DIP KAPOOR

7. CASTE, DALITS AND EDUCATION IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA

The simultaneous emergence of market (neo-liberal globalization) and religious (Hindu nationalism/saffronization) fundamentalisms in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Guha, 2007; Ray & Katzenstein, 2005) have together exacerbated the schisms of caste and the historical process of political-economic, socio-cultural and educational marginalization of Dalits (“the downtrodden”, also referred to as Scheduled Castes (SC) in India (Jogdand & Michael, 2006). While neo-liberal globalization has continued to dispossess Dalits of already meagre land and work opportunities in rural locations, exacerbated income inequality and urban-rural socio-economic dichotomies all with direct implications for Dalits who constitute the majority of India’s Below the Poverty Line (BPL) population (according to the Planning Commission 48 percent of the Dalit population in rural India are BPL), the chorus of Hindu nationalist sentiment provides a reinvigorated impetus towards a religious politics premised on the assertion of Hindutva and the continued essentialization of caste hierarchies and religious difference. This chapter discusses caste and its contemporary implications for Dalits and their educational prospects in post-independence India with the view to foreground the prevalence of caste and caste-realities which subordinate castes/outcasts are subjected to, contrary to the middle-upper caste/class caste-blind rhetoric which masquerades as a progressive politics of equality and inclusion. This is accomplished by: (a) introducing caste constructions/emergence and Constitutional commitments towards Dalits, (b) examining some of the key historical and contemporary socio- political trends contributing towards the de/politicization of caste today, including neo-liberal globalization and the privatization of public education and a resurgent Hindu religious nationalism and (c) a related portrait of educational prospects and realities in basic education for Dalits (SCs) in post-independence India. The proposition being advanced here is that caste inequalities and the practice of untouchability and caste relegations (culture) are not passé and continue to shape the historic project of dominant caste control in a socio-political environment increasingly marked by Dalit resistance and vocal party-political and popular movement articulations that work to expose and gradually undermine caste privilege. Predictably and relatedly, educational prospects for Dalits are also impeded by continuing caste machinations and the gradual abdication of state responsibility for educational provision for Dalits, as India’s post-1991 tryst with

Ali A. Abdi and Shibao Guo (eds.), Education and Social Development: Global Issues and Analyses, 87–104. © 2008 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. KAPOOR neo-liberal globalization heralds a new era for Dalits and marginalized social groups who were making slow but steady gains (eg, in adult literacy and improved enrolment rates at the primary level) through Constitutionally protected state welfare measures in education.

CASTE CONSTRUCTIONS AND CONSTITUTIONAL COMMITMENTS As the noted anthropologist and caste researcher, M.N. Srinivas commented in his address to the annual Science Congress in Calcutta on the subject of “Caste in Modern India” in 1957, My main aim in this address is to marshal evidence before you to prove that in the last century or more, caste has become more powerful in certain respects, than it ever was in pre-British times ... The recent strengthening of caste contrasts with the aim of bringing about a ‘caste and classless society’ which most political parties, including the Indian National Congress, profess (Guha, 2007, p. 597). Derived from the Latin word castas, meaning chaste or unmixed, caste references the mainly segregated social groups of a hierarchical ordering of Indian society according to four varnas or broad caste categories, including Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. Outside these four varnas are the casteless (outcast or avarnas) ‘untouchables’ (achyut) or Dalits, a term preferred by politically active anti-caste groups as opposed to the relatively patronizing and depoliticizing connotations of “Harijan” or Mahatma Gandhi’s “children of God” caste reformism/anti-untouchability. The theological basis of caste is derived from the Purushasukta verse from the Rig Veda (ancient Hindu scriptures) and the Code of Manu (ethical and legal commandments pertaining to custom, caste and caste-institutional practical prescriptions inspired by the Vedas) which states that the Brahmans came from His mouth, the Kshatriyas from His arms, the Vaishyas from His thighs and the Shudras from His feet, implying vertical hierarchy and corresponding occupational specialization, as the Brahmans performed religious rituals and were the keepers of sacred knowledge, the Kshatriyas were warriors and protectors, the Vaishyas farmers and traders, while the Shudras performed menial/labour tasks. The ‘outcasts’ (Dalits) were relegated to performing polluted and polluting tasks such as sewage disposal, tanning of hides and the removal of carrion and refuse. Pollution-purity divides (eg, refusal to share well-water or cooking utensils or refusing food from the hands of an achyut), caste endogamy, refusal of entry in to places of worship, denial of freedom of movement (eg, use of certain village streets/thoroughfares) and even the curtailment of spaces for defecation etc are some of the visible manifestations of casteism, untouchability and the daily assault on the dignity of persons, allegedly sanitized by appeals to the theological justifications for such degradations. The term Scheduled Caste (SC) was introduced by the British in the 18th century and today’s Constitutional Schedules list 1,116 SC groups who together

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