It is not very often that a country's
political capital is cut off by angry mobs making
relatively petty demands. And yet the recent
demands for affirmative-action programs reflect
the inordinately complicated political arena of
India, and put to serious test the government's
ability to reform. I have written previously [1]
about the poor reform record of India.
At
the heart of the most recent mess in Indian
politics is an attempt to impose
affirmative-action programs - "reservations", in
local
parlance - that will apply to the admission of
students to government-owned educational
institutions, after previous extensions to
government employment. The main categories for
identifying people in need of economic assistance
relate not to economic pointers but to castes.
Ancient mess It is fair to say
that foreigners would be hard pressed to
understand how an apparently racist system can
ever underpin an economic-development program, and
yet that view would be precisely wrong, because
caste has always been about economics in India.
From ancient times, the idea of dividing citizens
by their functional roles served to foster
specialization and concentrate wealth with vested
interests. In this respect, Indian society was no
different from the evolution seen in Western
societies, which just happened about 2,000 years
later, as with the example of England during the
period from 1100 to 1750 or so. [2]
There
was really nothing to choose between the Indian
caste system and European feudal society as seen
by examining two features - first, that a person's
status in society depended on birth, which also
determined what he could be expected to achieve in
his life. The second and perhaps more execrable
feature was the lack of mobility in and out of
castes, although many authors claim this was a
post-Mughal affair, as the induction of foreigners
into specific warrior castes from time to time
showed that the system was actually open to both
internal and external inputs.
All of that,
however, pales in significance when one examines
the plight of people outside of the caste system,
namely the untouchables. In the words used by
George Orwell 20 centuries later, they were
"non-persons" [3] whose fate was worse than that
of animals in Hindu society. That the situation
persisted despite centuries of internal and
external reform movements, from Buddhism to the
Islamic and Christian invasions, was testament to
the significant economic strength of the caste
system as a way to specialize production and
concentrate profits, on which of course any
government's taxes depended.
Thus the
caste system flourished not so much because
Indians believed in the religious mumbo-jumbo
associated with the ideas of rebirth, sins and
virtues, but because it made economic sense for
both governments and vested interests - namely
businessmen and warriors - to keep the system
intact. I have already written about why the caste
system wasn't dismantled by the Buddhists, Muslims
or Christians in the aforementioned article, so I
will not repeat my arguments here.
Racing to the bottom One of the
greatest achievements of the Indian state over the
past 60 or so years was something that did
not happen, namely a major famine like
those in Bengal [4] that wiped out more people
than World Wars I and II combined. That
achievement was only made possible because for the
first time government became answerable to the
people in the democratic system.
This has
of course meant that caste lobbies became more
visibly entrenched in the political system. I
would stress that point - that castes simply
became more visible in a democratic system, while
previously they had played a more indirect albeit
equally authoritative part in determining the
course of social justice.
India's choice
of a socialist system of government was to prove a
historical blunder that owes much to the erudite
idiocy of Jawaharlal Nehru (prime minister
1947-64). I will focus on the follies of centrally
planned economies in the next article, but here
the focus is on the interplay with the caste
system. A country with lower-than-potential
economic growth is always marked by internal
strife, and that has become the way for India.
In particular, lower economic growth meant
that the lot of fewer Indians improved, and these
tended to be city dwellers mainly. Anyone who
travels on public transport in any large Indian
city can come away with one key observation, which
is the complete absence of caste distinctions in
urban India. Jostling for space on a crowded train
to work inevitably means that you cannot choose to
be near people of your caste, or indeed choose the
caste of the person next to you.
Despite
its recent economic success, much of India is
completely untouched by economic progress of the
kind seen in China. Given that, the gap between
rich and poor in India is also one between urban
and rural India, and inevitably a gap between
castes. Indian media frequently report on a common
theme of emigrants to cities achieving riches and
then coming back to find their status unchanged at
home, in turn setting off conflicts. As the
"developing" and "lagging" parts of India collide,
it appears inevitable that caste-ridden rural
India would revolt against the largely casteless
urban society - which is why the roads to Delhi
were blocked last week. But the revolt was more
about the desire for economic development than any
caste-war notions, and therein lies the good news.
Think about the conflict for school spaces
- if India built enough schools, why would anyone
feel left out of the educational system? With
sufficient schools, all castes are accommodated,
and provided with quality education. The political
descendants of Nehru, though, are masters of
subterfuge, and thus focus on creating any
controversy that can help to mask their own
failures. It is a bit like Arab governments
mentioning Israel whenever their legitimacy is
questioned internally.
Thus Indian
politicians of all hues have to embrace
affirmative-action programs, which can help gather
support from rural caste-based voting, as seen in
recent state elections. This issue has rapidly
become a sacred cow, but its main argument of
providing social justice is fundamentally
misplaced. Affirmative action in education renders
standards lower and, by thus devaluing the main
benefit associated with a quality education, fails
to serve the intended purpose of improving living
standards.
A person worried about hair
loss may have the luxury of choosing the
right-looking quack to deal with his problem, but
someone suffering cardiac arrest is less likely to
consider the hairstyle of his doctor but instead
focus on getting the highest-quality care. In much
the same way, private-sector employers do not have
any incentive to pick dolts in their workforce, as
competitive demands far outstrip any other
consideration. Governments, though, have the
luxury of choosing employees on criteria that have
nothing to do with efficacy, because by and large
governments are useless from a strictly economic
perspective.
Looking at the relative ease
with which Indian cities have shaken off the caste
system, the solution to achieving social justice
is elsewhere, namely economic development. Rapid
urbanization of India would make castes less
relevant and force through social changes. This,
rather than what caste gets which classification,
should be the higher priority for Indian
governments.
Tomorrow: Pork
barrel politics
Notes 1. Indian reform: All bark and no
bite, Asia Times Online, August 16,
2006. 2. It's the money, honey,
ATol, December 22, 2006. 3. Nineteen
Eighty-Four by George Orwell. 4. The
Bengal famine of 1943 is estimated to have cost
more than 5 million people their lives, and one in
the same region in 1770 wiped out about twice that
number.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about
sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
