheduled,” evokes inferiority and inevitable comparisons to its opposite,
the “forward” citizens of India. The Other Backward Classes category has been
sporadically altered in recent years to Socially and Economically Backward
Classes (SEBCs), not much of an improvement. Labeling people as backward, in
the context of a policy to fight inequalities, simultaneously reinforces hegemonic
ideologies about group status and rankings.
Categorizing and labeling groups on the basis of untouchability or
backwardness in this way seems inevitably stigmatizing. Simon Charsley argues
that by subsuming diverse castes, dichotomizing society, and defining certain
categories of people as victims, such labels “refer to nothing those labeled do or
are, merely what others negatively do to them: they are excluded” (Charsley
1996:13). Moreover, the resilience of caste or jati distinctions within these
broader categories inhibits the growth of a wider political unity among those so
categorized (Charsley 1996, Omvedt 1993). Surprisingly then, in the political
realm, labels such as Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes have in some
cases become a political resource rather than a stigmatizing liability. Some
scholars trace the gradual growth of a pan-Scheduled Caste or pan-Dalit identity
and related political movements (Jalali 1993, Kothari 1994, Zelliot 1996). Others
note the increasing political power of the Other Backward Classes (Frankel
1988, Jaffrelot 2000).
As I will demonstrate in later chapters, the eagerness of various groups to be
endowed with scheduled or backward labels belies the assumption that these are
simply stigmatizing terms. Nevertheless, even if many groups are prepared to
swallow the stigma to get the useful label, or to accept the burdens to get the
benefits, being given these labels is a double-edged sword. The clearest case of
labeling and stigmatizing the groups targeted by reservations is the procedure of
literally pasting labels on their employee files:
Such labels make it difficult for employees in reserved jobs to choose to hide
their caste or tribal affiliation at work.
A survey of 55 Scheduled Caste elites, including bureaucrats, suggests that
caste anonymity is an important way to avoid being treated as an untouchable.
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 71
Even when job candidates have caste certificates, their appointments are to be
provisional until their identity is further scrutinized.
While clearly onerous, the process includes some protections for the applicant.
Once a certificate has been issued, the burden of proof shifts away from the
beneficiary; the courts have held that “after a valid certificate is issued, the onus
is on the authorities to establish that the certificate was erroneous” (Muthuswamy
and Brinda 1996:248). The proper procedure at that point is for the employer to
initiate a “discreet inquiry” by a local official to “find out the genuineness of the
community claimed by the individual” (Muthuswamy and Brinda 1996:248).
Such inquiries occasionally reveal “false” certificates, for reasons ranging from
carelessness, to corruption to ambiguity. Contemporary headlines, “Fake
Certificate Racket Busted” and “Caste Certificate Racket Lands Official in
Soup,” illustrate the value of these certificates and the temptation to falsify
identity for material gain (Hindustan Times-New Delhi, 16 July 1996, Indian
Express, 23 June 1997). In such cases individuals are to be given a “reasonable
opportunity” to justify their claims before their certificates are canceled
72 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
(Muthuswamy and Brinda 1996:248). If, instead, the certificate is duly verified
by local authorities, and “the report is received that the certificate is genuine,
thereafter the certificate holder cannot be further harassed to prove his caste/
community in any other manner” (Muthuswamy and Brinda 1996:247).
In spite of such rules, cases of repeated harassment have occurred.3 Moreover,
identity verifications, albeit less invasive, continue throughout the careers of
persons in reserved jobs, especially at times of promotion. Occasional changes in
the schedules or lists of eligible groups are the impetus for this practice of
periodically checking to see if employees are still eligible for their reserved jobs.
It may be mentioned that a Scheduled Caste Person, whose caste has been
descheduled after his initial appointment as a Scheduled Caste, is no longer
entitled to enjoy the benefit of reservation in promotions. This verification
of caste-status at every important up-turn of employee's career is
necessary so that the benefit of reservation and other scheme of
concessions etc. meant for SC/ST should go only to the rightful claimants
and not those who become disentitled to them.
(Ministry of Personnel 1993:249, emphasis added)
commitment to this practice no doubt varies, such rules in the realm of education
are an attempt to avoid labeling and stigmatizing the youngest members of groups
eligible for reservations.
Migration
Geographic boundaries are one of several types of boundary issues facing the
bureaucrats who issue caste certificates. Membership in the groups eligible for
reservations is determined in part by location. The lists, or schedules, of
communities vary from state to state, and, in some cases, communities are included
in the lists only if they are from certain areas within states. The Ministry of
74 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
I am directed to say that many instances have come to the notice of this
Ministry wherein certificates of belonging to a particular Scheduled Caste/
Tribe have not been issued strictly in accordance with principles governing
the issue of such certificates…it is possible that two persons belonging to
the same caste but residing in different States/U.T.s [Union Territories]
may not both be treated to belong to Scheduled Caste/Tribe or vice versa.
Thus the residence of a particular person in a particular locality assumes
special significance.
(Ministry of Home Affairs Memorandum to the State
Governments 1977) (A directive consulted
by Ministry of Welfare officials as of 1996)
1975).9 Now the administrator must determine whether the father or mother’s
community is most accepting of the child.
This, obviously, may not be a clear call, and one bureaucrat I spoke with told
me that in most cases, he would categorize children with their fathers (Mahesh
interview 29 November 1996). A “frequently asked questions” page on the
website of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment reiterates the
unofficial standard that a father’s classification generally determines that of his
children.10
Question: What shall be the status of the offspring of a couple one of whom
is a Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe?
Answer:…If the child has been accepted by the Scheduled Caste or
Scheduled Tribe Community and has been brought up in the surrounding
of Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe spouse then, the child would be
treated as Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, as the case may be.
However, each case is to be examined on its merit. However, in general,
the following illustrations are made:
The tension between the general “illustrations” and the case specific “note” in
this answer illustrates the quandaries of bureaucrats trying to manufacture
standard responses to specific situations. Since only these two examples are
given, the father’s status appears to be the default answer to questions about
categorizing intercommunity offspring, unless an industrious bureaucrat
determines that the mother’s community was more accepting. These cases of
intercommunity offspring illustrate bureaucratic standardization and the lack of
power of target populations. Intercommunity couples have little say in the
classification of their children, and even cases involving matriarchal
communities are likely to be standardized in a patriarchal way, as the
presumption is that the father’s identity trumps the mother’s.
“Illegitimate” children are an exception, according to a rule based on
additional assumptions about gender roles. In such cases, the government
assumes that “the illegitimate children are generally brought up by the mother in
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 77
her own surroundings. Therefore, if the mother belongs to the Scheduled Caste
and brings up the child within a Scheduled Caste community, the child can be
taken as a member of the Scheduled Caste community” (Ministry of Home
Affairs Memorandum to States 1977). This memorandum also addresses the
status of the offspring when both parents are members of Scheduled Castes or
Scheduled Tribes but each belongs to a “different sub-caste or subtribe.” In such
a case, the children can be presumed to be members of the Scheduled Castes or
Tribes and usually to be members of the father’s subcaste or tribe, although this
rule is not absolute in cases of desertion or divorce. A similar rule applies in
cases of offspring when one parent is Scheduled Caste and the other is Scheduled
Tribe.
Notably, these rules regarding children of mixed marriages leave much up to
the administrator, who must determine something as subjective as the
“acceptance” of a person by a group. Moreover, each of these specific rules are
followed by equivocation, or recognition of the possibility of ambiguous
boundaries in spite of the above regulations for so many combinations of identity.
As in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment website, each part of the
memo on inter-category marriages closes with a phrase such as: “The above are
general observations, however, each case has to be examined in the light of the
circumstances prevalent in that case and final decision has to be taken ther[e]of,”
or, “[t]he general position of the law has been stated above. However, each
individual case will have to be examined in the light of existing facts and
circumstances in such cases” (Ministry of Home Affairs Memorandum to States
1977).
Cases of adoption have also generated bureaucratic rules to clarify and verify
the identities of adoptees. When people apply for certificates on the grounds that
they were adopted by a Scheduled Caste family, for example, the burden of
proof rests on them. They must substantiate the validity of their adoptions.
Generally, adoptions after a person has turned 15 years old or has married are
suspect. In such cases, a special inquiry by the District Magistrate is necessary in
order to determine whether such adoptions are permitted by the customs
particular to the relevant community. If so, the Magistrate must make a special
note of that on the certificate. Certificates are denied to those who are not living
with and supported by their adoptive parents or those who have ties to or are
receiving financial help from birth parents who are not in a group eligible for the
certificate (Ministry of Personnel 1993:397).
To summarize, most people are officially stuck with their “original” caste or
tribe in spite of intercommunity marriage or adoption, unless they can meet the
stringent burden of proof for legitimate adoptions. This set of rules echoes the
rules regarding migrants, who retain their classification in their original home.
Bureaucrats and their memoranda mention the need to consider each individual
case, particularly in the classification of the offspring of mixed marriages.
78 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
However, even in such cases, standard rules of thumb have developed that
generally give such children the status of their fathers. Moreover, Ministry of
Welfare directives squelched procedures that once empowered parents in
intercommunity marriages to declare their children’s community, in favor of
bureaucratic verification of community acceptance. Since communities may be
quite ambivalent about intercommunity couples and their children, this is another
example of administrative burdens on the less powerful, burdens which do little
to encourage such marriages.
In brief, these rules hold that, as long as they do not convert yet again,
applicants may receive Scheduled Caste certificates by reconverting to Hinduism,
Buddhism or Sikhism if they are accepted by the community in question. A key
rule is that they must be reconverting to their own or their parents’ “original”
religion. The emphasis on an applicant’s original place, original caste and
original religion in the caste certificate process makes the applicants seem “stuck”
in their original communities. In the case of religion, however, conversion away
from one of the designated religions could immediately expel a certificate holder
from Scheduled Caste status. The categorization of converts is a particularly
thorny issue in Indian politics, and there are some tensions between judicial
decisions and administrative rulings in this area. A Supreme Court decision
involving converts, discussed in Chapter 2, disregarded whether members of a
Scheduled Caste accepted a convert to Hinduism back into his parents’ former
caste, ruling against the convert’s claim to be Scheduled Caste because he was
not born in that caste. S.Swvigaradoss v. Zonal Manager, Supreme Court of
India (1996).12
These examples involving migration, marriage, adoption and conversion
illustrate the rules by which bureaucrats assign people particular identities for the
purpose of receiving caste certificates. The examples confirm James Scott’s
observation that many people “defy easy categorization; they must be sorted into
one bin or the other because the exercise requires that the population be divided
into these categories” (Scott 1995:35). In other words, administrative rules tend
to render even flexible boundaries static, in spite of changes in location, family
or religion. According to the bureaucratic regulations summarized here, official
identification and status are tied to a migrant’s original place, to a married man’s
original caste, or to a convert’s reconversion to their original religion.
The static portrayal of status may be the most feasible rather than the most
accurate means of boundary verification. Although reservation policies may be
based on the premise that there are clear cut categories, the bureaucrats writing
and implementing boundary rules are forced to grapple with the ambiguity of
identities, occasionally noting, in the examples above, the need to proceed on a
case-by-case basis. Questions facing administrators include whether a person has
been accepted by a caste or community after conversion or whether the adoption
of older children is permitted by community custom. Bureaucrats at the Ministry
of Welfare dealing with Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe issues argued that
cases must be seen in context and that bureaucrats must respect community
sensibilities in ambiguous cases. On the basis of their own experience, these
administrators pointed out that the Scheduled Caste and Tribe categories are
internally complex, due to their intersection with other categories such as women
and the disabled (A.K.Choudhary and Aziz Khan interviews 17 December
1996). The myriad procedures involved in implementing these policies reinforce
the assumption that there are identifiable categories, although, in practice,
80 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
available; in such cases local inquiry is especially necessary. Mahesh notes that
the OBC category is quite “anthropologically complex,” a composite of caste,
class, and profession, further blurred by “mixing” and “migration;” thus he tends
to eschew “anthropological” data on the groups in question and to rely instead on
an individual’s official documents and the accounts of locals (Mahesh interview
20 November 1996).
Unlike the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Class
applicants also go through a second process to verify that they are not a member
of the “creamy layer” of the Other Backward Classes.16 The official “creamy
layer” criteria identify individuals who have risen to the top of their community
in socioeconomic terms. The creamy layer of OBCs are not eligible for
reservations. This effort to exclude the “forward backwards” population from
benefits is the topic of Chapter 8, but the procedure is relevant to the present
discussion of individual-level administrative processes. Due to the exclusion of
more well-off people from Other Backward Class benefits, the application form
from the government of Delhi goes beyond group details such as caste, sub-
caste, occupational group, and “[s]erial number of the caste in the Central List of
OBCs,” to ask for information pertaining to an individual applicant’s “creamy
layer” status. This part of the application includes questions about the applicant’s
parents or husband—the assumption, evidently, is that a wife could not lift her
husband into the creamy layer—including employment, land, and income
(“Application Form for a Certificate for Eligibility for Reservation of Jobs for
Other Backward Classes in Civil Posts and Services Under Government of
Delhi” and “Form of Certificate to Be Produced By Other Backwards Classes
Applying for Appointment to Posts Under the Government of India”).17
Documentation to be submitted includes such items as a salary slip and tax
records, if any. Currently, once an OBC certificate is issued, it is issued for life,
regardless of a subsequent change in status, but the next generation might be
excluded from the category.
Applying for an Other Backward Class certificate is an individual act,
although certainly not solitary, as can be seen from the neighborhood inquiries
involved.18 Moreover, most of the questions and documentation require personal
papers and immediate family data rather than group-level statistics or
anthropological data about one’s caste. People in this process are hardly
atomized, but the quest for a certificate is significantly more individualized than
the collective process needed to get on the list itself.
In contrast to the individual certificate process, the process of applying to the
National Commission for Backward Classes in order to be listed as an Other
Backward Class reinforces group cooperation. One of the mandates of the
Commission, formed in 1993, is to standardize the various lists of Other
Backward Classes prepared by state government commissions and the central list
prepared by the previous, temporary National Backward Classes Commission,
82 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
Sheth also finds “very useful” anthropological data about groups, such as the
government’s recent People of India Project, which he characterizes as an
“ethnographic update of caste, communities and tribes in India… We also used…
that kind of material in the Commission, in our decision making” (Sheth
interview 6 September 1996). In contrast to the caste certificate officers, who
eschew anthropological data for more individualized inquiries and
documentation, the Commission tries to gather group level statistical and
ethnographic data and encourages the government to collect more.
Given the paucity of group-level data, compiling the data for the questionnaire
and preparing for a hearing require substantial group organization and resources
on the part of the petitioners (See Questionnaire for Consideration of Requests
for Inclusion and Complaints of Under-Inclusion in the Central List of Other
Backward Classes).22 First, the questionnaire demands data on the applicant
group as a unit, such as literacy data and percentages of the group involved in
various occupations. Second, the form includes inquiries into the history of the
group’s previous official classifications, if any, as a caste, community or tribe.
Third, the form requests that the group:
Sounding a bit like colonial attempts to rank jatis into hierarchical lists, this step
requires that the group see itself as a unit in relation to other groups. It also
reinforces the idea that groups are not just categorized but also ranked. This
procedure has resulted in groups collecting and submitting data in an attempt to
demonstrate that they are more backward than a group already on the list. For
example, in the state of Rajastan, the “Rajput Reservation Front” leaders
compared Rajputs to Jats, who were already on the list, in terms of their
representation in political office and at various universities. They argued that
“the Rajputs are more politically and educationally backward than the Jats,” all
in an attempt to get Rajputs on the OBC list (The Statesman, “Rajastan’s creamy
layer vies for OBC status” 30 October 2001). It may be the less backward rather
than the more backward who have the resources to prove their own
backwardness and thus wage such a campaign successfully.
The listing process, in contrast to the caste certificate process, underscores that
applicants are part of a group, reinforcing the perception that engaging in politics
84 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
and interacting with the state is best done collectively. Organized and politically
powerful groups have more resources to come up with strong applications in
spite of the lack of publicly available data, such as census figures on such groups.
If a group is unified and numerous, with the potential to vote as a block, they can
pressure state or central governments to be included on the lists, making it
crucial that the state and national commissions are made up of professional
administrators rather than politicized appointees. Sheth noted that in some states
“there are some borderline cases of large communities which have acquired
political clout, but are peasant communities; and it may be disputable whether
they really are backward” (Sheth interview 6 September 1996). He also pointed
out that “communities see power in this unification for benefits.” In fact, seeing
such reinforcement of group identities has caused him to propose more
individualized criteria for Backward status:
CONCLUSION
In India, the quite detailed attention to classification necessitated by caste
certificates and lists contributes to continuing constructions of the Scheduled
Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. The overt labeling of
beneficiaries, the reliance on “original” identities in ambiguous certificate cases,
and the emphasis on group-based claims and data in applications for lists can
harden group identities. This examination of administrative practices in India
reinforces arguments about preferential policies and target populations in the
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 85
United States, where racial and ethnic categories have remained administratively
softer:
In 2001, census enumerators asked India’s one billion citizens whether they were
members of the disadvantaged communities officially known as the Scheduled
Castes or Scheduled Tribes. To publicize the census, the Census Commissioner,
accompanied by television cameras, served as the enumerator for the President
of India. President K.R. Narayanan identified himself as a member of a
Scheduled Caste, but when he was asked to name his caste as part of the standard
verification procedure, his caste did not appear on the official list, much to his
consternation. His caste, on the SC lists in the state of his birth, Kerala, did not
appear in the lists for the Indian capital (The Hindu, “Blanks on the census form”
25 February 2001, Constable and Laxmi 2001:A12). This is just one prominent
example of the numerous challenges and controversies associated with census
classifications based on identities such as caste, tribe or religion.
Although not all castes are counted on the census, Scheduled Castes and
Tribes are. Census enumerators, to verify whether people should really be
counted as members of these categories, ask them to name their caste or tribe, so
their answers can be checked against official state-by-state schedules.1 In
addition, census enumerators record religion, which can also serve to disqualify
self-declared Scheduled Caste members from being recorded as SCs, since this
designation is not open to Muslims or Christians (Jenkins 2001a, Wright 1997,
Wyatt 1998). These census questions juxtapose personal identity and official
identification, which do not always neatly overlap, as in the case of the
President.
In spite of initial intentions to downplay caste in the postcolonial census and
ongoing definitional challenges, this limited accounting of castes persists and
may even be expanded into a comprehensive caste count in the future. After
colonial census administrators’ misguided yet meticulous attempts to rank and
record castes, the first post-independence Census Commissioner only collected
community data from the so-called “Special Groups,” including the Scheduled
Castes and Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Anglo-Indians. This decision
was motivated by the idea that past census taking had reinforced casteism,
dividing Indian society and facilitating colonial rule. Thus the 1951 census
88 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
included only those questions that were considered necessary to fulfill the
constitutional commitment to public policies such as reservations. Subsequently
the census count of Other Backward Classes stopped. However, the controversial
extension of reservations in central government jobs to the Other Backward
Classes (OBCs) in the 1990s caused some people to advocate resuming a
comprehensive count of caste so that these groups too could be counted.
Although the government ultimately rejected this proposal for the 2001 census,
the serious and ongoing consideration of a general caste question on the census is
somewhat puzzling. Given post-independence critiques of this colonial practice
by both politicians and academics, why is a caste census being seriously
considered in India? Recent proposals to resume a comprehensive caste count
not only signal a change in perspective from the independence-era optimism that
caste would fade away with modernity, but also reflect a continuity in the
process, namely, the persistent presence of caste on the census in spite of the
goal of removing it.
Postcolonial census classifications and enumerations have a mixed legacy for
identity politics in India. Census results serve as a policy tool for designing and
monitoring reservations to break down group disparities, yet, as I will
demonstrate, practices of classifying and enumerating Scheduled Castes,
Scheduled Tribes and religious communities simultaneously reinforce divisions
in several ways. Census classifications tend to maintain static identity categories
by failing to recognize some positive social changes. In addition, the state
monitors certain already oppressed groups more stringently than the general
population. Census enumerations continue to inspire some groups to prioritize
the maintenance of group numbers over the alleviation of group divisions. Also,
although the census is a potentially valuable source of quantitative data on the
social conditions of various groups, official tabulations and dissemination of data
sometimes emphasize group numbers more than their conditions.
In these ways, census classifications and enumerations reinforce official
categories; nevertheless, the boundaries remain somewhat pliable. Dramatic
jumps in the populations of certain Scheduled Tribes from one census to the next
illustrate changing identity claims in response to official designations and the
benefits associated with them. In an ironic reversal of the demands and petitions
of colonial subjects to increase their status in the census rankings, some groups
are now trying to be counted in the Scheduled categories. Those joining the
ranks of the Scheduled Tribes demonstrate that this census category is both
influential and permeable.
The relationship between the census and reservations rests on two practices:
classifying and counting. The official social categories used on the census match
those used for reservations for the Scheduled groups, although the methods of
determining who is in those categories vary. “Scheduled” identity on the census
is supposed to be self-declared to the enumerator, although answers are checked
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 89
against a state list and can also be disqualified due to religious affiliation. These
official “checks” on largely self-declared identities are somewhat akin to the
People of India project’s modified self-identification principle, discussed in
Chapter 3. In the context of adjudicating or administering reservations, the topics
of Chapters 2 and 4, Scheduled Caste or Tribe identity claims are even more
scrutinized. Census data on Scheduled Castes and Tribes factor into the reserved
quotas allocated for these groups.2 Continuing to collect social and economic
data about the scheduled categories and religious minorities can help the
government to monitor their progress and populations and adjust policies
accordingly. Thus decisions about whether and how to classify and count people
on the census can have an impact on the opportunities of disadvantaged groups.
The utility of the census data for achieving further opportunities for the
disadvantaged through reservations offsets some of the divisiveness associated
with counting caste; nevertheless some counterproductive practices might well
be reconsidered, particularly as an expanded caste-wise count is contemplated.
Analysis of modern India’s census experience can contribute to ongoing
debates worldwide about the use of identity categories on national censuses. The
United States, for example, revised the 2000 census to allow multiracial citizens
to check multiple races (Nobles 2000, Skerry 2000). South Africans after apartheid
made a rather heart wrenching decision to retain racial categories in the census,
with the new goal of monitoring progress toward equality.3 Britain recently
introduced a rather controversial ethnicity count (Dale and Holdsworth 1995,
White 1999), and the new censuses of the former Soviet Republics are sparking
controversies about national, ethnic, and religious distinctions (Kertzer and Arel
2002).
Given the lengthy history of census taking in India, Indian administrators,
academics and politicians have long been aware of the difficulties and downsides
of identity classifications. The following discussion of some divisive tendencies
of the Indian census is not meant as a criticism of census administrators, who,
although coding a plethora of answers into standardized matrices, articulated
some of the most nuanced discussions of India’s complex diversity I encountered
in interviews on this subject. Indeed the divisive dynamics of census categories
occur at multiple stages in the census process, from the design of categories and
questions, to data collection, tabulation, dissemination and politicization. Thus
while group reinforcement associated with the census is in part due to
administrative procedures, it is also due to political pressures, to media coverage,
or simply to the imperatives of any large scale accounting of a complex reality.
I first show that the arguments of post-independence politicians foreshadowed
current academic critiques that colonial census takers emphasized, simplified,
and reified social categories such as caste, tribe and religion. Despite these
longstanding concerns, such categories never did disappear from the census.
Current debates in India about resuming a comprehensive caste count in the
90 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
census illustrate not a new but a renewed emphasis on caste and community, in
large part due to growing administrative and political concerns about
reservations. I analyze some ongoing practices associated with classification and
enumeration and argue that these tend to reinforce group divisions despite the
goal of breaking them down. Finally, I turn to some recent population jumps due
to identity shifts. These shifts into the Scheduled Tribe category became
politicized due to the reservations at stake. In comparison with the court cases,
caste lists and certificates, and even the People of India project, discussed in
earlier chapters, census categories are more porous. They rely upon self-
identification, although the enumerator does a little checking as in the example
of the President and the 2001 census. I conclude that divisive administrative
practices and political dynamics have haunted group-based census categories
from colonial times to the present, with renewed vigor in recent years, yet some
people still manage to complicate such categories, if not always overcome them.
Charsley 1996). The 1931 census commissioner J.H. Hutton, author of Caste in
India, also tried to develop caste indices, but the “hyperpoliticization” of caste,
as well as the need for an abbreviated census during Second World War, meant
that comprehensive caste counts ceased after 1931 (Dirks 2001:221, 226, Hutton
1946).
The social and political side effects of the colonial census inspired much
criticism from Indian leaders in the early years of independence as well as from
several historians and other scholars in more recent years. Indian leaders at
independence, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, wanted to put certain colonial census
practices behind them, particularly caste tabulations (Bose interviews 19 July
1996 and 4 November 1996). Some of their comments foreshadowed current
academic criticisms; however, like many of their contemporaries, these early
postcolonial leaders spoke in what now seem to be idealized terms about the
stasis of tradition and the dynamism of the modern era they hoped to enter.5
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Deputy Prime Minister, spoke in 1950 at a
conference about the census to be carried out the following year, contrasting it
with the colonial emphasis on India’s divisions:
The shift in emphasis from groups to individuals and from caste classifications to
economic data signaled the optimism at independence about “modernization”
and the fading away of caste. At a 1959 census conference, Home Minister
Govind Pant echoed these ideologies of modernity: “In the olden days the
conditions were static… You were concerned mostly with matters pertaining to
caste, religion and so on, but now times have changed. We are on the move and
our society has become…dynamic” (quoted in Natarajan 1972:267). These
leaders argued that “traditional” identities like caste and religion were static,
particularly as portrayed in the colonial census, and they committed themselves
to new and progressive agendas for the postcolonial census operations.
These critics of the colonial census, anticipating the speedy demise of caste,
would be surprised at the current debates over resuming a caste count.
Years later, colonial census taking became the subject of much academic
scrutiny, which echoed these earlier concerns about the imposed divisiveness of
census categories and the opportunities for colonial manipulations. Inspiring
92 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
the enduring interest of the British in caste as a system which both divided
and ranked their Indian subjects, produced an extensive response among
those subjects, and also sometimes created new categories by statistical
sleight of hand or administrative fiat.
(Conlon 1981:104)
Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai argues in even stronger terms about the far-
reaching effects of the census on social and political life:
These political leaders and scholars have severely criticized the colonial
census for reinforcing or politicizing distinctions on the basis of caste, tribe and
religion. Has the postcolonial Indian census avoided such divisive tendencies?
Can a census used to design and monitor policies to overcome community-based
disadvantages—in contrast to a colonial census used to gather revenue or
maintain order and control—avoid the pitfalls of reinforcing divisions? These are
the questions raised by recent proposals to resume a comprehensive caste count.
must consider whether changed motives are enough to change the outcomes of
administrative practices. Has the post colonial Indian state really steered clear of
the divisive tendencies of the colonial census, or has contemporary caste-based
data collection perpetuated some of the same problems as colonial census
classifications?
Given the persistence of caste in the postcolonial census, to some the proposed
expansion of the caste question seems to be a logical expansion of past practices.
Now is a crucial time to take a closer look at those practices. The following
discussion illustrates the continuing attention to caste in the postcolonial census
and, in particular, the continuing divisiveness associated with classifications and
enumerations.
Before the disease of caste is destroyed all facts about it have to be noted
and classified in a scientific manner as in a clinical record… The Census
officers must have permanent ethnologists and sociologists… As long as
social welfare and relief have to be administered through castes, classes or
groups, full information about these groups should be obtained and
tabulated.
(Kalelkar Commission 1953:159)
This policy discredits unity among lower castes by reinforcing separate caste
names as “correct.” The adoption of composite names, in contrast, is portrayed
as “negligence.” Thus the postcolonial census procedures continue to ignore some
changing identities and reinforce some divisions, particularly among
disadvantaged citizens.11
Not everyone’s caste was recorded for the census. In practice, however,
everyone had to be asked a caste question. For the first post-colonial census in
1951:
ethnographic appendices about castes that often accompanied the colonial census,
as in the caste report by Herbert Risely for the 1901 census, which became the
basis for his People of India, the subject of Chapter 3 (Risley 1915). Colonial
ethnographers had an interest in painting populations as “barbaric” to attempt to
justify colonial rule, or in identifying “criminal tribes” to monitor or “martial
races” to employ (Cohn 1996, Des Chene 1999, Dirks 1997). In light of this
history, the 1971 census’ “ethnographic notes” contain some startling
descriptions of certain castes as “inveterate criminals” (Bayly 1999: 275). If a
caste count is carried out, socio-economic data could make this exercise
worthwhile, but analyses of various groups’ so-called criminal proclivities is not
the sort of supplementary data likely to help them advance. In India, census
classifications raise recurring and troubling issues, particularly the tendency to
retain static, subdivided categories and to impose more on the privacy of the
disadvantaged through additional state scrutiny and record keeping.
diminishing the value of the census data as a tool for policy refinement or social
empowerment.
Concern over population numbers has caused some people to retain categories
they might otherwise wish to discard. The demand to count the Other Backward
Classes is a case in point. One census scholar, in a striking reversal of
independence era statements on the modernity of moving away from a caste
count, argues:
Although the census critics discussed earlier suggest that the colonial counts, in
particular, had dramatic effects on the social order, subsequent efforts to
downplay caste on the census certainly did not make castes disappear in society.
The necessity of using archaic 1931 census data for current policies for Other
Backward Classes further complicates any claims about the “modernity” of
avoiding a caste-wise count and forces some who might otherwise eschew such a
count to advocate it simply to gather the numbers needed to administer existing
policies.
The power of numbers also sways groups to embrace rather than disavow their
backward status. Some even try to come up with their own population figures.
Census administrators suggested that the logistics and politics—of coordinating
comprehensive, official lists of castes and then counting them may be too much
for an already huge census operation. Such concerns may have factored into the
decision not to expand the caste count for 2001. One census administrator, while
acknowledging the utility of Other Backward Class numbers for government
planning, pointed out the challenge: “The demand may be genuine, but it is a
very…voluminous exercise” (Chakravorty interview 16 December 1996).
Undeterred, some states and, more tellingly, caste associations are trying to fill
the gap by sponsoring their own, unofficial Other Backward Class censuses
(Hasan 2000:173, n.16). In the words of sociologist A.M.Shah:
But Muslims have always been multiplying at a faster rate than the
Hindus, as evidenced by the censuses held from 1891 to 1991. The result is
that for the last over 100 years, the communal composition of the country
has been changing census after census in favour of Muslims… The rise of
Muslim population at a faster pace than the Hindu population strengthened
the Muslim demand for Pakistan…even in truncated India after Partition,
Muslim population is growing at a faster rate than the Hindu population. If
other things remain the same, this will in course of time ensure that Hindus
are reduced to a minority and India becomes an Islamic state.
(Free Press Journal 13 September 1995)
Abdul Malik Mujahid discusses news accounts that actually tried to project when
Hindus would become a minority in the state of Tamil Nadu (Mujahid 1989:93).
These reports occurred in the wake of mass conversions of untouchables to Islam
in that state in the early 1980s. These are extreme examples of the competitive
politics of numbers, which can be inspired by census data interpreted without
context or cross-tabulation.
Clearly, relative populations and growth rates of different groups are widely
circulated; yet, the Indian state postpones or simply does not tabulate data for
certain other illuminating tables, such as the Muslim literacy rate in comparison
with the Hindu literacy rate, on the grounds that these numbers are “sensitive”
information. “The census tables do not present such data though the questions on
religion and literacy were asked about every individual,” notes census scholar
Ashish Bose (quoted in Mohanty and Momin 1996:6, Bose interviews 19 July
1996 and 4 November 1996). Notably, another arguably more sensitive table,
on differential fertility by religion, has been included in recent census
publications. The possible relationship between fertility rates and illiteracy rates
remains hidden, and the misguided assumptions linking high fertility and Muslim
“culture,” particularly polygamy, pervade public discussion.15
In a published interview, the Registrar General of India, M.Vijayanunni, was
asked about the politicization of census figures and whether it is “warranted to
talk about the Hindu rate of growth or the Muslim rate of growth given the fact
102 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
SHIFTING IDENTITIES
I counted nine I had no right to count (But this was dreamy unofficial
counting).
(Robert Frost from “The Census Taker” 1995:165)
reliance on self-declared identities means that there are instances in which people
still manage to cross state-drawn boundaries.
In 1981, census takers recorded a sudden jump in the number of people
claiming Scheduled Tribe status in the state of Maharashtra. This population
explosion could not be attributed to births alone, but rather was due in part to
people deciding to change categories.18 In the case of the Halba/Halbi tribe, the
1971 population of 7205 rose to 242,819 in 1981, in part due to members of a
Koshti sub-caste claiming to belong to this tribe. The fact that at one time the
Maharashtrian government had recognized this sub-caste as tribal members
demonstrates the unclear boundaries between tribals and non-tribals and makes
the case more ambiguous than conclusions about “fraudulent responses” imply
(Kulkarni 1991).
At the same time, reservations are one possible incentive for what historian
Sumit Guha has described as the “infiltration” of the Scheduled Tribes in
Maharashtra, whose population grew by “an implausible 50 per cent in 1971–81”
(Guha 1999:193 citing Gaikwad 1986). This could be seen as “ironically enough,
another indicator of progress,” notes Guha (1999:193). The voluntary movement
of individuals and groups into stigmatized categories arguably breaks down
boundaries, although administering group-based policies aimed at Scheduled
Tribes certainly becomes more complex, and their impact may be diluted. The
improbable enumerations of Scheduled Tribes in Maharashtra demonstrate that
in spite of the seemingly obsessive tendencies of governments to classify, people
occasionally throw a wrench into the administrative machinery of the census.
“The policing of these increasingly artificial and highly permeable social
boundaries by any state, however omniscient, will almost certainly become
increasingly difficult in the new millennium” (Guha 1999:198). Enumerators
have some authority to “check” census answers to make sure a group is on the
schedule but cannot verify whether individuals are “really” in the groups. As
discussed in previous chapters, administrative “scrutiny committees” and judicial
efforts to expose “spurious” groups or individuals, cast suspicion on voluntary
identity shifts (an unfortunate outcome), but even these more stringent processes
cannot eliminate such shifts (Jenkins 2001b). The colonial and postcolonial
governments’ role in structuring identities certainly can be overstated. Surges in
census populations show that the government is not able to stand guard at the
boundaries of official categories. Yet the fact that a group is trying to become a
Scheduled Tribe shows the government’s indirect influence on identity claims
through the construction of a particular menu of categories and a related
opportunity structure.
The persistence of shifting identities shows that census policies associated
with reservations may reinforce certain categories but cannot contain society
neatly within them. The reservations-related uses of census data about different
social categories tend to inspire suspicion of shifting identity claims rather than
104 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
relief over the flow of people in and out of the disadvantaged categories.
Nevertheless, these shifts in claimed identities show that people are not
imprisoned by the boundaries of official categories, although they are certainly
influenced by them.
CONCLUSION
Dilemmas over categorizing and counting various identity-based groups on the
census continue to plague the Indian government as well as many governments
worldwide. The census has had a particularly close relationship to identity
politics in Indian history. Census data on religion helped draw the boundaries
between India and Pakistan at Partition; census data on “mother tongue” aided in
the reorganization of states starting in 1956; census data on castes and tribes
figured into the percentage of reserved government jobs, university admissions
and legislative seats allocated to Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
Whether identity-based data collection exacerbates or quells group divisions
and tensions is an important question for culturally diverse countries. This
analysis of the recent history of the categories most useful for contemporary
reservation policies in India—caste, tribe and religion—demonstrates that some
aspects of classifying and counting are counterproductive. Intentions changed
dramatically at independence, but the postcolonial census has not made a clean
break from colonial practices; on the contrary, the growing push for a
comprehensive caste tabulation inspires a sense of deja vu. Data on castes and
religious minorities could be a political tool for the disadvantaged, but problems
persist in the census, including the government’s need for strict classifications
despite the goal of more social fluidity, the more intrusive scrutiny of certain
minorities, the continuing competition over group numbers, and the limited
dissemination of certain “sensitive” data. If caste and religious data could be
used more effectively to alleviate inequities and improve reservations and other
policies for the disadvantaged, this would help make up for the inherent
problems of official identity-based census categories. As it stands the politics of
the census and, in particular, the categories relevant to reservations are in danger
of doing more to reinforce divisions than to provide tools to fight against them.
Regarding the tensions between ambiguous groups and official categories,
reservations have raised the stakes attached to certain identity claims, motivating
some people to challenge their categorizations. Often, however, people have
pushed the boundaries without ultimately under-mining the state classification
schemes: Other Backward Classes want to be included in the count; some
members of various Scheduled Castes are identifying with the larger SC
category; the people who try to switch into the Scheduled Tribe category are
embracing the category itself, even while perforating its boundaries. Benedict
Anderson says of the colonial census: “It tried carefully to count the objects of
STATE SIMPLIFICATIONS 105
its feverish imagining” (Anderson 1991:169). Now groups are re-imagining their
own identities in part based on their identification in the census.
Part II
Political complications
6
ªBackwardº Muslims and ªScheduled
Casteº Christians
Society does not simply allow itself to be boxed up by the state. Social groups
challenge state categories, both reacting to and exploiting the inherent
complexity of overlapping identities. Thus we cannot stop at simply vilifying
official categories. State classifications do not entirely determine social fault
lines, and these classifications may be used to the advantage of subordinate
groups.
Although critically examining structures imposed by governments remains
important, recognizing the agency of members of society, their ability to act and
even challenge such structures, is a crucial part of any analysis (Giddens 1977).
Political scientists Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, based on their work in India,
were among the first to point out the limits of colonial categories in their 1967
classic, the Modernity of Tradition. Although their work foreshadowed some
criticisms of imperial or governmental categories by scholars such as Edward
Said and Michel Foucault, they later noted that a Saidian or Foucaultian
approach can be taken too far: “We would challenge the claim that always and
necessarily power dominates knowledge and that knowledge serves domination”
(Rudolph and Rudolph 1967, 1996:5, 6, 8–9, Said 1978, Foucault 1979).
Rejecting oversimplified categories, especially those imposed or re-inforced
by Western social science or imperialism—race and caste being two prominent
examples—is an appealing idea. Yet such blanket generalizations can be
misguided. For example, consider sociologist Pierre Van den Berghe’s sweeping
conclusion about race:
In practice, social race is always a social stigma for the subordinate group,
and all attempts to pretend otherwise have been singularly unsuccessful.
Pragmatically, in terms of policy, it means that institutionalization of racial
categories, however innocuous or even benevolent it may appear, is
frequently noxious in its consequences. I am thinking of such measures as
racial questions on the census, race-based affirmative action and similar
108 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
“In my view the entire Muslim community in the country forms a backward
class,” wrote Syed Shahabuddin, a founder of the Association for Promoting
Education and Employment of Muslims, in a letter to the Welfare Minister in
1995 (Muslim India February 1996:78).6 In conferences on the issue in Delhi and
Hyderabad, the Association demanded “the recognition of the Muslim
community, as a community, as a Backward Class…and for the consequent
extension of reservation to the community, in proportion to its population and
level of backwardness, both in higher and professional education as well as in
public employment” (Association for Promoting Education and Employment of
Muslims 1996, emphasis in the original). Based on his research on the leaders of
the renewed demand for Muslim reservations, political scientist Theodore
Wright argues, “they feared that if Muslims did not get on the backwardness
bandwagon, they would be left competing for an ever diminishing proportion of
open (unreserved) seats with an ever larger pool of Forward (twice-born Hindu)
rivals” (Wright 1997:854). Concerns about both Muslim political unity and
proportional opportunities for Muslims underlie this campaign.
Syed Hamid, the President of the Association, argued that the entire Muslim
community in India is socio-economically depressed and discriminated against,
so some positive action must be taken by the government (Hamid interview 2
September 1996). Shahabbudin emphasized the necessity of “cutting the cake”
not just horizontally by caste and class, as in current reservation policies, but also
vertically, by religion, in order to evenly distribute opportunities (Shahabuddin
interview 11 September 1996). The association’s preference is for a separate
quota for Muslims, rather than including them in the existing groups eligible for
reservations, so that the Muslim community can “enjoy the full benefit of their
rightful measure of reservation, free of all apprehensions of any encroachment by
other relatively advanced communities if bracketted with them” (Association for
Promoting Education and Employment of Muslim 1996:1). Shahabuddin, like his
association in their official resolution, argued that those Muslims already
declared backward would have “first claim” to benefits, but is this enough to
protect the more disadvantaged Muslims? (Shahabuddin interview 11 September
1996). Other Backward Class Muslim and Dalit Muslim groups are skeptical.
They have their own ideas on how the cake should be sliced.
Those Muslim groups already included in the lists of Other Backward Classes
have a vested interest in keeping the competition, including upper class or upper
caste Muslims, off the lists. “While Islam may be casteless, our society is divided
on the basis of castes,” argued Shabbir Ansari, President of the All India Muslim
OBC Organisation, at their first national convention in New Delhi in 1996 (The
Hindu 30 August 1996:3). One of their major questions, posed at a 2002 seminar
sponsored by this organization and Mumbai University, is “why are Indian
Muslims always projected as a single, monolithic group without cultural and
social variations?” (Minwalla 2002). A major goal of this organisation is to get
112 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
more arguably backward Muslim groups on the official lists of backward classes.
According to their estimates, over 90 per cent of Muslims should be considered
backward but not all Muslims. The current OBC lists contain several Muslim
communities. The head of the National Commission for Backward Classes,
R.N.Prasad, pointed out that, theoretically, non-Hindu religions take away the
caste basis of social stratification, but in reality there is a “hangover of caste
sticking to them” (Prasad interview 18 September 1996). In response to official
state and national level lists of backward groups, the All India Muslim OBC
Organisation has carried out surveys in order to compile its own lists of Muslim
backward classes, including additional Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
in addition to Other Backward Classes. For example, in the state of Maharashtra,
where the organisation started, it demanded that 42 Muslim groups be added to
the lists of the officially backward (Sonavane interview 2 December 1996).7
An activist in this organization, Vilas Sonavane argued that “Religion has
been used to suppress the basic contradictions in Indian society, which is [sic]
caste” (Sonavane interview 2 December 1996). In contrast to the Association for
Promoting Education and Employment for Muslims, which he said had accused
him of “dividing Muslims,” Sonavane felt that reservations should be an Other
Backward Classes issue, not a Muslim issue. Using caste and class categories to
undermine arguments for reservation categories based on religion, he described
this movement as “deconstructing the myth of religion in India,” namely the
perennial polarization of majority versus minority religions. Because he is
focusing on overlapping axes of identity, he characterized his movement as “the
first postmodernist movement in India” (Sonavane interview 2 December 1996).
Although “the philosophy of caste as a superstructure of social discrimination
is quite contradictory to the basic beliefs of Islam which implicitly emphasizes
equality and universal Muslim brotherhood,” caste-like stratification persists in
Muslim societies in India (Ansari 1960:27). The status distinctions between the
descendants of immigrants and descendants of converts, the pre-existing caste
distinctions of those who converted, as well as occupational hierarchies have
resulted in a complex system of categories internal to the “Muslim community”
(Ahmad 1978, Ansari 1960, Jenkins 2000, Mann 1992, Mondal 1996). The
Muslim OBC Organisation complicates the notion of a Muslim community and
“takes the stand that secular social structures and class/caste hierarchies
transcend and come prior to religious identities” (Bidwai 1996). The organization
tries to work across religious divides, drawing parallels between the plight of
lower status Muslims, Hindus and Christians in its arguments and agenda.
For example, in their efforts to get Scheduled Caste status for the Muslims
Dalits, the All India Muslim OBC Organisation aligns itself with the Dalit
Christian organizations making similar demands. The Scheduled Caste category,
originally only open to Hindus, has been expanded to include Sikhs and
Buddhists. In a memorandum to the Welfare Minister, the President of the All
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 113
India Muslim OBC Organisation, Shabbir Ahmed Ansari, pointedly asked why
the Christian and Muslim Dalits had been excluded from Scheduled Caste
benefits.8 This argument, to be considered in more depth in the next case study
focusing on Scheduled Caste Christians, suggests the potential for a pan-
religious lower class movement.
Their advocacy for the Scheduled Caste Muslim cause means that the All
India Muslim OBC Organisation is also pan-backward in approach, meaning
they are not just submitting arguments before the government on behalf of Other
Backward Classes. They have called for an end to “discrimination” against
“Muslim Dalits only on grounds of Scheduled Caste categories of India” (Ansari
1996). Since Scheduled Caste reservations, unlike those for Scheduled Tribes
and Other Backward Classes, are closed to Muslims, the “SC Muslim” demands
are the most controversial. Other groups have taken up this demand as well. For
example, the All India Backward Muslim Morcha (AIBMM) has likewise argued
that Muslims should be included in the Scheduled Caste category. Led by Aijaz
Ali, they have opposed the demand for a religiously based quota for all Muslims,
preferring to press the claims of the Dalits within their religion.9
Another class-based criticism of Muslim reservations comes from the opposite
end of the social spectrum. Although they have not formed an organization
actively pressing their point of view, some upper class Muslims are opposed to
declaring their whole religious community backward. For example, in a
newspaper article entitled “Muslims must aim higher than quota,” M.Yusuf Khan
argues that “unlike the Harijans, Muslims were never a socially disadvantaged
group” (Khan 1996). This opinion was expressed to me most strongly in
Hyderabad, at the third convention on the issue of reservations for Muslims,
sponsored by the Association for Promoting the Education and Employment of
Muslims. Although the official speakers and participants were largely supportive
of Muslim reservations, in discussions, some people in the predominantly elite,
Muslim audience referred to the princely history of the area and pride in their
community, which made them leary of being categorized with India’s lower
classes. In the conference’s more informal afternoon discussion, various
audience members made several objections and comments regarding Muslim
reservations, signaling some ambivalence about this approach: [Hindu] Dalits
and Brahmins will definitely put their own person forward, but our approach is
altogether different. We don’t want to be treated as backward, like SCs and STs.
A Hindu tailor may be treated as backward, but a Muslim tailor is not backward
(audience members at Hyderabad conference 18 August 1996, paraphrased).
In contrast to the Association for Promoting Education and Employment of
Muslims, with its purely Muslim agenda, the All India OBC Organisation
complicates simple religious categories with its critiques on the basis of class and
caste. Muslim Dalits and even some Muslim elites further garble efforts to
promote a reservation for Muslims. Although all of these views are responses to
114 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
Shahabuddin’s demand for a quota on the basis of the total Muslim population is
a contemporary example of this dynamic: “Theoretically, they [Muslims] may be
entitled (at the central level) to 4.2 per cent out of the 27 per cent quota for the
OBCs, 2 per cent out of the 15 per cent for the SCs and 1 per cent out of the 7.5
per cent for STs. And a fourth subquota in the quota for High Castes”
(Shahabuddin 1996:77). Shahabuddin stresses the importance of proportional
numerical representation through these figures but ultimately proposes a single
Muslim quota on the basis of the total Muslim population, rather than dividing
the Muslims into such subquotas.
Shahabuddin’s letter to the Welfare Minister is particularly adamant that a
policy differentiating Muslims would be detrimental to Muslim unity: “I do not
think you would like your Government and Party…accused of dividing the
Muslim community” (Shahabuddin 1996:78). Another advocate of Muslim
reservations on the basis of religion argues, “by giving reservation to certain
classes among Muslims the government will be creating casteism among Muslims
to divide their strength” (Khan 1996:226). Ironically, those advocating Muslim
reservations through such accusations of government plots to “divide and rule”
the Muslim minority are echoing criticisms of the original reservations for
Muslims, which have often been portrayed as a colonial effort to divide and rule
Indian society as a whole along religious lines (Appadurai 1993, Wright 1997:
852).
Does simply demanding to be counted and represented along different lines
subvert this dynamic of reified, enumerated communities? If enough groups raise
objections to official categories, they are not undermining categorization per se,
but they are exposing the fallacy of essentialized communities, the assumption
that those who share a religion or caste necessarily have shared interests or form
the basis for logical political units. Replacing rigid caste classifications by
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 115
returning to the rigid religious classifications of an earlier era may not be the
answer; yet the ongoing arguments within the Muslim community over the future
of reservations force people to re-examine facile assumptions stemming from
historically oversimplified categories.
has erupted within the church over officially recognizing low caste Christians.
Caste inequalities persist within Christian communities in India, where separate
seats, communion cups, burial grounds and even churches for lower castes persist
(Forrester 1980, Japhet 1998, Koshy 1968, Webster 1994). In addition to caste
discrimination among Christians, Dalit converts to Christianity also continue to
face the social and economic disadvantages associated with their castes in the
wider society, in regard to housing, education, employment and practices of
untouchability (Kananaikil 1990). Bishop M.Azariah, in Chennai, pointed out the
contrast between Christian doctrine and social practice in India: “The Christian
teaching demands that you practice equality,” yet “the caste feeling is so strong,”
still playing a role in marriage discrimination, for example (Azariah interview 10
July 1996).
Such inequities, then, are part of the life experiences of lower caste Christians,
an experience diametrically opposed to the egalitarian ideals of Christian
doctrine. Despite continuing inequities in practice, public policies such as
reservations were, in part, inspired by Christian egalitarian ideals taken up by
indigenous reformers. Historian Robert Frykenberg notes, “The critique of caste
begun by Protestant Christians from abroad was increasingly taken up in the
twentieth century by Indians, whether national secularist or national Christian in
ideology” (Frykenberg 1985). The tension between egalitarian Christian ideology
and stratified Christian society is at the root of the controversy over the status of
the Scheduled Caste Christians. Some Christians argue that “untouchable
Christians” is not a contradiction in terms and that SC Christians should be
officially recognized; others respond that such a stance is dangerous and will
communalize Christianity. In other words, it could divide the Christian
community along caste lines or push it further into the communalist politics
pitting Hindus against religious minorities in India by antagonizing Hindus.
The Scheduled Caste Christian activists are in the awkward position of having
to argue that their own religious community engages in caste discrimination. On
this basis they argue that excluding Christians from the Scheduled Caste category
is religious discrimination. Their emphasis on division within Christianity leads
them to pose an alternative vision, the unity of Scheduled Castes of all religions.
In the words of one activist, S.Lourduswamy, “Dalits of all religions are living
together. They are also equally undergoing all the disabilities—social,
educational and economic disabilities—due to the traditional practices of
untouchability” (Lourduswamy interview 19 December 1995). On this basis,
several organizations, such as the National Coordination Committee for SC
Christians, are trying to expand the Scheduled Caste category to include
Christians by lobbying politicians, holding seminars, and orchestrating protests,
ranging from Christian school closures and signature campaigns to relay hunger
fasts and mass rallies.12 A striking example of such activism was a dharna (protest)
118 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
held in New Delhi on 30 November 1995, where protesters staged the symbolic
crucifixion of a Christian Dalit (photograph from Network News June 1996).
This movement embraces the Scheduled Caste category at the same time as it
criticizes its boundaries, desiring the benefits it can confer while lamenting its
limited definition. In a pamphlet distributed to Members of Parliament, the
National Coordination Committee for SC Christians makes the following
argument about Christian Dalits:
Except for the (wrong) records in the revenue offices he is a Dalit in every
sense of the word viz. Ethnically, lineally, racially, socially, economically,
culturally, vocationally, geographically, relationally, contextually, and
emotionally. HE CONTINUES A FULL DALIT EVERYWHERE
EXCEPT IN THE IGNORANT MIND OF THE EXECUTIVE.
(National Coordination Committee for Dalit Christians 1996:8, emphasis in
original)
identities may never coincide. What do all these contested categories say about
group-based policies for diverse democracies?
CONCLUSION
Policies to assuage ethnic tensions may spark them anew, but tension over
competing identity claims is not necessarily destructive. It is precisely the variety
and number of groups protesting their official classifications that may prevent
such classifications from “sticking” long after their purpose has been served. It is
the cross-cutting competition between and within groups that can prevent a large
scale mobilization of “us” versus “them.” These case studies of religious
minority arguments about reservations demonstrate that official categories do not
necessarily reinforce social cleavages. In fact the categories have sparked heated
debate over the very nature of caste discrimination and its relationship to religion.
Groups continue to point out when they think they have been misrecognized
by the state, and competing claims prevent the solidification of group
boundaries. The overlapping nature of identities in India makes it impossible for
any religious organization to present a united front on the issue of reservation
categories. Those that do demand revisions in the current official categories, such
as those wanting reservations for all Muslims or for SC Christians, continuously
problematize the official lists and keep them from becoming cemented into the
public consciousness. Others counter with criticism or different demands, such
as OBC Muslims who are demanding consideration of casteism or Christians
who are reluctant to recognize casteism. These arguments, in turn, debunk
assumptions about monolithic religious communities. In short, although these
movements challenging the current reservation schemes undeniably contribute to
some social and political tensions, taken as whole they are not simply reinforcing
community fault lines but rather proposing many alternative and often
conflicting categorizations of Indian society.
Donald Horowitz proposes several formulas to alleviate or avoid ethnic
conflict. One way he addresses is the “dispersal of conflict” or the creation of “a
new, lower layer of conflict laden issues.” He discusses this in the context of
federal systems that geographically disperse national level ethnic bifurcations
into the more complicated context of many states, resulting in “a more complex—
and therefore less tense—politics at the center.” (Horowitz 1985:604–5).
Ashutosh Varshney provides a thoughtful application of Horowitz’s discussion
of dispersed ethnic configurations in his assessment of the challenges such
dispersion poses for Hindu majoritarianism (Varshney 1998:42–6). The cases
examined in this chapter illustrate a variation of this principle. Rather than
dispersing the polarized politics of religion or caste in a geographic sense, the
above debates over reservation categories shatter dichotomized conflicts in the
realm of ideas by constantly drawing into question the boundaries of castes and
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 121
religions and their relationship to each other. In this sense, intergroup tensions do
not disappear but become certainly more complex and arguably less tense than
conflicts between clear cut and unambiguous groups. The ongoing debates over
who is in which category, as opposed to nation-wide fighting between clearly-
defined sides, is a lower, and generally less explosive, form of conflict over
reservations.
In some cases new alliances cut across traditional dividing lines of religion.
Some groups explicitly downplay religious distinctions, as in the Dalit Solidarity
Programme that attempts to bring together an interfaith group of similar castes. A
Muslim OBC organization demonstrates “the power that the concept of a
subaltern organization cutting across the lines of religion has come to acquire”
(Bidwai 1996:12). Some are trying to capitalize on even broader subaltern
alliances by emphasizing Dalit-Muslim or OBC-Muslim unity across religions
(Nath 1995, Dalit Voice 16–30 June 1996:21). In contrast to these examples of
cross-religious ties on the basis of caste or class, other Muslims and Christians
downplay class and caste divisions and try to emphasize unity within their
religious groups.
Contemporary Muslim and Christian protest groups are shaped by the
structure of the state reservation categories but also demonstrate agency by
challenging static classifications. The resulting melange of competing demands
helps to prevent the reification of such classifications. Moreover, these religious
minority debates over reservations are only the tip of the iceberg. Muslim and
Christian activists face a backlash from Hindu nationalists, who oppose
extending benefits if this would reward converts to those religions seen as
“foreign,” namely Christianity and Islam. Arguments for economic criteria for
reservations have led to new rules to exclude the “creamy layer” from the Other
Backward Classes. The demand for reserved seats for women in India’s
Parliament has failed repeatedly, largely due to objections that a gender-based
category does not recognize disadvantages on the basis of class or religious
minority status. Official attempts to categorize the disadvantaged have spurred
many groups into political action to press claims and counter claims on the basis
of religion, caste, class and gender. These ongoing clashes between various
official and unofficial constructions of the disadvantaged are the topics of the
chapters to come.
7
Hindu nationalism and selective inclusion
The Sangh Parivar views the demand by the Christian Church for extension
of reservation benefits to Dalit Christians as part of a “global strategy by
the Vatican to evangelize the world by the Jubilee Year 2000 AD”.
(Indian Express-Kochi 3 October 1996:1)
The BJP is committed to the concept of one nation, one people, one culture
—our nationalist vision is not merely bound by the geographical or
political identity of India, but defined by our ancient culture [sic] heritage.
From this belief flows our faith in “Cultural nationalism,” which is the core
of Hindutva.
(BJP Election Manifesto 1996)
An important part of this ideology is defining what is and what is not “Hindu” or
“national.” This process of definition occurs not only in political rhetoric but also
in laws and policies. Hindu nationalists have attempted to construct most
Scheduled Castes and certain minority religions as members of the “Hindu”
religious category. In contrast, they portray Muslims and Christians as non-
Hindu and “foreign,” although occasionally they describe these minorities as
former Hindus, who were led astray and converted.
Even Mohandas Gandhi, known for religious tolerance and staunchly opposed
to virulent Hindu nationalism (and, tellingly, opposed by the virulent Hindu
nationalist who assassinated him), had set ideas about the proper categorization
of Indian society and the relationship between caste and Hinduism. Gandhi
dubbed untouchables “Harijans,” or “children of god.” Notably, he chose a
Hindu name for god, Hari, implying that these groups were to be included within
the Hindu fold. His motivations were complex, but most likely included his
sincere desire for better treatment of untouchables, his practical fears of political
fragmentation during the nationalist struggle, and his distrust of conversions
away from Hinduism by discontented untouchables:
[It was] this annexation of untouchables into Hinduism, this arbitrary co-
optation by definition, without leaving any freedom of choice to the
untouchables themselves, which was to be so profoundly offensive to
Ambedkar and other leaders of the untouchables. Indeed, all subsequent
obfuscation notwithstanding, this action by Gandhi has never been
forgotten by Untouchable leaders.
(Frykenberg 1985:326)
They wanted to name themselves. The word Dalit simply means the
oppressed. So they wanted to take a name which also reflects their own
reality, because they were fooled by the gift of several other names which
did not reflect the reality. For example, they were given the name
Harijans… In reality they were not allowed to go inside the temple. Even
in the villages today the Dalits are not allowed to go inside the temple, but
still there are people who would like to call them as children of god. So
they say no, enough of this nonsense.
(Devasahayan 10 July 1996)
reserved legislative seats. Gandhi, although in his own way an advocate for the
rights of Harijans, so vehemently opposed separate electorates for them that he
started a hunger fast, fearing that such special provisions would prove divisive to
Hinduism and thus the incipient Indian nation (Das 2000, Pyarelal 1984).
Ambedkar was a leading advocate for such measures and, eventually, was largely
responsible for including references to the special policies for Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes in the Indian Constitution after Independence. Gandhi’s
opposition to reservations was in part a political calculus but also was a
reflection of his “guiding principle” and spiritual theme, the “oneness of
humanity” (Gandhi interview 20 September 1996). In a 1931 speech against
separate electorates and reservations for the Depressed Classes, Gandhi said:
that the Scheduled Castes are only in the Hindu religion: The Muslims and
Christians did not have this inequality problem. Although there was economic
inequality, there was no social inequality or discrimination (Jatiya interview 12
September 1996, paraphrased). Satyanarayan Jatiya helped organize a Scheduled
Caste rally against reservations for “SC Christians,” on the grounds that the SC
reservation will be diluted if a new population is added (Jatiya interview 12
September 1996).
In short, Hindu nationalists have at times been quite broad when defining
Hindus, although whether they were including groups or subsuming them is an
important question. They have at times tried to include Scheduled Castes, Sikhs,
Buddhists and Jains within the Hindu category. In contrast, their definitions of
the caste system are not as loose, especially in their arguments denying the
existence of low caste Christians or Muslims. Hindu nationalists not only bar
Muslims and Christians from their “big tent” notion of Hinduism but also
exclude them from their conception of the Hindu nation.
would only occur at the cost of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and
would lead to the disintegration of the country (Times of India 21 July 1996:7).
In reaction to a government proposal in Andhara Pradesh to include all Muslims
as Backward Classes at the state level, the BJP “opposed the inclusion of Muslims
en masse as this would give a ‘double benefit’ to the Muslims” (Shatrugna 1994:
2400). How they would benefit doubly is unspecified; perhaps this is a reference
to those backward Muslim groups who are already included in the Other Backward
Classes. In any event, this is an example of a common refrain of the Hindu right,
the idea that Muslims have been appeased and pandered to.
Hindu nationalists also oppose extending reservations to all Muslims for fear
that it would encourage conversions. The mass conversion of untouchables to
Islam in Tamil Nadu during 1981–2 revived Hindu nationalist fears that this
minority was growing at their expense (Malik 1989). The Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP) has started an “anti-conversion and reconversion programme,”
including proposals to train Hindu missionaries in a center in Ayodhya. This
location is symbolically significant, since, in perhaps the most striking example
of Hindu nationalists using “historical” tactics against the Muslims, Hindutva
forces in 1992 destroyed a mosque in Ayodhya, claiming that Muslims had built
it on the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram. The “anti-conversion” plan is to send
10,000 Hindu missionaries into “backward and tribal areas in the country” to
prevent conversions of disadvantaged citizens to non-Hindu religions and to
encourage reconversion to Hinduism (The Organizer 21 July 1996).
Conversion is an even stronger theme in Hindu nationalists’ arguments that
Christian Dalits should not benefit from reservations. The Hindu nationalists
emphasize the historical association between Christianity, colonialism and
missionaries, arguing that opening the Scheduled Caste category to Christians
would increase conversions to this religion as well. These themes have
influenced the broader SC Christian debate. For example, the Catholic Bishops
Conference of India’s directive to Christians to vote for parties supportive of SC
Christian demands inspired the following letter to the editor on the subject:
The President of the Vishwa Hidu Parishad, Ashok Singhal, told a VHP
gathering that “the motive of Christian missionaries is not the welfare of people.
The main purpose is to bring maximum area under their influence” (Times of
India “Missionaries Targeting Weaker Sections: VHP” 31 July 2000). Criticisms
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 131
of missionary plans to target low castes feed into Hindu nationalist opposition to
recognizing Christian SCs. Pointing to potential material motivations rather than
spiritual motivations for conversion, such as access to church-based educational
or social services, Hindu nationalists do not want to make conversion easier by
allowing low caste converts to keep reservations. Ashok Singhal’s rhetoric
simultaneously excludes and criticizes Christians and Muslims: “Hindus never
believed in converting people of other faith[s] to their own religion” (Times of
India 31 July 2000).
In response to such charges, the All India Christian People’s Forum (AICPF)
and other SC Christian organizations spend much of their time asserting that
Christians are part of the Indian nation too. An AICPF resolution reads: “The
tendency to treat dalits belonging to Hindu and non-Hindu religions differently,
being motivated by revivalist and fundamentalist forces and to brand Christianity
as an ‘alien’ religion, is not warranted by history and is aimed at denying the
nativity of dalit Christians who are as indigenous as all other dalits” (Network
News November 1996:1).
When Mother Theresa participated in a prayer meeting in conjunction with an
Scheduled Caste Christian rally, Hindu nationalists led a public outcry against a
foreign Christian taking a political stand on reservations. BJP General Secretary
Sushma Swaraj reiterated the idea that the SC Christian demand is not only
emanating from foreign missionaries but is also dividing the nation: “Mother
Theresa has always spoken for unity and harmony of people, but the demand for
reservation for Christian dalits is by itself divisive in nature” (Times of India 21
November 1995). The Vishwa Hindu Parishad organized a demonstration, and
leaders, calling Mother Theresa a “Christian missionary carrying out conversions
of the innocent poor and destitute,” again criticized her support for SC Christians.
Mother Theresa ultimately issued a statement that she “never demanded
reservation for Dalit Christians” (Times of India 24 November 1995). This
statement is just one example of the powerful effects the Hindu nationalists are
having on the various Muslim and Christian movements discussed in the
previous chapter, including the way they categorize themselves.
about possible cooperation with the Christian Dalit movement, said that the
Muslim movement, in contrast to the Christian one, has been a more “sporadic
effort” than the Christian one, which had complicated coordination (Syed Hamid
interview 2 September 1996). Although limited by some SC Christians’
pragmatic reluctance to be associated too closely with the backward Muslim
cause, Aijaz Ali’s Backward Muslim Morcha has spoken positively about the SC
Christian movement, stating that the morcha would “join hands with Christians
in mobilizing public opinion” (Indian Express 24 November 1995). Lack of
interest and coordination on the part of some other Muslim leaders limits the
possibility of joining forces with Christians working on similar challenges to
current reservation policies. Yet perhaps the most significant limit on the
Scheduled Caste unity advocated by the SC Christian movement is their own
fear of greater Hindu opposition if Muslim reservations are also at issue.
The Hindu nationalist critique of Muslim and Christian demands is so
influential because of the political savvy and organizational strength of the Sangh
Parivar, in contrast to the much newer SC Christian organizations, led largely by
church leaders rather than politicians, and the even less institutionalized Muslim
reservation movement. Two meetings on the single evening of 4 September 1996
in New Delhi illustrate the contrast between the Hindu nationalist and SC
Christian organizations. Both meetings were devoted to the issue of the SC
Christian demands, but the first was organized by the National Coordination
Committee for SC Christians and the second by the BJP legal cell, the Adhivakta
Parishad. The NCCSCC meeting, held in order to present their arguments before
Members of Parliament, included most of the leaders of the movement in Delhi,
who outnumbered the few Members of Parliament who came—MPs who were
already supporters of their cause. Speakers cited Bible verses to support their
claims, hardly a method to appeal to those not already in agreement. Later that
evening at the Adhivakta Parishad’s well-attended meeting against SC Christian
demands, a BJP member (who had not attended the previous meeting) cited the
very same Bible verse being used by the Christians and had a counter argument
ready to deliver in his speech. The contrast between the two movements in terms
of their organizational power, awareness of their opponents’ arguments, and
political sophistication was striking.
even made attempts to appeal to Muslims, who were so marginalized in the past.
Hindu nationalists’ opposition to expanded Other Backward Class reservations in
1990 became muted as these policies became a reality. When they came to
power at the center, the BJP government even expanded the lists of OBCs, which
is one way to broaden their appeal to these numerous middle castes and potential
regional allies.6
In another attempt to widen their political net, the Bharatiya Janata Party,
traditionally an upper caste bastion, named a Dalit, Bangaru Laxman, as party
president. He not only tried to appeal to lower castes but also, in his first speech
as party President, argued that the party needed to make “sustained efforts to
reach out to Indian Muslims” (Rahman 2000). With Muslims at 12 per cent of
the population, and Christians at only 2.5 per cent, the latter are not an electoral
priority. In a published interview, when asked specifically about reservations for
Christians and Muslims, Laxman was more politic in his response than some of
his party members, who have harshly criticized the policies. Although he
followed his party’s line by not supporting policy changes that would make SC
Christians and all Muslims eligible for reservations, he softened his response. He
voiced support for literacy programs and pointed out that “[s]ome Muslims—
Ansaris, Qureshis—have already been covered under the Mandal Commission
recommendations [reserving government jobs for certain backward castes]. If a
better case was made with regard to the others, it would be examined” (Rahman
2000). Although silent in this interview on the issue of Christian reservations,
Laxman’s party-line stance was overlaid with a more moderate tone regarding
the issue of Muslim reservations. This reflects the BJP’s political need to bring
more groups into their fold while not alienating their original adherents.
CONCLUSION
The Muslims, Christians, and Hindus discussed in chapters 6 and 7 shuffle and
reshuffle categories based on their diverse conceptions of caste, religion and
nation and their distinct ideas about the relationships between these identities. In
their inclusive mode, Hindu nationalists have historically made some attempts to
incorporate lower castes and certain minority religions, those seen as indigenous,
into their conception of Hinduism. Yet a community is, in part, defined by what
it is not. In their exclusive mode, the Hindu nationalists have kept Muslims and
Christians at arms length, portraying them as foreign conquerors and
missionaries whittling away at the Hindu nation. Such ideologies feed into their
opposition to any expansion of reservations for Muslims and Christians.
The groups discussed in these chapters are motivated by a complex mixture of
ideas about identity and concerns about material benefits. The dynamics of
reservations as a means of resource distribution complicate the development of
pan-religious or cross-class alliances. The material stakes associated with
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 135
reservations lead groups to jockey for position. Those who are already officially
Other Backward Classes or Scheduled Castes might see backward Muslims and
SC Christians as fellow disadvantaged groups, but competition over limited
reserved opportunities causes many OBCs and SCs to oppose extending
reservations to additional Muslims or Christians. Hindu nationalists have tapped
into fears about both identities and interests to rally the largely Hindu Scheduled
Castes, for example, against SC Christian demands. Some SC Christian leaders
have been a bit reluctant to join forces with Muslims, for fear that their own
demands, if so linked, will never be met due to the particularly vehement
opposition to Muslim demands by many Hindu nationalists. Concerns about the
Hindu nationalists’ reactions have shaped the contours and alliances of the
Muslim and Christian reservation movements, at times dividing them from each
other.
Although very astute at manipulating interests and identities, the Hindu
nationalists are not immune from the dilemmas of balancing their ideology of
identity with their interest in gaining political power in a democracy. Hindu
nationalists, as they have tried to gain and hold on to power at the national level,
have had to compromise on some hardline ideas about Hindu identity or
Hindutva in order to deal with the practical problem of expanding their potential
pool of voters and coalition partners. Balancing the need to expand with the need
to retain their more hardline supporters, the Sangh Parivar has used its many
related organizations as well as a variety of political figures, ranging from the
moderate Bangaru Laxman to the militant Lal Krishna Advani, to put forth many
faces of Hindu nationalism. Recognizing the need to reach out to Scheduled
Castes, Other Backward Classes and even Muslims, their opposition to some
reservations has become more muted, yet opposition to Christian and Muslim
demands persists.
By recognizing political agency, we can appreciate the ability of groups to put
forth their own self-definitions rather than simply absorbing state definitions of
their identities. These self-defined identities are at times reigned in by judges and
administrators. Yet, official categories are not ossified, in large part due to their
political meaning. Categories are combined (and recombined) to make a variety
of strategic identity claims. At times these claims, such as the absorption of
Scheduled Castes and certain minority religions into Hinduism, perpetuate the
power of the majority. Yet, notably, lower castes have not always returned the
embrace of Hindu politicians, as demonstrated by Ambedkar’s conversion
movement in the 1950s and Kancha Ilaiah’s contemporary manifesto, Why I am
not a Hindu (Ilaiah 1996). Disadvantaged groups, such as lower castes and
religious minorities, have used both a positive and relatively “convertible”
category, religion, and a seemingly negative and more fixed category, low caste
status, to challenge the boundaries of the categories themselves and the
hierarchies they represent.
8
Class, classification and creamy layers
Christians taking over reservation benefits. The next chapter addresses how the
demand for a general category of women’s Parliamentary reservations has been
effectively squelched due to arguments in Parliament over the necessity of
including a subcategory for women of the Other Backward Classes. Some
political parties have proposed adding new reservations for lower class, high
caste individuals. A few people demand that the government not only add more
economic considerations to other types of categories but reject other categories
entirely in favor of economic criteria. For example, a symposium on the subject
of reservations by leading academics, published in the journal Seminar, included
the following call for “a new criterion”:
Given the legal, bureaucratic and political momentum behind the current
categories, a shift to entirely economic criteria is unlikely; yet, in recent years,
reservation policies have taken an economic turn.
This chapter focuses on policy changes that have added more economic or
class considerations to reservation categories and on the political activists who
continue to challenge even these revised categories. Several major topics will
illustrate this interplay between state and society: The Mandal Commission’s
1980 report on Other Backward Classes; Prime Minister V.P.Singh’s 1990
decision to partially implement the Commission’s findings and reserve 27 per
cent of central government jobs for Other Backward Classes; the protests and
other forms of resistance sparked by these new reservations; the Supreme
Court’s 1992 decision about the legality of these reservations; a government
commission’s development of a creamy layer policy; and, finally, political
activists’ resistance to the creamy layer rules. Two major conclusions emerge:
First, these developments suggest that, at times, it is the government that pushes
for changing reservation categories and groups in society that prefer a more static
approach. Second, debates over the role of class in reservation policies
demonstrate that societal reactions to reservation categories, and the role of class
in particular, vary quite dramatically from north to south due to divergent policy
histories.
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 139
The 1980 report, however, had little practical effect until a decade had passed
and a government supportive of their findings came to power. In 1990 Prime
Minister V.P.Singh announced a plan to extend reservations in central
government services to the Other Backward Classes, largely as defined by the
Mandal Commission.11 Reservations are legally capped at 50 per cent of total
positions or seats. The Scheduled Castes already had 15 per cent reservations and
the Scheduled Tribes had 7½ per cent reservations, so Other Backward Classes
received 27 per cent reservations in central government jobs. Half of central
government jobs were now off limits to the “forward” communities, and protests
erupted to try to stop this controversial new policy.
ANTI-MANDAL ACTIVISM
Urban, upper caste students were particularly active in dramatic demonstrations
against the proliferation of quotas, which they saw as a threat to their own
opportunities. Most of the protests were in north India, many in Delhi. In the
worst moments of a protest in Delhi, a student set himself on fire, and in the
weeks to come, several other students also immolated themselves.12
Three former student leaders of the Anti-Mandal Commission Forum at Delhi
University spoke to me in 1996 about the opinions that spurred them to protest in
1990. Hare Ram Singh was head of the Forum’s action committee; O.P.Singh
headed the legal committee, and Neeraj Kumar was also involved in the Forum
and the protests. As we sipped chai on the campus of the Delhi School of
Economics and began to discuss the 1990 protests, a young beggar approached
us. They seized the opportunity to ask, “How can this girl benefit from
reservation?” The policy emphasis, they felt, should be on infrastructure for
“genuine development,” such as free, good education for all, rather than on
reservations which “sharpen contradictions” and “balkanize on a caste basis.”
Insisting that they were not against the concept of reservations entirely, they
voiced their opposition to the perceived political motivation behind the Other
Backward Class reservations. They felt V.P.Singh and his Janata Dal-led
government granted OBC reservations in exchange for the political loyalty of the
OBC “vote bank.” These student leaders also expressed dissatisfaction with the
way Other Backward Class reservations were initially going to be implemented,
namely, that “economic criteria [were] not taken.” Too often, they felt, even
Scheduled Caste and Tribe reservations were taken by the upper classes. In
addition to wanting more attention to economic factors, they preferred a system
with the “individual as unit” as opposed to a group-based system (H.R.Singh,
Kumar, and O.P.Singh interviews 22 November 1996).
Since the dramatic student protests, other groups have remained more quietly
opposed to the increasing lists of officially backward citizens. For example, the
Gandhi Caste Society, or Gandhi Sangam, is an organization trying to do away
142 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
with caste distinctions in society and public policy alike. At a 1996 meeting in
Delhi, several speakers spoke out against “Mandalization” and advocated the use
of economic criteria for reservations. The Delhi President of this society, Leela
Sajwan, argued that reservations should be based on economics rather than caste
(Sajwan’s address at Gandhi Caste Society Meeting, Constitution Club, Delhi, 1
August 1996; Sajwan interview 18 September 1996). The Gandhi Caste Society
criticizes the use of caste labels in school admissions, hostel admissions,
employment, and politics. Its members encourage individuals to change
surnames that indicate caste or jati and to become, instead, a single “Gandhi
caste.” They are thus expanding on Gandhi’s approach to caste reform by relying
on society, particularly Hindu society, to reform itself. Like the historical
disputes discussed in Chapter 7 between Gandhi and Ambedkar, who advocated
group-based policies to rectify caste injustices, the Gandhi Caste Society opposes
the caste reservations advocated by the Mandal Commission and V.P.Singh.
One speaker at a meeting of this organization expressed the organization’s
ultimate goal of “a casteless, classless society” (address by a Professor of the
Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1 August 1996). Other speakers argued,
“Let us start with the children,” advocating an end to school forms which include
caste and religion and encouraging the younger generation to throw out their
surnames and stop asking other questions about caste (Gandhi Caste Society
Meeting, 1 August 1996). This movement, which holds to the optimistic belief of
an earlier generation that caste will fade through assimilation and integration, is
another form of anti-Mandal activism and criticism of both official and
unofficial caste categories.
The administrative challenges are not limited to the complexity of the rules.
Prasad noted that at times non-OBC or creamy layer candidates try to
“influence” officials to get caste certificates. In response, he advocated more
“transparency” to flush out the cream, in the form of full inquiries and public
postings of registries of those applying for and getting certificates, perhaps in
panchayat (local council) headquarters. Such transparency, however, raises some
of the same issues touched on in Chapter 4 on caste certificates, namely privacy
and stigmatization. Yet Prasad defended the idea of making applications more
transparent, claiming that doing so will help solve another persistent problem in
the doling out of reservations: Officers in the administration, mostly upper castes,
sometimes hinder the granting of caste certificates to legitimate applicants by
claiming a lack of information. Were the process to be more transparent,
members of Other Backward Classes and their associations or advocates could
use the public paper trail to organize a protest, a response Prasad felt would be
quite appropriate (Prasad interview 18 September 1996).
The creamy layer rules have resulted in more classification issues and related
activism, as well as manipulation, from both sides of the administrator’s desk.
The complexity of the issue is multiplied by the fact that individual states come
up with their own creamy layer rules for state level reservations, although
several have adopted the Prasad Committee rules (Prasad interview 18
September 1996). Such state-level decisions provide examples of resistance to
and manipulation of the creamy layer categories.
not want new Other Backward Class quotas and various activists in Kerala did
not want new restrictions on Other Backward Class quotas.
CONCLUSION
Advocates of class or economic criteria often espouse them as a more rational,
scientific or objective way to allocate reservations, one that also avoids the
problems of state complicity in caste or religious distinctions. It is true that a
scheme based largely on caste can be problematic. As administrators from
colonial times to the present have discovered, “caste” refers to a variety of types
of identity, which are by no means uniform from locality to locality (Pant 1987).
Grappling with the notion of caste can make economic factors, which may be
more quantifiable, seem like an appealing basis for a policy.
In India, however, economic criteria can be as difficult to administer as caste
criteria. D.L.Sheth, a sociologist and member of the National Commission for
Backward Classes, found, in his work evaluating whether groups are backward
or not, that “economic criteria are more difficult because there is a lot of
informality, still, in this economy, in [the] agricultural sector, and people’s
income…it is common that people may be earning 20,000 rupees but show it as
only 2000. So economic criteria are difficult to implement…occupational and
caste categories are in fact neater” (Sheth interview 6 September 1996). In
addition to complications arising from India’s informal economy, corruption
obfuscates economic criteria. People lie to avoid taxes, rendering income
statistics unreliable, and the Other Backward Class certificates, which involve
creamy layer verification, are sometimes falsified.16 Also, data from an
applicant’s extended family may be quite relevant to their economic and social
status but difficult for the government to monitor.17
The Indian government, rather than shifting to purely economic criteria,
initiated reservation policies with two layers of criteria, which allow the
government to consider a more comprehensive combination of factors, both
group and individual, both caste and economic class. The creamy layer criteria,
developed in the context of new Other Backward Class reservations, constitute a
policy shift from purely group-based categories toward a recognition of
individual economic factors. Both the new reservations and the new individual
level restrictions on them provoked social protest.
Like the previous chapters, political activism over the role of economic factors
in reservations demonstrates that social groups pose many challenges to state
classifications; in this case the competing challenges differed most dramatically
along regional lines. In contrast to the previous chapters, the trends toward
economically informed classifications discussed here show that state
classifications are occasionally flexible and that sometimes it is the political
protesters who demand the status quo. Social mobility, in part a result of
148 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
reservation policies, has helped create a well off “creamy layer” within
disadvantaged groups. Although unable to reach vast numbers of landless
laborers, reservations have resulted in an educated subset within the eligible
groups, employed in government service and a political force to be reckoned
with (Galanter 1984:551, Mandal Commission Report 1980, Roy and Singh
1987). Concern that an advanced subset benefits disproportionately from
reservations was one impetus for political protests against reservations in Delhi.
Ultimately, advantaged groups were skimmed off; yet the cream did not leave
quietly, particularly in Kerala, another example of resistance to official
categories.
Serious questions remain about the use of economic factors. Is caste-based
discrimination waning enough to justify a shift toward economically defined
categories? So far, the Indian Supreme Court seems to think not. In the Indra
Sawhney case, it ruled that economic backwardness alone is not enough to
qualify for reservations, reinforcing the original goal of reservations as a measure
to uplift degraded communities rather than to redistribute wealth and
opportunities to the poor.18 India’s application of Other Backward Class and
creamy layer categories demonstrate that it is possible to consider class in
addition to caste, rather than rejecting altogether a category that is still salient in
a society in which casteism persists. Observing the policy initiatives along these
lines in India will give other countries an indication of whether it is possible to
overcome the significant administrative and political challenges associated with
drawing affirmative action boundaries around multidimensional categories such
as the “backward” or the “disadvantaged.”
Are more multifaceted categories, including economic factors, necessarily
better tools to fight disadvantage? They may more accurately reflect complex
disparities; yet, the increasing use of economic criteria in India also threatens to
undermine the ability of reservations to affect change. Depending on how they
are applied, these criteria may either expand or restrict the beneficiary pool to
such an extent that the status quo is served. In some states, for example, the
Other Backward Classes category has been expanded to such an extent that the
vast majority of the population is eligible for reservations (Parikh 1997:175,
Srinivas 1997). Such generous definitions of disadvantage may water down the
effectiveness of reservations for the most disadvantaged. At the same time,
skimming off the creamy layer from disadvantaged groups threatens to leave
reserved seats at the highest levels unfilled (Pandian 2000). An alternative to
disqualifying perhaps the most qualified individuals is subdividing broad
categories at the group level. For example, some states, such as Bihar and Tamil
Nadu, have tried to take into account different levels of disadvantage by creating
a “Most Backward Classes” category. Yet such distinctions add new definitional
challenges demanding careful consideration. When the state government of Uttar
Pradesh sought to make a controversial distinction between the Backward, More
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 149
Backward and Most Backward Classes the year before an election, the Supreme
Court stayed the appointments arguing that “the entire exercise seems to have
been done in a hurry” (Deccan Herald, “Appointment of ‘most backward’ in UP
stayed” 22 January 2002). These continuing dilemmas mean the role of
economic criteria will be one of the most contested issues in debates over
reservations for years to come.
9
Women's reservations and representation
What caused such a commotion in the lower house of India’s Parliament in July
of 1998? The Women’s Reservation Bill was an attempt to reserve 33 per cent of
seats in Parliament and state assemblies for women. The percentage of women in
India’s Lok Sabha reached 8 per cent in 1984 but has since stagnated (Narayan
et al. 2002).2 In a society characterized by many forms of stratification, demands
for subquotas within the category of “women” for other disadvantaged groups
have repeatedly squelched the bill’s progress. The Women’s Reservation Bill that
caused such a stir in the Parliament would reserve for women one-third of all
seats, including seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, but it did not
differentiate between Other Backward Class or Muslim and more privileged
women. Defining which social categories should be eligible for such reservations
leads to heated disputes because these questions involve both emotional
commitments to group identities and material calculations of group interests.
Reservations in India apply not only to government jobs and university
admissions, but also to legislative seats. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
currently have reserved seats in Parliament. For example, only members of
Scheduled Castes can run for the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, although
all voters in the districts designated to fill the reserved seats can vote in the
election, whether they are a member of the Scheduled Castes or not. Women,
Other Backward Classes, and religious minorities do not currently have reserved
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 151
Interest talk may make sense if all the members of a group share every
“relevant” social characteristic or submerge difference(s) among
themselves, but this eventuality is increasingly unlikely. In modern
societies, where overlapping social movements and identities are
increasingly present, interest becomes as unstable as identity.
(Phelan 1995:338–9)
Can policies reflect these instabilities rather than reinforce the equation of
interests with single identity-based groups? Perhaps to truly advance the interests
of women, their multiple identities, including gender, caste, class and religion,
must all be taken into account. However, as noted in Chapter 1, even women
who would argue that “women” do not constitute a universal category,
sometimes choose for political purposes to “act as if such a category indeed
exists, precisely for the reason that the world continues to behave and treat
women as though one does” (O’Hanlon and Washbrook 1992:154). In other
words, gender discrimination persists in all strata of women, which is a major
impetus for the demand for an undivided women’s reservation.
Yet, in India, as elsewhere, the category of women is riddled by class,
religious, and countless other cultural divisions, which can result in different
degrees of disadvantage. Economists Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen note the
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 153
as Muslims and Sikhs and caste groups such as the so-called ‘untouchables’ were
considered the major minorities)” (Ramusack 1990:316). Such official
recognition of minorities, in part a response to the concerns and demands of
various groups in society, cleaved the population into major and minor
minorities; notably all of these minorities together are much more than half of
the Indian population and would constitute a formidable political force.
In the last decades of colonial rule, Britain granted Indians limited rights to
serve as representatives in legislative bodies. In part an effort to assuage
nationalists and expand the “circle of collaborators,” such policies also
contributed to “divide and rule” tactics by giving special electoral rights to
certain groups (Nair 1996:122). These policies include the 1909 Indian Councils
Act (based on the Minto-Morely Report), the 1919 Government of India Act
(based on the Montagu Chelmsford Proposals), and the 1935 Government of
India Act. This period also saw the first attempts at forming associations of
women across the entire nation, such as the Women’s India Association (WIA)
in 1917, followed by the National Council of Women in India (NCWI) in 1925
and the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) in 1927. These major women’s
associations tried to influence the new policies by passing resolutions, sending
delegates to conferences, submitting memoranda and letters, and lobbying
various decision-makers. The provincial legislatures gradually extended suffrage
rights to women between 1920 and 1929, yet the franchise was so limited, by
property qualifications, for example, that only 14 per cent of men and 1 per cent
of women could actually vote. While the women’s associations’ primary
political goal was to have more women enfranchised, they also became involved
in the issue of reserved seats for women in legislatures. Although these major
Indian women’s organizations ultimately opposed reserved seats, reservations
were granted to women in 1935.
At that point some “major minorities,” such as Muslims, had already received
reserved seats as well as separate electorates. Reservations meant only Muslim
candidates could run for seats reserved for Muslims. Separate electorates meant
that only Muslim voters could cast ballots for those seats. Muslims received
separate electorates under the Government of India Act of 1909. The Government
of India Acts of 1919 and 1935 granted Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians reserved
seats and separate electorates. “Depressed Classes” (lower caste groups) were
provided a few nominated seats in 1919, more in 1925, and even more elected
seats in 1932, but they did not get separate electorates (Galanter 1984, Metcalf
1995). These proliferating categories, some nationalists argued, facilitated
continuing British control.
Concerned about divisions within the nationalist movement, the leading
nationalist organization, the Indian National Congress, objected to special
electoral rights for any of these groups. The major women’s organizations, in
turn, came to oppose similar proposals for women. Women associated with other
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 155
words, if women and other politically marginalized groups wanted equal rights to
vote, they should not demand special rights to seats.
After the second Round Table Conference, the government selected Radhabai
Subbarayan as a member of the Franchise Committee, established in 1931, to
make recommendations on franchise issues in India. The selection of Subbarayan
indicated that the government was not ready to grant India the full adult suffrage
advocated by the nationalist women’s organizations but was open to reserved seats
(Ali 2000:183–4). Indeed, the 1935 Act included limited suffrage rights with
qualifications that still prevented many men and even more women from voting.
Women could vote if they were literate, owned property or married men with
property. The Act enfranchised one woman for every five men enfranchised
(Visram 1992:38–9). Despite the stance of the major Indian women’s
organizations, the Government of India Act of 1935 granted women 41 reserved
seats in the provincial legislatures, as well as limited reservations in the central
legislature.6 Despite their dim view of such a “minor minority,” the colonial
government had added women to the list of groups with reserved seats. Yet, their
overriding concern with the major minorities affected even the women’s
reservations, which were subdivided on a religious basis. Various “communities”
had already been granted not only reserved seats but separate electorates. There
were several women’s seats in Muslim constituencies and one each in Sikh,
Indian Christian, and Anglo-Indian constituencies.
This division of the electoral pie brought out tensions along both gender and
religious lines. The major women’s organizations, such as the AIWC, including
some of its Muslim women members, protested that “the communal award will
divide us, Indian women” (quoted in Pearson 1989:210). Some male members of
“major” minorities, in turn, were disgruntled at having their quotas diluted by
women. Muslim leaders in Punjab, for instance, were “angry that of the few seats
for Muslims, one was reserved for a woman” (Forbes 1996:196). Muslim women
in particular fell between the cracks of the “major” and “minor” minorities
during this period prior to independence and the Partition of India and Pakistan;
in addition to facing such resistance from Muslim men, some Muslim women
were becoming estranged from the Hindu dominated women’s movement (Forbes
1996:196–203). For example, some Hindu women’s activists eventually gave up
on their preference for general rather than separate, communal electorates and
argued that if Muslims were to get separate electorates, then the general seats
reserved for women should be reserved for Hindu women only (Ali 2000:191).
When granted reservations in spite of themselves, women’s associations made
the most of the situation. The AIWC initially considered refusing to participate in
the new constitutional provisions, but eventually they resolved to take advantage
of them. Various women’s groups even lobbied for additional seats in their
areas. In the 1937 elections 80 women became legislators, giving India the third
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 157
highest number of female legislators in the world after the United States and the
Soviet Union (Visram 1992:39).
After independence in 1947, the new government retained legislative
reservations for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Lok Sabha
(the lower house of Parliament) and in the Vidhan Sabhas (the lower houses of
the state legislatures). Anglo-Indians also got a few nominated seats. The post-
independence Constitution did not reserve legislative seats for the Other
Backward Classes, religious minorities, or women. The Constitution also
outlawed separate electorates for national and state assemblies, so all voters in
the appointed districts elected candidates for reserved seats. Although women’s
reservations in the waning days of the colonial era were quite short-lived and
subdivided along religious lines, they gave women a foothold in Indian
legislative life and set a precedent which women could draw on decades later.
debate over the status of women back onto the national stage. The woman in
charge of the report, Political Science Professor Veena Mazumdar was
previously not a major player in the women’s movement, but she was so appalled
by her findings that she became a leading figure in the “new wave” of Indian
feminism (Bumiller 1990:125–7).
Towards Equality reported on women’s demographic, socio-cultural, legal,
economic, and educational status, evaluated current programs and policies, and
made several recommendations. Although it was a government report, it was
quite critical of the government. The report addressed the economic plight of
many women since Independence and the reluctance of legislators to put
Constitutional ideals into practice. “Large sections of women have suffered a
decline of economic status,” it concluded. “Every legal measure designed to
translate the Constitutional norm of equality or special protection into actual
practice has had to face tremendous resistance from the legislative and other
elites” (Committee on the Status of Women 1974:301). Such findings set the
stage for the debate in the committee over reserved seats for women in
legislative bodies. Those in charge of the report, like Mazumdar, came from
backgrounds far more privileged than those of most Indian women, yet they
attempted to reflect diverse viewpoints. The issue inspiring the most divergent
views, and necessitating the addition of several “notes of dissent” at the end of
the report, was legislative reservations for women.
Mazumdar and her committee, particularly those from the “pre-independence
generation,” initially had no intention of considering the issue of legislative
reservations for women. In the tradition of the nationalist women’s organizations,
they had “never been supporters of special representation or class representation
in any form” (Committee on the Status of Women 1974:355). They still
associated such reservations with colonial strategies and “in academic discussions
we had often criticized the system of reservations for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes as a legacy of the historical period which institutionalized the
backwardness of certain sections of our population” (Committee on the Status of
Women 1974:355). The committee’s initial interviews and surveys did not
include any questions on the issue of reservations for women. “Only when the
problem kept being posed repeatedly before us by various groups of women in
the course of our discussions did we become aware that a problem like this was
real,” Mazumdar confessed (Committee on the Status of Women 1974:355). By
the time the report was released, Mazumdar had embraced the concept of
legislative reservations. She personally even espoused reservations in
Parliament, going beyond the committee’s recommendation to limit them to the
municipal level. Towards Equality signaled a shift towards more open
acceptance of reservations among some women, even those previously opposed
to such measures.7 At the same time, the committee was very guarded in its
limited endorsement and included many familiar arguments against
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 159
members of the Committee on the Status of Women. This view of Indian society
undermined demands for a special reservation for “women” as a group. Since
independence, fears that the nationalist movement might disintegrate had
transformed into fears that the nation itself might disintegrate. This view of the
Indian nation and fears of “fissiparous tendencies” further undermined the
possibility of a new form of group-based reservation. Both types of arguments,
with their roots in the colonial era, limited the prospects for women’s reservations.
It’s a step, but it’s not going to deal with all the problems that women face
because, then again, politics is not only elected bodies. Politics is what’s
happening around you and how you’re treated on the streets.
(Feminist leader Brinda Karat, on reservations for women, interview 10
December 1996)
Towards Equality's proposal for local level reservations for women eventually
became part of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, which revitalized the
local government system known as panchayati raj. Introduced by Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi in 1989, the amendment passed in 1993. Consequently village
panchayats or councils must reserve one-third of their seats for women. They must
also reserve seats for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in proportion to their
populations in the area; one-third of SC and ST seats are reserved for SC and ST
women (Singh 1994, Bakshi 1996). Notably, the “category” receives the quite
arbitrary allocation of one-third of seats, while the “communities” receive
proportional representation.
Former Government Minister Margaret Alva nevertheless sees women’s
reservations, even limited to one-third of seats at the local level, as an important
step in a gradual process. Alva advocated reservations on all levels, including
Parliament, in the 1980s when she was Minister for Women.9 She viewed the 33
per cent reserved seats for women in the panchayats as a stepping stone to
reservations in Parliament. “Let us start with the panchayats,” she declared.
“Instead of taking on everybody, let’s start with the panchayats and see how it
runs, and then move upwards” (Alva interview 19 December 1996). Alva felt
such gradualism would quell the doubts of those who believed that “you won’t
find women to contest, you know; they are not educated; they are not trained.
How do they do it?” (Alva interview 19 December 1996). Alva could then point
to the success of the initiative:
162 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
In the course of the last three years, between ‘93 and ‘96, one million
women have been elected to local bodies. Now one million…is more than
the population of some countries. But one million women today are elected
representatives in local bodies all over the country. Now just imagine if
one million have been elected, at least five million have contested… Five
million women have gone through the political process.
(Alva interview 19 December 1996)
peaked at 8 per cent women would put their seats at risk. Some incumbents have
rather abruptly become concerned about various disadvantaged communities and
squelched the bill on the floor, in spite of the decision of every major party to
support the bill in their 1996 party platforms. Such tactics resemble group-based
policies under the British, which strategically both appeased and divided various
groups. By endorsing the bill in party platforms and then failing to pass it out of
a sudden concern for backward citizens or Muslims, politicians court the
women’s vote, the backwards vote, and the Muslim vote and simultaneously
protect their own hopes of re-election.
Some women have raised concerns, even while supporting the bill, ranging
from prominent leftist activist Brinda Karat to Hindu nationalist Uma Bharati.
Karat remains skeptical about women’s reservations and has analyzed the
condition of the backward women under the new local level reservations in order
to discover the limits of such policies. Karat concluded that even lower caste
women have benefited a great deal from reservations in local councils, but she
noted that reservations are not always enough to grant them access. She
commented on both the progress and the predicaments of a subcategory of
women, the Scheduled Castes:
What we are finding is Scheduled Caste women who would never have
been given an opportunity to come into…politics, are now coming in.
Unfortunately, in many, many cases, they are, just as the Scheduled Caste
men have been all along, just a rubber stamp… They are not allowed to
participate…we had cases, where they hold the meeting deliberately in the
house of an upper caste person, so the Scheduled Caste women, because of
the social immobility, would censor herself…and so she will be sitting
outside and they would send her the register and she would put her
thumbprint on it. And so you see reservation on its own cannot be an
instrument to remove this.
(Karat interview 10 December 1996)11
Local level reservations sparked some concern even among those supportive of
such a measure, because these policies for “women” were blunt tools and not a
panacea for the problems particular to the women of the lowest castes. Likewise,
in spite of policies aimed at the socioeconomic uplift of the Scheduled Castes
and Tribes, the women within these groups remain “doubly disadvantaged.”
“The multiplicity of social categories in India often serves to obscure the status of
women in the most disadvantaged segments of the population” (Dunn 1993:66).
Vimla Farooqui of the National Forum for Indian Women recognized the mixed
success of the local level reservations but argued that even if only a few of the
elected women feel that they are an important part of the political process, that is
an advance (Farooqui interview 2 December 1996). Due to concerns about
164 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
backward women’s access, some local elections, in Goa and Mumbai for
example, have included reserved seats for OBC women within the women’s
quota (Prabhudesai 2000).
Many women’s organizations have failed to build bridges to other
disadvantaged groups. For example, many women’s organizations have not been
terribly supportive of lower castes or of the extension of central government job
reservations to Other Backward Classes. Inspired by minority women’s critiques
of the women’s movement in the West, Brinda Karat’s organization has
promoted the notion that “sisterhood means you have to come out and openly
support Dalit women” (Karat interview 10 December 1996). But when Other
Backward Classes were given central government job reservations, only a few
national women’s organizations defended this policy: There were “middle class
women in the streets of Delhi threatening to kill themselves and coming out with
the most obscene signs” as well as “a section who preferred to remain silent”
(Karat interview 10 December 1996). This political backdrop increases the
tensions between supporters of general women’s reservations and those of an
OBC women’s subquota in Parliament.
For example, Other Backward Class politician Sharad Yadav memorably said
the women’s reservation bill would only benefit “balkati auraten,” or short-
haired women, most likely a reference to upper class, urban feminists.12
Likewise, a newspaper editorial suggesting women’s organizations should
consider “reservations within reservations” critiqued “creamy layer feminism”
(The Hindu 4 September 1998). The leaders of various “communities” are
increasingly questioning feminists’ legitimacy and insinuating that they are not
“real” or “true” women (Kumar 1994: 283). The idea that identity can be
characterized as true or false is highly dubious; yet this notion is reminiscent of
the Supreme Court’s characterization of genuine and spurious identity claims,
discussed in Chapter 2, and can be a politically useful argument in the hands of
communal politicians (Kumar 1994:238).13
Women’s organizations have been ambivalent towards Muslim demands for
reservations as well. Karat claims that Muslims are under-represented in
Parliament, but a Muslim reservation would do little for Muslim women without
the women’s reservation as well. “This is the only way that Muslim women are
going to be able to come out into public life, because even if you have
community representation, they will never allow Muslim women to come in and
represent. No way” (Karat interview 10 December 1996). Muslims, on the other
hand, fear that a women’s reservation would essentially be a Hindu women’s
reservation. Such qualms parallel Muslim fears in the 1930s that extending even
the right to vote, let alone reserved seats, to women would increase the political
power of the Hindu majority, due to the larger number of educated Hindu
women. Thus the discomfort of some Muslims with political rights for women is
not only due to cultural conservatism but also to electoral calculations. In recent
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 165
years some Muslim groups have been demanding the reserved seats that they lost
at Independence (Wright 1997). This demand also came up in the context of
Parliamentary debates over women’s reservations in the form of proposals for a
subquota for Muslim women (Sonalkar 1999). An extreme example of the quota-
within-quota argument was “a demand that the quota for Muslim women be
reserved for ‘Backward Class’ Muslims” (The Hindu 12 October 2000).
Some women understand the logic behind the demands for reservations on a
class or religious basis, but feel that women’s reservations should come first.
Margaret Alva, a key proponent of the women’s reservation bill, argued for the
legal recognition of women as a legitimate group for reservations. “Whether one
is fighting for the Scheduled Castes, the Backward Classes, or the minorities—the
largest group that is affected is women,” she contended. “Women are the single
largest group of backward citizens in the country” (Nath 1996:11). Feminist and
Christian leader Jotsna Chatterjee admits that “we have no objection to the OBCs
getting reservations” but first, women should be given 33 per cent reservation,
and “automatically this will apply to every category.” That would mean “that
women will have to be given space in the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe
section, and then if it is extended to the OBCs, it will have to be also given in the
OBCs and also in the minorities” (Chatterjee interview 22 November 1996).
Chatterjee is a member of a religious minority community, Christians, but since
their educational and socio-economic status tends to be higher than that of
Muslims, Christians have not been inspired to lodge a similar demand for
subreservations within women’s reservations.
These activists remain supportive of women’s reservations, although they
recognize that this policy alone does not adequately address the doubly
disadvantaged backward or Muslim women. Politicians in Parliamentary
debates, however, may have raised concerns about Muslim and OBC women in
part as a way to defeat the women’s reservation bill. Margaret Alva has charged:
“When it was introduced…there was hullabaloo in the House… No man has the
courage to stand up in the House and say we don’t want it, so they had to
sabotage it. Now the only way they could sabotage it is to appeal to caste,
because caste cuts across women” (Alva interview 19 December 1996). Some
activists supportive of women’s reservations describe this as a strategy to divide
and rule women on the basis of caste, class and creed, “splitting hairs” to
continue to hold onto power in Parliament (Ganguli interview 3 December 1996,
Chatterjee interview 22 November 1996). Maneka Gandhi predicted that the
women’s reservation bill “will be diluted and further diluted till you have a law
that says you can have your one third reservation for women provided they have
pink hair, are totally backward, completely unheard of in any political arena”
(Gandhi 1996:18).
A possible example of what these women might call “division” or “dilution,”
Member of Parliament Uma Bharati demanded that Other Backward Classes be
166 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
CONCLUSIONS
demonstrate that women’s goals are still perceived as competing with other
groups rather than complementing them. Muslims fear Hindu women will
dominate the reserved seats; lower classes and castes argue that privileged
women will prevail. A few politicians see the parallels and linkages between
different disadvantaged groups. For example, former Prime Minister V.P.Singh,
who spearheaded the expansion of reservations for Other Backward Classes,
argued that India “can’t have social justice without justice to women” (Singh
interview 20 November 1996).
The history of debates over women’s reservations, particularly the competition
between various disadvantaged groups, is a rich example of the complexity of
overlapping identities and the tendency of political interests to bring different
identities into relief at different historical points. Attempting to simultaneously
appease and divide the “major minorities,” colonial officials subsumed vast
diversity under the categories of a Hindu “majority” and various religious and
caste “minorities.” The Government of India Act of 1935 superimposed
women’s reservations onto these primary categories.
This legacy lingered in the debate over women’s reservations for the 1974
report, Towards Equality. The Committee on the Status of Women agreed to
recommend limited, local level women’s reservations, in large part due to
overriding concerns about caste and religious communities. One major concern
expressed in the report was that such “communities” had more legitimate claims
to reservations, as opposed to the claims of women, who constitute a mere
“category.” Drawing on similar assumptions, another concern expressed was the
fear that any reservations could encourage national disintegration.
The more recent arguments against reservations for women at the national
level continue to echo these priorities. Throughout the historical and
contemporary debates over women’s reservations, other groupings (religious
minorities, lower classes or castes, or the nation itself) are given precedence.
What makes the persistence of these arguments remarkable is the very different
motivations and actors at play in the three time periods under consideration,
ranging from a colonial power trying to maintain control of an unruly colony, to
a government committee genuinely concerned about the plight of women, to
policy-makers hoping to retain their seats in Parliament.
Why is gender repeatedly singled out as a problematic category for group-
based policies? Is there a sound basis for past distinctions between the category
of gender and communities of religious minorities or lower castes? Do these
latter communities in India more neatly coincide with class, further legitimating
their claims to special policies for disadvantaged citizens? Every sort of group in
India has internal diversity. There are well off Muslims and relatively “forward”
backward classes; yet women have the most internal diversity, since they are a
substantial part of all class groups. If the only purpose of the policies is to help
redistribute power and resources to the poor, gender alone may not be an
168 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
appropriate category; yet ignoring gender and using other categories can be
equally problematic. Women who are also in other disadvantaged groups are
often the worst off, and even advantaged women face gender discrimination.
Moreover, legislative reservations in particular are not simply a redistributive
policy but also a means for group recognition and representation. For this
purpose, women may be as relevant a group as any, even if they are scattered
throughout the class hierarchy. As Benedict Anderson pointed out, even people
who may never meet can become “imagined communities” (Anderson 1991). On
the other hand, the internally diverse category of women is particularly prone to
politically motivated re-imagining. Thus politicians could appeal to half of the
Indian electorate when promising Parliamentary reservations for women, but in
the later debates they could argue, for any other constituency, that those seats
would be taken by the women of a rival group. Due, in part, to such political
manipulations and to the diffuse nature of the category itself, women’s
organizations in India have not achieved unity, let alone a broader solidarity of
disadvantaged citizens, encompassing women, Muslims and Backward Classes.
Delineating the minority or backward women, like efforts to target the
noncreamy Other Backward Classes, could avoid reifying a particular category
and reach some of the most disadvantaged members of society. Yet controversies
over defining categories and subcategories may prevent any policy innovations
at all. Policy-makers and activists must walk the thin line between exploring
more complex policies and courting political gridlock.
10
Conclusions
Reservation policies designed along group lines pose a dilemma for those who
hope to overcome group stratification. By identifying and classifying certain
groups in society—by putting these divisions on the table—such policies could
further entrench the very boundaries they are meant to diminish. This is a major
argument of reservation policy critics. Such critics include several groups
discussed in this book, ranging from the anti-Mandal student protesters and some
Hindu nationalists to organizations such as the Gandhi Caste Society. Others,
however, argue that alternatives to reservations, such as a caste-blind approach,
would sweep reality under the carpet. Defenders of group-based policies assert
that it is blindness to forms of discrimination like casteism and racism that
perpetuates these problems. Such advocates of reservations include the many
groups, also described in this book, fighting for their own reservations, including
some Muslim and Christian organizations, class or caste organizations, and
feminist activists. In the context of racial discrimination, one legal scholar
proposed a way out of this dilemma, arguing that an “alternative vision to color
blindness is a color-consciousness that seeks to destroy itself” (Wu 1996:185).
Can policies both reflect and destroy the categories associated with
disadvantage?
These arguments over reservation policies parallel some theoretical debates
about state identifications and constructions of identities. Critics of essentialist
notions of caste or race emphasize the fluidity and complexity of identities and
the potential for official classifications to reinforce these identities through static
170 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
He discussed both accepting and rejecting his stigmatized identity, then forming
a new identity and eventually “outgrowing my caste’s boundaries” over the
course of his life (Thorat 1993:66, Thorat interview 29 April 1996). Bishop
Azariah argued that regaining a sense of their own identity is at the heart of the
Dalit movement. Untouchability, an imposed label, “simply takes away the
identity of these people,” and Dalits, a self-defined group, “want to get their
identity as human beings and as members of the human society” (Azariah
interview 10 July 1996). In addition to individuals such as Thorat and Azariah,
lively and diverse movements are challenging the boundaries and meanings of
identities, even in the process of using identity-based categories to fight
oppression.
Current movements, inspired by various forms of identity, complicate the
largely caste-based categories used by the state. Christian, Muslim and Hindu
groups, themselves divided along class, caste, and gender lines, propound
competing visions of the most appropriate reservation categories. Many of these
controversies involve differing views about the existence of castes within these
three religious communities in India. In addition to disputes within and between
these religious communities, some groups are arguing for economic or class-
based alternatives to the current parameters, while others resist such
considerations by denying the existence of any “creamy layer,” or economically
advanced individuals, among the backward classes. Women demanding reserved
Parliamentary seats face competing proposals from backward and Muslim
groups. Even debates over the future census categories and the sudden
population jump in certain Scheduled Tribes are throwing official “boxes” into
question.
All this churning of categories demonstrates that people are not simply
adopting the state’s identifications, however stringent, as their own identities.
Although none of these movements could ultimately ignore the hybrid nature of
identity, these examples are more in keeping with the theories that recognize the
utility of categories, even previously degraded or divided ones such as
untouchables or women, for mobilizing and gaining advantages for one’s group.
Even groups that challenged the boundaries of existing categories did not reject
the use of such categories altogether but, rather, mobilized along different lines
to offer alternatives to the state’s definitions of disadvantage. Most of the
activists I interviewed felt that the potential of benefitting from reservations
outweighed the problems of classification.
174 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
In addition to highlighting the need for a theoretical synthesis, case studies of
reservation implementation and political activism demonstrate that major policy
debates over reservations are not simply polarized between those who are for or
against reservations. Advocates and critics alike are pressing the government to
reformulate the reservation categories rather than embracing or rejecting them
outright. Therefore, I offer some reflections on this third alternative, revising
reservations, particularly focusing on the potential for policies that recognize
disadvantaged groups but better reflect the complexity of identity. Beyond
reservations, this balance is relevant for the design of other policies that involve
group recognition in diverse democracies, whether these policies are political,
economic, social or cultural.
Reservations or other policies dependant on social classifications could be
improved by making the categories more complex and the policies more fluid, as
well as by avoiding a group policy versus universal policy dichotomy.
Reservations or other forms of affirmative action are largely an attempt to
counter the oversimplifications associated with forms of discrimination such as
casteism or racism. Therefore, to a certain degree, these policies are bound to
involve oversimplified categories. Over time, “caste became rigid and water
tight, and it was no more based on ability and functional basis, but on birth. So
anybody who had the birth seal, he would be a Brahmin and [was] supposed to
be in a superior class, although he may be a bloody ruffian” (Prasad interview 18
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 175
Race discrimination in this country historically has not allowed for racial
complexity. Government race classifications have been crude because, by
necessity, they reflect the problem they address. Government’s challenge
now is to keep fighting discrimination while recognizing some complexity
in racial identity.
(New York Times, “Multiracial Americans” 8 November 1997:A14)
How might governments face this challenge and recognize the complexity of
identities?
In India, various economic and social criteria feed into the Other Backward
Classes category. However, low caste or other similarly disadvantaged
communities, the original targets of these policies, are taken as the starting point.
This is important because complexity is being recognized without trammeling
those originally intended to benefit from reservations. Adopting “creamy layer”
rules allowed the government of India to recognize caste or community as an
organizing principle of the policy, while excluding individuals who have
arguably already managed to overcome caste hurdles. Notably these rules only
apply to Other Backward Classes, not to the more disadvantaged Scheduled
Castes and Tribes. Given continuing difficulties filling reserved quotas for
Scheduled Castes and Tribes, especially in upper level jobs and prestigious
academic programs, such restrictions are appropriate only for categories in which
it is possible to find “non-creamy” yet qualified applicants for positions at all
levels (Chanana 1993, Dushkin 1979, Planning Commission 1997–2002: Table 3.
9.6). Creamy layer rules enable more fluid classifications, reflecting changes in
status from generation to generation. Maintaining caste as a unit of analysis, to
which other considerations of disadvantage are added or from which a creamy
layer is subtracted, retains the still salient categories targeted by the policies but
adds other dimensions to better reflect change at both individual and societal
levels. With this added complexity, however, comes additional administrative
hurdles, as discussed in Chapters 4 and 8.
Tracing individual progress is not only a means of fine tuning the categories
of beneficiaries but also a way to foster success among those who do benefit.
Once reserved positions are filled, particularly in higher education, those in the
reserved categories can benefit from a more individualized approach to their
continued progress. Veena Das, an anthropologist at Delhi University, argues,
“[a]n affirmative action program means that there should be flexibility.” The
outcome of rather blunt categories is a pool of beneficiaries who may vary
widely in terms of their affluence and education: “Right now Delhi University
has quotas for SCs and STs. But there is no homogeneity in the various groups
176 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
for whom quotas have been set.” Thus, “[e]very group or student has to be
treated differently.” This flexibility could encompass the schedule of the degree
program, additional training or preparation, mentoring or fellowships (Das
quoted in “Class and Reservations,” Telegraph-Calcutta 25 June 1995). As
discussed in Chapter 4, employers are to regularly check on people hired in
government jobs in order to make sure their communities are still on the official
lists, and a government regulation demands that employees report any religious
conversion that might make them ineligible for their reserved position. Yet little
is done to track the successes or problems of people in their jobs or universities.
Treating people as a category must end when they are enrolled or employed, or
they too often fall by the wayside.
Additional categories may also better respond to liminal cases. Chapters 2 and
4 illustrate the problem of penalizing those in intercaste marriages in the sense that
the lower caste person may lose reservation eligibility. Such marriages, discussed
in the context of adjudicating and administering identities, are one of the most
positive steps toward breaking down the barriers of caste. Reservations for
people who marry outside of their caste, one proposal of a 1961 End Caste
Conference, continue to hold promise in the eyes of administrators and
politicians (Kumar 1992:298, n.20). To avoid penalizing marriages in which a
low caste women would take on the official status of her higher caste husband,
the Ministry of Welfare has stated that “Inter-caste marriage should be
encouraged. To encourage non-SC male youth marrying unemployed SC girls,
incentive of jobs outside the reserved quota may be considered” (Ministry of
Welfare 1990:75). Government Minister Ram Vilas Paswan advocated a
reservation category for those who have intercaste marriages:
In India you can change religion, you can change the party, you can become
rich, rich can become poor, but you can’t change your caste. So caste is just
like a rock. So the only process where the caste system can be weakened is
intercaste marriage… If the reservation is made on that ground, intercaste
marriage, then slowly, slowly caste system will be abolished. And if there
is no caste then there will be no reservation on the basis of caste.
(Ram Vilas Paswan interview 20 December 1996)
In this way additional categories cannot only expedite change but may eventually
make the old categories obsolete.
In addition to recognizing rather than penalizing those who transgress
boundaries, another way to incorporate social change in public policies is to
reconsider them at regularly scheduled times. The alternative, reconsidering the
policies when they are under attack, is less likely to result in incremental
changes, as advocates and critics entrench themselves in their positions. Syed
Shahabuddin, an activist for reservations for Muslims, proposed a survey every
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 177
Let everybody have the same educations, the same house, the clothing,
same food. There is no need of any reservation then. Nobody wants to lock
the society into compartments. Let the existing compartments break, these
compartments of thousands of years... But the existing reality has to be
reorganized.
(Prime Minister V.P.Singh, speech to Rajya Sabha,
27 August 1990)
Backward Classes, also emphasized the key role of universal policies, going so
far as to say “I think a universal policy is the better way because then these
distinctions or classes don’t apply” (V.P.Singh interview 20 November 1996).
This is not a contradiction. Wider social and economic programs complement
reservations by reaching the many disadvantaged citizens that reservations
inevitably miss.
Policy-makers may be tempted to use reservations as a cheaper, symbolic
“fix” for wider social disparities. It is unfair to criticize reservations for not
helping each member of disadvantaged groups to gain a good education and job,
since reservations cannot solve the problems of inequality and mass poverty on
their own. Likewise, it is also a mistake to use the existence of reservations as an
excuse to avoid more fundamental, universal policies. In the words of sociologist
M.N.Srinivas, “It is unfortunate that reservation is widely regarded as a panacea
for ills such as poverty, and lack of access to education, government
employment and political power. Reservation has its uses but only up to a point”
(Srinivas 1997:4). In Chapter 9, discussion of continuing discrimination against
low castes, particularly women, included feminist activist Brinda Karat’s
argument that “reservation on its own cannot be an instrument to remove this”
(Karat interview 10 December 1996, emphasis added).
India, like many other countries, would avoid some of the extreme disparities
in life chances that such affirmative action programs can only partly alleviate by
providing and enforcing attendance in consistently good primary and secondary
educational facilities (V.P.Singh interview 20 November 1996). The sooner such
universal policies are effectively implemented, the sooner group-based policies
may become unnecessary. Yet “universal” policies to date have had a far from
uniform impact on the life chances of citizens. Despite a constitutional
commitment to universal primary education, about one half of the population as
a whole remains illiterate and almost two-thirds of Dalits remain illiterate
(Human Rights Watch 2001). According to reports between 1996 and 1998 by the
National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Dalit children
have a drop-out rate of close to 50 per cent at the primary level, a rate that climbs
to 78 per cent for secondary school (Human Rights Watch 2001). Since universal
policies seem unlikely to dramatically reshape Indian society any time soon, it is
important to recognize the continuing role of group-based policies and to see that
these two policy approaches work best in tandem.
Although the previous chapters inspired these policy suggestions for more
flexible categories, these chapters also highlight some of the political challenges
of changing reservation policies as well as the administrative and legal
challenges of implementing more malleable categories. Other group-based
policies in India and elsewhere have proven to be difficult to change (Jenkins
1998). “Once policy makers have redefined the disadvantaged to encompass the
majority, the decision becomes virtually irreversible” (Weiner and Katzenstein
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS 179
CONCLUSION
Contemporary state practices of identification shape identity politics, yet
contemporary protest groups also demonstrate agency by challenging static
classifications. The official categorizations of identities used for reservation
policies not only are embedded in policies, but also are adjudicated by the courts,
given scientific clout by official anthropologists, listed and certified by
administrators, and tracked by the national census. Although judges,
anthropologists and administrators face the ambiguity and liminality of identities
in practice, the judicial, scientific and administrative processes associated with
implementing these categories reinforce neat and static definitions of
disadvantage.
Official categories imposed by the state shape identities but do not determine
them. Various protest groups in India are challenging the classifications of
citizens used to implement reservations. When abstract state classifications and
complex social identities clash, the resulting melange of competing demands
helps to prevent the reification of such classifications. Official categories do
create boundaries, yet disagreements over reservations in contemporary India are
often arguments about the boundaries themselves rather than disputes between
180 IDENTITY AND IDENTIFICATION IN INDIA
APPENDIX I:
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS
(a)
Application form for Scheduled Caste certificate
APPENDICES 183
184 APPENDICES
(b)
Form of certificate to be produced by a candidate
belonging to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe in
support of his claim (Department of Personnel 1993:396)
APPENDICES 185
(c)
Application for a certificate of eligibility for reservation of
jobs for Other Backward Classes in civil posts and services
under Government of Delhi
186 APPENDICES
APPENDICES 187
188 APPENDICES
APPENDICES 189
190 APPENDICES
APPENDICES 191
(d)
Form of certificate to be produced by Other Backward
Classes applying for appointment to posts under the
Government of India (Department of Personnel 1993:487)
192 APPENDICES
(e)
Questionnaire for consideration of requests for inclusion
and complaints of under-inclusion in the central list of
Other Backward Classes
QUESTIONNAIRE
PART I
General Descriptive Da ta o f the State
23. (a) Total number of posts in services under the State Government
Year of Reference
i) Group A/Class I:
ii) Group B/Class H:
iii) Group C/Class III:
iv) Group D/Class IV:
(b) Out of the total number of posts number of posts held by the members of
all OBCs:
Year of Reference
i) Group A/Class I:
ii) Group B/Class II:
iii) Group C/Class III:
iv) Group D/Class IV:
APPENDICES 195
(c) Out of the total number of posts, number of posts held by each caste/
community included in the list of OBCs of the State, separately in the
following format:
(d) Out of the total number of posts, number of posts held by SCs:
Year of Reference
i) Group A/Class I:
ii) Group B/Class II:
iii) Group C/Class III:
iv) Group D/Class IV:
(e) Out of the total number of posts, number of posts held by STs:
Year of Reference
i) Group A/Class I:
ii) Group B/Class II:
iii) Group C/Class III:
iv) Group D/Class IV:
Year of Reference
i) Group A/Class I:
ii) Group B/Class II:
iii) Group C/Class III:
196 APPENDICES
(g) Number of castes/communities among the OBC not holding any post:
(specify names of such castes/ communities)
APPENDICES 197
PART II
General Data of the Caste/Community Under
Consideration
12. Is the caste/sub-caste etc. listed as a backward class in any other State(s).
If yes, give the name(s) of the State(s) and the serial number(s) in the
State list(s)
13. Specify the religion/faith/sect if any which members of the caste/community
sub-caste etc. (on whose behalf request/complaint has been made) follow
14. Date of request/complaint
198 APPENDICES
A. Social
(e) (i) If not agricultural: state which occupation are the members engaged
in
3. Whether there are any occupations other than the main occupation referred
to at 2(a), on which substantial numbers of members of the caste/
community depend for livelihood. If so, specify such occupations
4. a) Whether or not the women of the caste/community, as a general practice,
are, for their own or for their family’s livelihood, engaged in agricultural
labour for wage
APPENDICES 199
i) Nomadic caste/community/tribe?
If so,
name the Commission(s)/Committee(s)/Report(s) which has so
categorised it
ii) Semi-nomadic/caste/community/tribe?
If so,
name the Commission(s)/Committee(s)/Report(s) which has 50
categorised it
B. Educational
Where the caste/community is not spread over in the entire State but is largely
concentrated in one or a few districts, also furnish the following information.
2. Out of the total number of literates of the caste/community in the State, please
furnish the total number of female literates of the caste/community
Specify the year of reference
3. a) Number of Matriculates (or equivalent High School Examination) among
the members of the caste/community in the State
Specify the year of reference
b) Proportion of matriculates of the caste/community to the total population
of the caste/community in the State
c) Total matriculates in the State:
Specify the year of reference
d) Proportion of total matriculates in the State to the population of the State
Where the caste/community is not spread over in the entire State but is largely
concentrated in one or a few districts, also furnish the following information
Where the caste/community b not spread over the entire State but is largely
concentrated in one or a few districts, furnish also the following information
C. Economic
Where the caste/community is not spread over the entire State but is largely
concentrated in one or a few districts, then the above information may also be
separately furnished districtwise in respect of the districts where the population is
concentrated
Where the caste/community is not spread over the entire State but is largely
concentrated in one or a few districts, the following information may be further
furnished:-
4. Besides State Government Services, state how many persons of the caste/
community under consideration are engaged in the following areas of
employment and professions
APPENDICES 205
c) Doctors
d) Lawyers
e) Engineers and Architects
f) Chartered Accountants
g) Income Tax, financial and managemet consultants
h) Media professionals
i) Defence services
(Major in the Army and above, equivalent ranks of Navy and Air-
force)
j) Any other important fields of employment or profession (Specify the
fields)
2.
3. Explanation: As and when any caste/community is added to the list, the data
against Q. 2(a) and 2(b) may be updated
Number of posts held by SCs:
APPENDICES 207
E. Miscellaneous
1. (a) What are the main reasons on account of which the caste/ community
consider itself to be backward
(b) What are the main reasons on account of which the caste/ community
is considered backward or not backward by the State Govt.
(c) Has there been any improvement in the condition of the caste/
community during the last twenty years? If so, in what respects?
(d) Has there been any deterioration in the condition of the caste/
community during the last twenty years?
If so, in what respects?
Note: Support your reasoning with authentic evidence as far as
possible
3. Any other points besides those covered by the questionnaire above which
need to be mentioned in respect of the request or complaint
APPENDICES 209
1
Identity and identification
1 “Backward” is not my term but rather official jargon associated with reservations.
The term is also used by many political activists. The term will appear in the rest of
the book without the repeated use of quotation marks, which does not imply that I
agree with the negative connotation it suggests. When writing about official
categories and the protest groups contesting them, I use either the official language
in question or the terms groups choose for themselves.
2 Defining institutions for the purposes of this study as “formal arrangements for
aggregating individuals and regulating their behavior through the use of explicit
rules and decision processes,” I focus on the bureaucratic and legal institutions
most directly involved in implementing reservations (Levi 1990: 404–5). The “new
institutionalists” in political science, economics and sociology assert that
institutions “constrain and refract politics” (Thelen and Steinmo 1992:3), and a few
institutionalist scholars have noted the influence of contemporary state institutions
on the politics of identity (Gunther and Mughan 1993).
3 Tajfel offers classic social psychological work on the effects of external
categorization on individual identities (Tajfel 1981). Such research would be
another approach to these issues of categories and groups. When relevant and
available, secondary sources which include quantitative data will be cited or
summarized.
4 Reservations have been a valuable avenue of social mobility for some members of
oppressed groups. Although the procedures involved in implementation are at times
problematic due to the need to categorize people, these problems should not
overshadow the net positive impact of these policies for the categorized groups.
Quantitative data, some of which will be discussed later in this and future chapters,
demonstrate the progress facilitated by reservations, notably the increasing number
of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employed in government jobs and their
guaranteed representation in legislatures (Planning Commission 1997–2002).
5 Nicholas Greenwood Onuf offers an overview of some “constructivist” approaches
in philosophy and social theory and applies them to international relations theory
(1989) (see especially pp. 35–65). An excellent collection of works applying
constructivism in comparative politics is Daniel Green’s edited volume (2002).
214 NOTES
be calculated. These quotas are used for people appointed to government jobs
through direct recruitment on a national basis. For some lower level jobs (classified
as group C and D on a scale from A through D), “normally attracting candidates
from a locality or region,” the quota is calculated on the basis of the percentage of
Scheduled Castes or Tribes in that state or union territory (Nabhi 2001:3–4).
23 The 50 per cent cap on reservations has not always been obeyed. The southern state
of Tamil Nadu, for example, has had 69 per cent reservations. The Tamil Nadu
Reservations Act is an attempt to protect these state-level reservations.
2
Adjudicating identities
1 (1994) 5 S.L.R. (S.C.) 206: (1994) 6 S.C.C. 241:1994 S.C.C. (L&S) 1349: (1994)
28 A.T.C. 259. The paranthetical page numbers in this section of the text refer to
quotations from this decision in the Services Law Reporter (S.L.R.). Citation to
Indian legal authority herein is based upon standard Indian legal form. For a
discussion of Indian legal citation, see Galanter’s “Note on Citation and
References” in Competing Equalities (Galanter 1984:xxix).
2 Srinivas defines sanskritization as “the process by which a ‘low’ Hindu caste, or
tribal or other group, changes its customs, ritual, ideology, and way of life in the
direction of a high…caste. Generally such changes are followed by a claim to a
higher position in the caste hierarchy than that traditionally conceded to the
claimant caste by the local community. The claim is usually made over a period of
time, in fact, a generation or two, before the ‘arrival’ is conceded. Occasionally a
caste claims a position which its neighbors are not willing to concede” (Srinivas
1966:6).
3 See also a government letter dated 19 September 2000, about whether the Kolis of
Maharashtra, a Backward Class, would be declared to be Mahadeo Koli, a
Scheduled Tribe [www.tn.gov.in/gorders/adtw81-t.htm] downloaded 10 March
2002. A news report addressing this ongoing demand entitled “Grand Birthday Fete
of Sharana Planned” appeared in The Hindu 13 January 2002.
4 For example, a court in the state of Kerala, in a case involving several people who
were alleged to be members of Other Backward Classes but were asserting a
Scheduled Caste identity, held that these questions should be brought before a
scrutiny committee, following the procedure outlined in the Kumari Madhuri Patil
case. Kerala Pattikajathi Samrakshana Samithy v. State of Kerala, I.L.R. 1995(3)
Kerala 1.
5 See Director of Tribunal Welfare, Government of A.P. v. Laveti Giri, Supreme
Court of India, Civil Appeal No. 4545 of 1995, decided 18 April 1995.
6 C. Sunil Krishnan v. State of Kerala, A.I.R. 1997 Kerala 63.
7 Gayatrilaxmi Bapurao Nagpure v. State of Maharashtra, Supreme Court of India
Civil Appeal No. 4377 of 1996, decided 15 March 1996.
8 Government of Andhra Pradesh v. R.K. Ragala, A.P. High Court (1994).
9 (1996) 3 S.C.C. 545: A.I.R. 1996 S.C. 1011. As in the preceding section, page
numbers in this section of the text refer to quotations from the Valsamma Paul
decision in the Supreme Court Cases (S.C.C.) reporter.
NOTES 217
10 Saroja notes the difficulty of assessing definitively the rates of intermarriages due
to the lack of enforcement of marriage registration (Saroja 1999:183).
11 Citing, Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, 1992 Supp (3) S.C.C. 217:1992 S.C.C.
(L&S) Supp 1: (1992) 22 A.T.C. 385.
12 Atul Chandra Adhikari v. State of Orissa, Orissa (1995). Interestingly, the US
Supreme Court refused to disturb a similar tribal rule under which the children of a
woman who married outside the tribe could not enjoy the rights of tribal
membership (i.e. voting rights, the right to hold office and the right to inherit
property), whereas children born to a man who married outside the tribe were
considered members of the tribe entitled to such benefits. See Santa Clara Pueblo
v. Martinez, 436 US 49 (1978).
13 (1996) 3 S.C.C. 100. As in the preceding sections, the parenthetical page numbers
in this section refer to quotations from the Swvigaradoss decision in the Supreme
Court Cases (S.C.C.) reporter.
14 Notably, Buddhism and Sikhism also have been used as escape routes from the
caste system. See Chapters 6 and 7 for a discussion of the politics behind this
official distinction between Christians and Muslims, who are ineligible for
Scheduled Caste status, and Hindus, Sikhs and neo-Buddhists, who may qualify for
this category.
15 Discussed in Soosai v. Union of India, A.I.R. 1986 S.C. 733.
16 Valsamma Paul v. Cochin University (1996) 3 S.C.C. 545, 567.
17 G.M.Arumugam v. S.Rajagopal (1976) 3 S.C.R. 82.
18 Id. at 94.
19 Id. at 94–5, citing Nathu v. Keshwaji, I.LR. 26 Bom. 174.
20 Guntur Medical College v. Mohan Rao, A.I.R. 1976 S.C. 1904, 1908.
21 Id. citing Dugaprasada Rao v. Sudarsanaswami, A.I.R. 1940 Mad. 513.
22 Citing Ganpat v. Presiding Officer, A.I.R. 1975 S.C. 420, 424.
3
Official anthropology
1 The Scheduled Caste volume of the People of India project was first published in
1993, and it is the second, revised, hardback edition of 1995 to which I refer. The
photograph of the woman and her children is on the protective paper cover of this
edition, a point I mention because the earlier edition features a collection of
different photographs.
2 Official ethnography elsewhere in Asia likewise has had an impact on
constructions of identity. See, for instance, the fascinating work on China by Dru
Gladney (1996) and Melissa Brown (2001) and the volume on anthropology and
colonialism edited by Bremen and Shimizu (1999). I presented an earlier version of
this chapter at the 2000 Association for Asian Studies meeting in a panel on Asian
anthropology, including cases from India, Japan and China, which further
convinced me of the fruitfulness of future comparative research.
3 Bates is summarizing the Report of the Ethnological Committee on Papers laid
before them and upon the examination of specimens of Aboriginal tribes brought to
the Jubbulpore Exhibition of 1866±67 (Nagpur 1868). This sort of disrespectful
display was not unusual for its era; consider the 1890 Chicago World’s Fair.
218 NOTES
4 Nicholas Dirks, although arguing that caste was “appropriated, and reconstructed,
by the British,” holds that “[n]either British administrators nor orientalists were
able to go to India and invent caste through sheer acts of will and rhetorical fancy,
however useful caste was as a social mechanism to assist in the management of an
immensely complex society” (Dirks 1992:61). Likewise, Prakash emphasizes “how
the categories of colonial discourse were revised in the process of their historical
articulation” and avoids “portraying British India as a place scorched by the power/
knowledge axis, leaving nothing of its history” (Prakash 1992:172).
5 Some valuable studies that have discussed the contemporary implications of past
practices include Susan Bayly (1999), especially Chapter 7, and Sumit Guha
(1998). Some specifically mention the current People of India Project, albeit briefly
(Bayly 1999, Bates 1995:219, Searle-Chatterjee 1996).
6 Raheja elucidates the types of changes which occurred after 1857, clarifying the
tight relationship between anthropological studies of caste and the administrative
concerns of the state: “Such fissures had certainly begun to appear long before
1857, but the rebellion so impressed itself upon the colonial imagination that
dramatic shifts in administrative policy occurred soon thereafter. Colonial
administrators began carefully recording caste identities on the decennial census,
commissioning the publication of region-by-region caste compendia, relying more
heavily on caste identities in formulating land revenue policy, and disciplining
certain groups as ‘criminal’ castes and tribes or as castes prone to rebellion”
(Raheja 1996:495).
7 This approach was rather standard for the day. See George W.Stocking (1982),
particularly Chapter 8 on “The Critique of Racial Formalism.” Not all colonial
anthropologists were as guilty of oversimplified typologies. In fact, as Susan Bayly
points out, some accounts of caste, such as Denzil Ibbetson’s 1881 introduction to
the Census of the Punjab, were quite nuanced (Bayly 1995). Yet Crispin Bates notes
that more contextual accounts such as Ibbetson’s were not always well received as
proper “science” in their day: “however popular his ideas may have become in
certain academic circles in more recent times, they sat awkwardly in the period in
which they were first formulated” (Bates 1995:231). Risley himself quotes
Ibbetson’s work, which he describes as “[a]n admirable picture of open-air work; it
has been drawn on the spot; it is full of local colour; and it breathes throughout
with the quaint humour of the peasantry of the Punjab, the manliest and most
attractive of all the Indian races. From this wealth of material it is not altogether
easy to disentangle the outlines of a cut-and-dried theory” (Risley 1915:263).
Risley’s own desire for “scientific” typologies rather than anecdotal nuance come
through in this commentary.
8 For more on the use of proverbs in colonial reference works on caste, including
Herbert Risley’s work, see Raheja (1996).
9 The criteria for being an “informed” informant are left unspecified, although the
relative numbers of men and women interviewed suggest a gender bias among
investigators and/or potential informants, perhaps based on a perception that
women are less informed or that what they know is not relevant to the study.
10 Keeping more detailed information about certain minority groups is a social
science/administrative tradition that is far from unique to India. Consider the
degree of scrutiny historically given to nonwhite minorities in the US census (Lee
1993:82).
NOTES 219
11 For more information on the portrait building system and the Anthropological
Survey of India’s involvement in it, see the webpage of the NCRB, particularly the
section on the Facial Analysis and Criminal Identification System at [http://
www.ncrbindia.org/bound.htm] downloaded 27 September 2000.
12 This work was recommended to me by Syed Hamid, who is a leader in the
Hamdard Education Society in Delhi (Ahmad 1995, Hamid interview 2 September
1996).
13 This tendency to emphasize the distinctiveness of groups while simultaneously
pointing to a unified or “composite culture” is not unique to the Anthropological
Survey. The introduction to an exhibit of tribal art, organized by the Government
of India, attempted to “highlight the cohesiveness of our rich and diverse heritage,”
noting, about the art forms represented, that “as diverse as they are, there are
linkages, a homogeneity which is perhaps the result of the ancient living composite
cultural crucible we exist in” (Program from “Usha Abhil Asha: An exhibition of
folk, tribal and traditional paintings and sculpture,” 24 March to 7 April 1996, Lalit
Kala Academi Gallery, New Delhi. Organized by the Department of Culture,
Ministry of Human Resource Development, and the Zonal Cultural Centers). From
the Anthropological Survey of India to the Department of Culture, the official study
and display of “culture” in India is carefully presented to emphasize national unity.
See also Srirupa Roy (1999) on official nationalism in the form of parades and
publications.
14 The full title of Volume 7 is Identity, Ecology, Social Organization, Economy,
Development Process and Linkages: A Quantitative Profile (1996). The other
volumes Singh described as the “soul of the project” are Volume 1, the
Introduction (1992), and Volume 8, Communities, Segments, Synonyms, Surnames
and Titles (1996). For a critique of “trait distributions” as an anthropological tool,
see Moerman (1965).
15 Ironically, in spite of “sensitivity tests” applied to naming practices in the new
People of India project, the governmental category of “backward” citizens remains
curiously untouched, a remnant of an evolutionary model of countering inequality
and social divisions (Searle-Chatterjee 1996).
16 The status ranking of Scheduled Tribes could not rely on “varna” since “only 11.8
per cent of them recognize their place in it” (Singh 1994:7), so the regional
hierarchy was measured using the categories of high, medium and low status.
Interestingly, both self-perception and perception by others was noted: “When it
comes to self-perception of a tribal community in the regional hierarchy we find
that 171 tribes, i.e. 26.9 per cent see themselves as being of high status, while 298
tribes (46.9 per cent) perceive themselves as being in the middle position. About
25.3 per cent, i.e. 161 tribes see themselves as being of low status. Others see over
11.2 per cent of the tribes as high, 39.2 per cent as medium and 49.4 per cent as of
low status” (Singh 1994:7). It is this last figure which makes the quoted conclusion
about the Scheduled Tribes’ lack of social stigma so troubling.
17 Anthropologists and sociologists in India have repeatedly reflected on the
dilemmas of postcolonial anthropology and differ in their conclusions about how to
move beyond colonial practices. As quoted earlier, Andre Beteille is skeptical about
the value of the People of India project, whereas K.S.Singh is confident that the
project can supersede the legacies of Risley. Such perspectives reflect in part
institutional affiliations, a view from academia on the one hand and a view from
220 NOTES
government on the other; however, many universities were involved in the project,
and even eminent sociologist M.N.Srinivas was positive about it as long as it was
considered a starting point for more in-depth fieldwork (Srinivas interview 8
November 1997). Sociologists and anthropologists in India from different
institutional backgrounds have joined periodically to debate the future of their
disciplines, and the issues raised shed light not only on the broader politics of these
disciplines in India but also on the tensions ignited by the People of India project;
in one recent workshop, both Beteille and Singh were participants (Uberoi 2000;
Sundar et al. 2000). One recurring debate is over “relevance” and the proper
relationship between anthropology and practical concerns or policy prescriptions,
in short, the relationship between the field and the government (Srivastava 1999:
545–52, Debnath 1999).
18 [http://www.ad2000.org/uters2.htm] 18 December 2001.
4
Caste certificates and lists
1 (1994) 5 S.L.R. (S.C.) 206: (1994) 6 S.C.C. 241:1994 S.C.C. (L&S) 1349: (1994)
28 A.T.C. 259.
2 The survey of “Harijan Elites” was carried out in Azamgarh in eastern Uttar
Pradesh. The sample included political leaders, caste organization/caste leaders,
bureaucrats, doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, and businessmen (Roy and
Singh 1987:23, 29).
3 Government of Andhra Pradesh v. R.K.Ragala, A.P. High Court (1994).
4 An additional example of the repeated identification and labeling of reservation
beneficiaries comes from another bureaucracy devoted to these policies, the
National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation (NBCFDC).
This is a nonprofit corporation, wholly owned by the Government of India, which
extends credit to the Backward Classes to assist in skill development, employment
schemes and other economic projects. Although this type of affirmative action is
not my primary focus, the relatively new procedure of “pre-identification” initiated
by the Corporation demonstrates the increasing scrutiny of beneficiaries’ identities
by the government. As of 1995, “Pre-identification of beneficiaries has been made
compulsory… The factor of unknown beneficiary has also been eliminated”
(National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation Objective,
Organization, Operating Procedure 1996:12). This preidentification is to help in
“establishing the authenticity of the loanee,” who is issued a “beneficiary card”
(NBCFDC Guidelines for Implementation of NBCFDC Schemes 1996:3).
5 The Caste/Tribe certificate will only be accepted as “sufficient proof in support of a
candidate’s claim as belonging to the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe” if it is
issued by one of the following authorities: District Magistrate, Additional District
Magistrate, Collector, Deputy Commissioner, Additional Deputy Commissioner,
Deputy Collector, 1st Class Stipendary Magistrate, Sub Divisional Magistrate,
Taluka Magistrate, Executive Magistrate, Extra Assistant Commissioner; Chief
Presidency Magistrate, Additional Chief Presidency Magistrate, Presidency
Magistrate; Revenue Officer not below the rank of Tehsildar; or Sub-Divisional
NOTES 221
Officer of the area where the candidate and/or his family normally resides
(Ministry of Personnel 1993:248).
6 (1994) 5 Supreme Court Cases 244.
7 The application form for a Scheduled Caste certificate as well as several other forms
are included in the appendix. These are from a caste certificate issuing office in
Delhi unless otherwise indicated. These documents include:
The Ministry of Welfare’s SC/ST Division deals with questions not only over
which groups belong on the lists but also over which individuals belong in which
groups. According to the official instructions on caste certificates, “Cases in which
a doubt arises whether a person is a Scheduled Caste/Tribe or not may be referred
to the Ministry of Welfare (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Division),
Shastri Bhavan, A-Wing, New Delhi” (Ministry of Personnel 1993:247).
14 This study’s focus on bureaucratic processes raises interesting questions for future
research. What is the impact of the processes on the perceptions of those who
experience them? Interviews with people who have gone through these processes
might shed light on the impact of the policies on applicants. A related question is
how do experiences with petitions for certificates or listings influence applicants’
sense of their own agency in their dealings with the state? A contemporary
newspaper editorial paints a dire picture of the government’s treatment of Dalits
through procedures such as caste certificates: “At the state level, the attempts are
made by the state agencies to dissolve particularly the Dalits into social
insignificance where they have to prove their identity not through their authentic
self but through certain identity cards or a piece of paper such as a caste certificate
as specified by the state” (The Hindu, “Editorial: Hindutva’s Passive Revolution”
21 September 2000).
15 See this document in the appendix.
16 OBC reservations are used not only for central government jobs, but also in several
states, as well as the government of the capital, Delhi, and can vary at these
different levels. The following discussion draws on regulations and forms from the
central government and Delhi government.
17 See these documents in the appendix.
18 The confidentiality of the application seems not to be a major concern. Something
that came up in my interview with Mahesh raised questions about the
confidentiality, or lack thereof, associated with the caste certificate process.
Mahesh noted that another role of his office is to aid the government when a
criminal remains unidentified, although, when asked more specifically, he said that
the information he gathers in the caste certificate process is not used to help
identify criminals (Mahesh interview 29 November 1996).
19 See [http://socialjustice.nic.in/obcs/welcome/htm] 15 March 2002.
20 The following description refers to the process of determining who is an OBC prior
the reconstitution of the membership of the National Backward Classes
Commission in 1998. Although their task is unchanged, the increase in the number
of cases processed under the new commission suggests that the rather in-depth
procedures described here may have been subsequently abbreviated. A new
member of the commission, Akshaybhai Sahu, has boasted, for example, that “The
commission, under the chairmanship of justice P.K.Shyam, cleared 471 cases
within months of taking over, while the remaining cases are expected to be cleared
by January-end, Sahu said, claiming that the last commission could clear only 320
cases in its tenure—40 cases every year” (as paraphrased in Indian Express,
“NCBC Member Raps Government” 7 December 1998). See “126 More Castes on
OBC List” (The Hindu 20 November 1999) on the government’s implementation
of some of the Commission’s recommendations.
NOTES 223
5
Categorizing and counting on the census
1 In the Household Schedule for the 2001 Indian census, question 8 reads: “If
Scheduled Caste, write name of the Scheduled Caste from the list supplied” and
question nine reads: “If Scheduled Tribe, write name of the Scheduled Tribe from
the list supplied” [http://www.censusindia.net/census2001/qpopenu. html] 5
October 2000.
2 See Chapter 1, Note 22 supra.
3 The postapartheid South African census and its utility for affirmative action, in
comparison with the US and India, was one subject of discussion at an
international conference I attended on “Rethinking Equality in the Global Society”
at Washington University in St. Louis, 8–10 November 1997.
4 The trend toward census taking and the date of the first Indian census are discussed
in the following passage from the Government of India Home Department (Public)
Programs from 26 November 1870: “That a census of the whole people is most
desirable, or rather we may say is absolutely necessary, as a sound basis of almost
every economical reform, has long since been admitted as a simple truism, but it is
only recently that a definite project has been formed to accomplish it. Local
attempts had indeed been previously made, but it was only in 1856, that the late
Court of Directors urged upon the Indian Government the importance of a measure
which is decennially carried out in Great Britain, the United States of America, and
many of the countries of Europe, and it was proposed that the general census of ‘our
Indian territories’ should be taken in 1861, to correspond with the census of Great
Britain and thenceforward to be repeated every ten years. But the mutiny stopped
224 NOTES
this project, and a census was only attempted partially in some Provinces and in a
very rough and imperfect manner. The Government had more pressing cares to
attend to, and it was not until 1865 that the general measure was revived, and the
1st of January 1871 was then fixed for the undertaking” (Natarajan 1972:3).
5 For a discussion of the assumptions associated with modernization theories, as well
as the demise of the assumption that caste would fade away with modernity, see
Randall and Theobald 1998, particularly their discussion of Rudolph and
Rudolph’s classic, The Modernity of Tradition (1967).
6 1992 Supp (3) S.C.C. 217:1992 S.C.C. (L&S) Supp 1:(1992) 22 A.T.C. 385.
7 The 1941 census was abbreviated due to World War Two; the 1951 count of OBCs
was “entirely provisional” (Gopalswami 1953:2); and subsequent censuses
recorded caste or tribe only for the scheduled communities.
8 One example of political party involvement can be found in the article
“Memorandum seeks caste-wise census” in The Hindu 30 March 2000. Other
articles discussed the debates over a castewise census (Indian Express, “Caste in
Census” 1 May 1998, Shah 1998). On the initial announcement that caste would be
counted see, India Today, “But the die is caste” 11 May 1998. On the decision not
to count caste after all, see Narayan 1999.
9 Shah’s suggestion to deal with the paucity of OBC data is a survey (Shah 1998).
10 After the first post-independence lists in 1950, the schedules or lists have been
modified or supplemented as in 1956 when the states were reorganized,
necessitating reorganization of the lists, which are done on a state-by-state basis.
Examples of other changes include a 1976 amendment removing some area
restrictions and a 1990 amendment allowing neo-Buddhists to be SCs. Other
changes were made to certain state lists, such as the STs in Uttar Pradesh Order of
1967, Meghalaya STs in 1987, and Kashmir STs in 1989 (Nanda 1994).
11 Also note the strategy to extract the “correct” name from the citizen, namely
“persuading” them by suggesting that reservation benefits may be at stake. This
practice reinforces a longstanding association in the public imagination between
census enumeration and reservation eligibility, even though census slips are
confidential and cannot be used as evidence in a court of law (The Census Act
1948). This perception helps to explain the rising number of people claiming to be
in Scheduled Tribes in recent censuses, to be discussed later in this chapter.
12 Not all states had lists of Other Backward Classes, so each state was to compile
either a provisional list of Backward Classes or Non-Backward Classes for the
enumerators. The census report on “Special Groups” did not include OBC data;
rather it emphasized that this information was to “be treated as entirely
provisional” and was “given for use by the Backward Classes Commission”
(Gopalaswami 1953:2).
13 This tendency to keep more detailed census data on certain minority groups is
widespread. See Lee 1993:82, for similar findings in the US context. For example,
the goal of the multiracial categories of 1890 (Mulatto, Quadroon, Octaroon) was
not to represent multiculturalism as in the demand for multi-racial recognition on
the US census in the 1990s, but rather was an attempt to monitor racial mixing.
14 Anand Patwardhan’s documentary film Father, Son and Holy War (New York:
First Run Icarus Films, 1994) includes some striking examples of such rhetoric in
political speeches.
NOTES 225
15 Studies have shown that educating women correlates to successful family planning
and population control. See Sen (1994), especially Chapter 8 on “Women’s Agency
and Social Change.” Demographer Ashish Bose criticized the nonsensical yet
popular argument that Muslim polygamy leads to higher population growth (Bose
interviews 19 July 1996 and 4 November 1996).
16 The delay in processing the caste data collected in the past is another argument
used against the idea of an OBC caste count. P.Radhakrishnan, Professor at Madras
Institute of Development Studies, argues: “if the department has not completed
processing the data collected on the SCs and STs (accounting for only about one-
fourth of the total population) even nearly a decade after its collection, how will it
be able to process, not to speak of making available to the data-users in the
foreseeable future, caste data on 75 per cent of the total population?”
(Radhakrishnan 1999).
17 The census did gather information on types of economic activity, land ownership
and education, however, which may prove more useful than income data, given the
perhaps more extreme challenges of accuracy with the latter type of data.
18 Another factor in the jump in numbers was a switch in the official definition of
Scheduled Tribe status. From 1950, when the president promulgated lists of
Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Areas, the special benefits for Scheduled Tribes
were only available if they lived in the specified areas. The removal of intrastate
area restrictions in the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders
(Amendment) Act, 1976, removed the geographical element from the identification
of Scheduled Tribe members within states. See Chaube (1999). Yet, this too cannot
account for the entire population jump.
6
ªBackwardº Muslims and ªScheduled Casteº Ch ristians
motivated by a sense that these categories do not reflect their unique senses of
identity, some are also very cognizant of the material benefits and opportunities that
are at stake if a reclassification occurs. Identities and interests are intertwined and
impossible to neatly untangle. Such untangling is not attempted here, but their
interaction is evident in the following case studies.
3 For a balanced perspective on the ways these group-based policies both overcome
group disparities and cause group tensions, see Mitra 1987, 1994.
4 This assumption pervaded many media and academic analyses of the decision to
extend central government reservations to the OBCs in 1990. See also Note 12 in
Chapter 8 for more sources of similar arguments against reservations. For example,
see Singh and Sharma’s argument in their book, tellingly entitled, Reservation
Politics in India: Mandalization of the Society (Singh and Sharma 1995).
5 Government officials and citizens are now struggling with the policy ramifications
of a debate which has raged among academics, classic examples being Louis
Dumont and F.G.Bailey: Is caste a religious institution rooted in Hinduism or a
sociological phenomenon characteristic of a variety of societies? (Dumont 1980,
Bailey 1957, 1960). I thank an anonymous reviewer of one of my articles (Jenkins
200 1a) for encouraging me to place this political debate in the context of this
academic debate.
6 Other groups have made similar demands for Muslim reservations, such as the
Islamic Council of India and the All-India Milli Council. See The Hindu 13 April
1996 and Indian Express 22 July 1996. An even larger group of Muslim
organizations has included the demand for reservations for Muslims as a religious
minority group in their Agenda 1999 for Muslims. See “Backward, Dalit Muslims
campaign to secure rights sparks controversy,” Times of India 12 September 1999.
7 Vilas Sonavane is a member of Advisory Board of the All India Muslim OBC
Organisation. See also V.Date, “Reservation Demand for ‘Muslim OBCs’ Gains
Momentum,” Times of India 10 December 1999.
8 Memorandum from Shabbir Ansari, President of the All India Muslim OBC
Organisation, to Welfare Minister B.S.Ramoowalia, 16 September 1996. Other
organizations have made similar demands, including the All India Muslim
Congress. See “Reservation for Dalit Muslims Sought,” Times of India 16
December 1999.
9 In addition to the broader associations discussed here, the extension of Scheduled
Caste reservations to Sikhs and Buddhists has inspired “similarly situated groups
among Muslims,” such as Halal Khors, to also seek official SC status (Times of
India 18 January 1996:10).
10 Notably, there is no corresponding religious bar to Scheduled Tribe or Other
Backward Class membership, perhaps because non-Hindu tribals or lower classes are
less of a challenge than non-Hindu untouchables to this ideological association
between caste and Hinduism.
11 See an excellent overview of the Dalit Christian movement and its ideology (Wyatt
1998). For a list of some of the rallies, strikes, bills and meetings with public
officials over this issue, see the National Coordination Committee for Dalit
Christians’ pamphlet (for distribution to Members of Parliament), Demand for
Restoration of Reservation for Christian Dalits (1996:17–18). The United Front
Government’s 1996 Common Minimum Program included the extension of
reservation benefits to Dalit Christians. Deccan Herald-Bangalore 16 July 1996.
NOTES 227
7
Hindu nationalism and selective inclusion
1 For an excellent brief introduction to the ideology and politics of the Hindu
nationalists, see Tapan Basu et al. (1993). For further analysis see Christoffe
Jaffrelot (1996) and Thomas Blom Hansen (1999).
2 Eleanor Zelliot notes that these conversions started in 1956 but also continued
afterward. Exact numbers of converts are difficult to estimate but census
figures document a large leap in the number of Buddhists in India: 180,823 in 1951,
before Ambedkar’s conversion movement began, and 3,250,227 in 1961 (Zelliot
1996:223).
3 This speech was delivered at the last meeting of the Minorities Committee, 13
November 1931. See also Gandhi’s correspondence on this subject (Pyarelal 1984).
B.R. Ambedkar’s critique of Gandhi’s approach can be found in Ambedkar’s What
Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (1945).
4 Limiting Scheduled Caste status to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists, argues Dieter
Conrad, can “be understood only as a sanction against apostasy from Hinduism,”
part of a trend toward what he calls legal Hindutva (Conrad 1995).
5 The strict association of the SC category with Hinduism is not just an assumption
and argument of Hindu extremists. As discussed above, Gandhi opposed
untouchability but always felt that “Harijans” were a part of Hindu society.
Preserving unity in this way was very important to him. Gandhi’s grandson
Rajmohan Gandhi has drawn a parallel to Abraham Lincoln, who wanted to end
slavery in the United States but also, if possible, preserve the union (Gandhi
interview 21 September 1996, Gandhi 1995:242).
6 See the following news coverage of the expanding rolls of OBCs on the national list:
“51 castes included in OBC Central List” (Hindustan Times 5 September 2000).
“90 Castes Added to OBC List for Jobs” (Indian Express 18 March 2000). “123
More Castes in OBC List” (The Hindu 20 November 1999). “Sheila puts Delhi Jats
on OBC List,” a response to the Vajpayee government putting Rajastani Jats on the
central OBC list (Indian Express 23 October 1999). “96 More Castes May Be
Included in OBC List” (Hindustan Times 15 June 1999).
8
Class, classification and creamy layers
1 The phrase “truly backward,” used by the Supreme Court of India in Indra
Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) 1992 Supp (3) S.C.C. 217:1992 S.C.C. (L&S)
228 NOTES
Supp 1:(1992) 22 A.T.C. 385, echoes that of American sociologist William Julius
Wilson, who in a different context, argued that a race-based analysis might
overlook the “truly disadvantaged” by ignoring class distinctions (Wilson 1987).
Advocates of a class approach continue to add to the debate over affirmative action
in the United States (Kahlenberg 1996).
2 Indra Sawney v. Union of India, supra note 1.
3 See the Reports of the Backward Classes Commissions of 1955 and 1980. These
are known as the Kalelkar Commission and Mandal Commission, respectively,
named after their Chairmen. There are also numerous state level commissions and
reports.
4 “Communities” in this context can be considered both a euphemism for castes
within Hindu society and a term for the caste-like subdivisions within other
religions. Notably the OBC category, unlike the SC category, is open to all
religions, so communities within each religious community can be declared OBCs
by state or national level commissions. Whether disadvantaged subcommunities
within these other religions are actually “castes” and not just communities is not only
a linguistic and sociological question but also a political question, due to the
current demands for Scheduled Caste status for Muslims and Christians, as
described in Chapters 6 and 7.
5 Triloki Nath v. State of Jammu and Kashmir (1969) I S.C.R. 103 A 1960 S.C.I.
6 Based on the postelection poll survey of 1996, Mitra and Singh charted the
correlation between “caste” and “class.” The official SC, ST, OBC and other
categories were used a proxies for caste. Data used to define class included
occupation, assets, type of house and income. Mitra and Singh found a
close correlation between caste and class: The Scheduled Castes and Tribes were
most highly represented in the “very poor class” category, while the Other
Backward Classes dominated the “poor class” category, and the other (upper)
castes were represented at more than twice their percentage in the population in the
“upper class” category. According to their data, Scheduled Castes (19 per cent of
the population) are 30 per cent of the very poor, and Scheduled Tribes (10 per cent
of the population) are 15 per cent of the very poor. The OBCs (38 per cent of the
population) are 40 per cent of the very poor, 42 per cent of the poor, 23 per cent of
the middle class and 23 per cent of the upper class. The upper castes, in contrast,
who are only 34 per cent of the population, make up almost 70 per cent of the
upper class category (Mitra and Singh 1999:189 Table 6.1).
7 Chiranjit Lal v. Union of India (1950) S.C.R. 869.
8 State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan (1951) 1 S.C.R. 226, and
Venkataramana v. State of Madras (1951) 1 S.C.R. 229.
9 This language was added in the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, Sec. 2.
See Bakshi (1996:23).
10 See the Mandal Commission Report on Backward Classes (1980). The current
National Backward Classes Commission uses similar criteria on its questionnaire
for those groups claiming backward status. Forty-six questions on a variety of
social, educational, economic, and other factors range from the number of
community members holding government jobs to the number of members in
primitive housing. See National Commission for Backward Classes (1994).
11 More specifically, “[t]he reservation is applicable to all civil posts and services under
the Govt. of India, Public Sector Undertakings, Financial Institutions including
NOTES 229
Public Sector Banks, autonomous bodies, statutory and semi govt. bodies and
voluntary agencies receiving grants from the Govt.” (Nabhi 2001: 374). The Other
Backward Classes for purposes of this new policy were defined as the castes and
communities on both the Mandal Commission’s list and lists prepared by state
governments.
12 These were not the first anti-reservation agitations. See Mitra (1987). On the
relationship between the anti-Mandal protests and the dispute between Hindus and
Muslims over the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, see Parikh “Religion, Reservations and
Riots” (1998). The India Today coverage of the protests in 1990 is notable for its
anti-Mandal slant; the Seminar issue of November 1990, entitled “Reserved
Futures,” is devoted to reservations, including Ghanshyam Shah’s piece on the
“Agitations in Gujarat,” which also discusses the broader anti-Mandal protest.
Other coverage of the opposition to Mandal includes: Balagopal, K. (1990) “This
Anti-Mandal Mania,” Economic and Political Weekly 25:40, 6 October, pp. 2231–
4; Chopra Pran (1990) “Reservations: the economic criteria,” Hindustan Times 1
October; Karlekar, Hiranmay (1990) “The Wrath of Youth,” Indian Express 4
October; Mammen, Matthew (1990) “Rising Militancy in Bihar: Mandal Protests
spark caste war,” Hindustan Times 16 October.
13 Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) 1992 Supp (3) S.C.C. 217:1992 S.C.C.
(L&S) Supp 1:(1992) 22 A.T.C. 385.
14 Justice R.N.Prasad, Chair of “creamy layer” committee and author of creamy layer
ruling, interview, New Delhi, 18 September 1996. Whether one’s wife holds such a
position is not accounted for on the “Creamy layer” forms in Delhi. Pressure to
raise the one lakh rupee income ceiling has subsequently occurred (The Hindu
“India ceiling for OBC creamy layer to be raised” 24 July 1998).
15 From Creamy Layer Schedule, Ministry of Personnel Office Memorandum No.
36012/22/93-Estt. (SCT). Subject: Reservation for Other Backward Classes in
Civil Posts and Services under the Government of India.
16 See also Chapter 4 in this volume, on caste certificates. A telling example of such
problems with identity documents and corruption is the growing number of people
losing their official identities entirely when relatives manage to get them declared
dead in order to inherit their property. This has sparked an Association of Dead
People fighting to be declared alive. Barry Bearak, “Back to Life in India, Without
Reincarnation,” New York Times 24 October 2000.
17 Many of these concerns over the use of economic data have also been raised by
political scientist Sunita Parikh at a conference on affirmative action in India, the
United States and South Africa in a discussion of the “creamy layer” rule in India
(8 November 1997). The conference was entitled “Rethinking Equality in the
Global Society” and was held at Washington University.
18 Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) 1992 Supp (3) S.C.C. 217:1992 S.C.C.
(L&S) Supp 1:(1992) 22 A.T.C. 385.
230 NOTES
9
Women's reservations and representation
1 Times of India (1998) “RJD-SP Stall Introduction of Women’s Quota Bill,” 14 July.
Similar scenes erupted in 1996 and 2000 as the bill has been repeatedly introduced
only to die again.
2 The Women’s Reservation bill would reserve one-third of seats in the lower houses
of the national parliament (Lok Sabha) and state assemblies (Vidham Sabhas). The
reserved seats would be rotated randomly so the same districts would not be
permanently reserved for female candidates only.
3 Kishwar herself is critical of the Women’s Reservation Bill (Kishwar 1996b) and
offers an alternative (Narayan et al. 2002).
4 An emphasis on “difference” (such as recognition of distinct class or racial
experiences of women) is a trend in western feminist scholarship, offsetting a
history of inattention to such differences; yet the study of women’s movements
elsewhere reveals that the “politics of difference” itself plays out in different ways
(Tripp 2000). In the Indian context, the government pays much attention to religion
and caste, so the importance of “difference” is hardly a new revelation and could be
viewed instead as a longstanding political challenge for feminist activists.
5 On the relationship between the nationalist and women’s movements in India, see
also Nair 1996 and Chatterjee 1989.
6 After elections to the central legislature under this plan, 3.4 per cent of the legislators
were women (Committee on the Status of Women 1974:356).
7 Examples in this report of the arguments for legislative reservations include the
need for political empowerment of women to precede socio-economic
empowerment in the Indian context, the need to compel political parties to shift
strategies in candidate selection, and the value of “a body of spokesmen of the
women’s cause” in legislatures (Committee on the Status of Women 1974:302–3).
8 Some low caste organizations in the 1970s drew parallels between their oppression
and women’s oppression, undeterred by continuing distinctions between
communities and categories. Yet the more frequent pattern of activism by women
and other disadvantaged groups was continuing division between urban elite
organizations and rural, grassroots movements (Kumar 1995:63).
9 Alva was appointed to the upper house of Parliament by Indira Gandhi in 1974.
She later was appointed by Rajiv Gandhi as head of the Women’s Department
within the Ministry of Human Resource Development. She has also served as
Minister of State for Youth Affairs, Sports and Women.
10 The debate in 2000 is described in an article entitled “Sparks Fly Over Delay in
Tabling Women’s Bill.” The Hindu (26 August 2000).
11 Such reports about the poor treatment of some female council members help
explain survey data suggesting that women tend to trust local government less than
men, even after the implementation of women’s reservations at the local level
(Mitra and Singh 1999:237)
12 “More Anti-Women than the Common Man?: Demanding Sub-Quotas,” The
Statesman, 6 January 2000.
13 Arguments about whether “real” women benefit from reservations have also been
raised in cases in which eunuchs have been elected to local offices in seats reserved
for women. For example, four eunuchs were elected in the state of Madya Pradesh,
including one mayor. Characterized in the media as a sign of voters’ discontent
with politics and politicians, this also suggests ambivalent public views of
women’s reserved seats (Daily Excelsior (2000) “Eunuch’s Election Shows Voters
NOTES 231
Disgust With Politics,” 2 January). A judge ruled that Mayor Kamla Jaan is male,
based on voter registration records, a photo identity card and other official
documents, and declared Jaan’s election null and void (Statesman (2002) “Court
verdict triggers gender debate on Eunuchs,” 1 September).
14 BJP MP Uma Bharati, quoted in Meenakshi Nath (1996) “Cutting Across Party
Lines: Women Members of Parliament Explain Their Stand on Reservation
Quotas,” Manushi, no. 96, September-October, p. 11.
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252
INDEX 253
anthropometric data collected 44, 45, 50, BJP Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe
51 Morcha 134
see also bio-anthropological parameters Blackmun, J. 7
anti-creamy layer see Kerala Bose, Ashish 105
Anti-Mandal Commission Forum 147 British Raj see colonial policy
anti-Mandal protests 54, 96, 147 Buddhists:
see also Mandal Commission Report and conversion 35, 79;
Appadurai, Arjun 6, 44, 94, 118 and Dalit Solidarity Programme 123;
Aprishya Sudras 70 and Hinduism 132–3;
Association for Promoting Education and and Scheduled Castes 120, 133
Employment of Muslims 115, 118, 123; Bureau of Police Research and
convention on reservations 117 Development and Portrait Building
Atul Chandra Adhikari v. State of Orissa System 51
76 bureaucracy
avarna 70 see also administration and identity:
Azariah, M. 121, 123, 179 and liberalization 183;
and representation 88;
Backward Classes Commission see and reservations 15
National Backward Classes Commission Burman, B.K. Roy 55, 104
Backward Muslim Morcha see All India
Backward Muslim Morcha Calcutta University:
backwardness/backward classes defined/ and attitudes to intercaste marriage 32
discussed 2, 14–15, 71, 73, 81–6, 145–6 caste
Banton, Michael 2, 70 see also Scheduled Castes:
Bates, Crispin 12, 44 in Christian society 1–2, 31, 35, 121,
Beda Jangam 55, 65 179;
Bengal census 98 defined 13;
Beteille, Andre 54–5, 62 in Muslim society 116, 179;
Bharati, Uma 169, 172 and nationalism 45, 57–63, 93, 128–30,
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 134
see also Hindu nationalism; see also Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalists: caste associations:
and categories 9; certificate of membership 30;
and conversion 131; and Other Backward Class numbers
and Dalit Christians 121; 101;
and moderation 139; as response to census 48, 93, 101
and Muslims 133–5; caste census 89–90, 95–7, 101
and OBCs 172; see also census;
and People of India project 65; colonial census
platform 127; caste certificates 18, 67–70, 72–3, 81, 87;
and political savvy 138; and conversion 79–81;
and reservations 150 and creamy layer 82;
Bihar 155 false certificates 26, 33, 72–3;
bio-anthropological parameters 60 and intercommunity marriage and
BJP see Bharatiya Janata Party adoption 76–9
BJP Minority Morcha: Muslims/Christians/ see also inter-caste marriages;
Zoroastrians 133 and migrants 74–6
254 INDEX
fertility rates and minority scrutiny 102–4 and Muslim seats 114, 160
see also census Government of India Act (1935): 14;
Fifth Caste 70 and Other Backward Classes
Ford, Christopher A. 23–4 and Scheduled Castes 14, 70–1, 119;
Foucault, Michel 111 and Scheduled Tribe category 14
Franchise Committee 162 Government of India Acts (1919; 1935):
Frykenberg, Robert Eric 12–13, 38, 102, nominated seats 160;
121, 130 reserved seats 162;
separate electorates 160;
Galanter, Marc 120, 145 suffrage 162
Gandhi Caste Society/Gandhi Sangam 9, Government of India (Scheduled Castes)
19, 143, 148 Order:
Gandhi, Indira 49, 163 and Christians 119–20
Gandhi, Maneka 171–2 group and individual processes 81–7
Gandhi, Mohandas 70, 98, 130, 161; see also identity
and caste discrimination/reform 19, group certification see schedules
129; Guha, Phulrenu 166
and conversion 131; Guha, Sumit 92, 105
“Gandhi caste” proposed 148;
group-based policies 9, 130–1; Halba/Halbi tribe:
and Harijans 129, 130, 131; population/category change 105
and inclusive Hinduism 128–31; Hamid, Syed 115, 138
and reservations 130–1; Harijans (untouchables) 117, 70, 98
see also Ambedkar; see also caste;
Dalit; Dalit;
Harijan Scheduled Castes:
Gandhi, Rajiv 51, 167 and Hindu absorption 130;
Gandhi, Rajmohan 129–30 and Mohandas Gandhi 129
gazetteers 92 higher education:
Geertz, Clifford 5 and reservations 15, 16, 147, 181–2,
gender: 183–4;
as category 7, 157–9, 173–4; and Supreme Court decision 26
discrimination 20, 34, 49, 77, 158; Hindu Marriage Act 133
and inter-caste marriages 32, 77 Hindu nationalism
see also inter-caste marriages and see also Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP);
reserved seats 173–4 Hinduism;
Goa: Hindutva;
Christian community and status 55; Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP);
and reserved seats 170 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS):
God of Small Things 23 and B.R. Ambedkar 131, 141;
Government of India and census 102–4;
see also administration; and conversion/reconversion 79, 125,
census; 135–6, 141
courts; see also conversion;
People of India: and cross-cutting identities 127–8, 139,
Planning Commission 180;
Government of India Act (1909): defined 128–9;
258 INDEX