To remove bad aspects of caste system several concerted efforts are necessary. Not every idea will yield results. Concerned people should develop ideas and work towards the umbrella goal of removing the bad aspects of the caste system. In that spirit, I humbly propose a few ideas.
List of some projects to get rid of the bad aspects of the caste system:
- Encourage caste conversions and caste evangelism.
- Extend reservations to people that convert to other castes irrespective of the caste to which they convert for a period of 20 to 30 years.
- Subvert caste symbols and surnames by using the symbols/names even when you don't belong to those castes.
- Extend reservations to two members of families that have a family member who marries outside their caste.
- Document inter caste marriage life and build organizations that help people interested in marrying out of their caste.
- Extend reservations to children of families that sponsor/pay tuition of children from historically deprived castes and help raise their kids almost as their own. This can be similar to the god parent concept. Make a legally binding inheritance rights where the families that sponsor/pay also bequeath a percentage of their wealth.
- Remove reservations for all, once the percentage of inter caste marriages increases to 40% of the total number of marriages in general population for 5 consecutive years or caste conversions reach 40% in general population for a period of 5 consecutive years.
- Avoid using stigmatizing terms such as backward castes (offends people in those castes) etc or oppressed castes (offends those who currently do not belong to oppressed castes for the sins of prior generations), but instead use the term historically deprived castes (not because the prior terms don't have elements of truth, but because it is necessary to get to a place where the caste system does not continue to perpetuate unfairness to all involved.)
Ideal state:
Caste as a concept should at minimum become non-exclusionary. It may perhaps be better to not even have a notion of caste completely. However, if it is non-exclusionary in every sense of the word, it may remain a notion of genealogy and history and no more. A question could be asked as to whether religion-less state should be the ideal state. It is this author's view that the religion question can be tackled independently, considering most religions don't impose non-exclusionary membership.
Jujitsu:
Use the caste system as it exists to get rid of the insidious aspects of caste system. Use reservations as they exist to eliminate the perceived unfairness of penalizing the present generation for the sins of prior generations through reservations. Use reservations to get rid of reservations. Provide reservations to those that do things that undercut insidious aspects of caste and reservation.
Does caste still matter?
As long as political strategists device strategies using caste, caste does matter. So long as people mostly marry members of their own caste for most part, it matters. As long as reservations exist, it matters. As long as words such as forward caste, backward caste, scheduled caste and scheduled tribes are mentioned in books other than history books, it matters. As long as families are the ones that invest in startups with seed capital and families are defined around caste, caste matters. It is necessary to acknowledge that significant progress happened from worse times. However, the society is not yet in a post-caste phase.Reservations:
Redressing historical deprivation for deprived communities is a worthy goal. However, reservations as a mechanism to redress historical deprivation has the unfortunate side effect of perpetuating the insidious institution of caste. Additionally, reservations have entrenched themselves into the system. Any attempt at dismantling the caste system will need to be done in a manner that is acceptable to the beneficiaries of the system. The same has to be said about the people that benefited from the caste system that gave them a superior cultural and economic standing that was not earned but given to them because of their birth. The historically depriving or advantaged castes sometimes feel aggrieved because of reservations as they don't think of themselves as being responsible for their fore-father's sins. Some of them unfortunately don't even believe there were any sins. Unless people intermarry adequately (40 to 50% of all marriages), one of the avenues of economic progress (help from family in a culture of education, connections, investments) is excluded from the historically deprived.
1. Encourage caste conversions and caste evangelism:
If you remove the caste designation by birth, most of the things that make caste unfair go away. Historically and doctrinally, changing of castes (as castes evolved and new castes originated) has been supported even though it was a rarity. To formalize the process of changing castes will go a long way in removing bad aspects of caste. In modern society the lifestyles are getting more and more homogenized even though people are associating with people of their own caste in social and political relationships and a lot of times economic relationships. Even in social media discussions, people that think of themselves to be not particularly casteist take up cudgels for one caste or another. Instead they should be taking a more fluid approach to improving the societal dynamics and work towards a just society for one and all. This will become easy to do when people's affinity to their way of life is not pre-ordained to be a way of life for them from birth to death. Any loyalty to a group, be it caste or religion that makes one see only good in their group and only bad in the "other" can lead to oppression of the "other". It is important to keep these loyalties fluid so that they don't lead to unjust societies.
In contemporary world, caste is for most part not based on vocation. It still remains a concept that organizes people socially and politically. In a democratic setup the size of the political group affects its influence. Unfortunately politicians continue to use strategies that assume caste as a primary organizing principle of the society. Caste organizations and leaders seem to play along for self interest. Using the jujitsu principle, it would be an advantage to a caste to increase its size to increase its influence on the politics. Caste leaders that can persuade people belonging to their caste to allow caste conversions can use this strategy. The strategy of bringing people into their caste increases the strength of their caste and with it brings political gains in the short term. It however helps loosen the by birth affiliation of caste in the long term. If a single caste becomes strong and is able to bring every one into its flock, they become politically strong but caste will cease to be an issue. Initially not all castes may embrace this strategy. However the ones that do will get political advantage. Over a period of time the ones that allow caste conversion will become powerful forcing all castes to follow suit or perish. Supreme court law precedent, and history may get in the way (even though we are beginning to see loosening of how caste lineage is established). Legal precedent can be overturned if a group gets strong enough informally if not formally, when it can force changes in law or perhaps have supreme court over turn precedent. After all Valmiki became a maharishi.
Some people genuinely like a way of life that is given to them by their caste. This could be eating habits etc. For those, encouraging people to embrace their way of life can be an advantage. As long as they allow admission to their way of life that does not involve being born into that way of life, relaxed admission into a caste should help people preserve certain aspects of a lifestyle that they believe is conscientiously the right way to live. I for one am a practicing vegan of twenty years standing. In some ways vegan way of living may seem similar to the lifestyles practiced by some castes conscientiously. I would love for more people to become vegan as I believe it is an ethical way of living. I would not like to exclude anyone from becoming a vegan. If castes take this outlook of inclusion rather than exclusion, they will not lookout for just their community but humanity in general while maintaining different ways of living. The process to join a new caste should be easy, and it should be facilitated through education that takes no more than a couple of months. Even inter caste marriages could result in one of the spouse converting to the caste of the other spouse.
In contemporary world, caste is for most part not based on vocation. It still remains a concept that organizes people socially and politically. In a democratic setup the size of the political group affects its influence. Unfortunately politicians continue to use strategies that assume caste as a primary organizing principle of the society. Caste organizations and leaders seem to play along for self interest. Using the jujitsu principle, it would be an advantage to a caste to increase its size to increase its influence on the politics. Caste leaders that can persuade people belonging to their caste to allow caste conversions can use this strategy. The strategy of bringing people into their caste increases the strength of their caste and with it brings political gains in the short term. It however helps loosen the by birth affiliation of caste in the long term. If a single caste becomes strong and is able to bring every one into its flock, they become politically strong but caste will cease to be an issue. Initially not all castes may embrace this strategy. However the ones that do will get political advantage. Over a period of time the ones that allow caste conversion will become powerful forcing all castes to follow suit or perish. Supreme court law precedent, and history may get in the way (even though we are beginning to see loosening of how caste lineage is established). Legal precedent can be overturned if a group gets strong enough informally if not formally, when it can force changes in law or perhaps have supreme court over turn precedent. After all Valmiki became a maharishi.
Some people genuinely like a way of life that is given to them by their caste. This could be eating habits etc. For those, encouraging people to embrace their way of life can be an advantage. As long as they allow admission to their way of life that does not involve being born into that way of life, relaxed admission into a caste should help people preserve certain aspects of a lifestyle that they believe is conscientiously the right way to live. I for one am a practicing vegan of twenty years standing. In some ways vegan way of living may seem similar to the lifestyles practiced by some castes conscientiously. I would love for more people to become vegan as I believe it is an ethical way of living. I would not like to exclude anyone from becoming a vegan. If castes take this outlook of inclusion rather than exclusion, they will not lookout for just their community but humanity in general while maintaining different ways of living. The process to join a new caste should be easy, and it should be facilitated through education that takes no more than a couple of months. Even inter caste marriages could result in one of the spouse converting to the caste of the other spouse.
2. Extend reservations to caste converts:
Provide reservations to kids belonging to people that change their castes. This will encourage caste conversion. This reservation should be extended irrespective of whether the person changes to a historically deprived caste or some other caste.
3. Subvert caste symbols and surnames
All adherents of the caste system sport caste symbols and surnames to perpetuate the institution of caste. This should be negated. It can be easily negated by people randomly picking caste symbols and surnames without conforming to caste rules. The more people do this the less the symbols and surnames signify what the people perpetuating the caste system want to signify. Over a period of time these symbols and surnames stop being significant.
4. Extend extra reservations to two members of families that have a family member who marries outside their caste
This is another of the jujitsu strategies that undermines the caste system by leveraging the institution of reservations and caste system. This could potentially get political purchase from the historically deprived castes and the rest. This needs to be extended even if the two castes involved are the advantaged castes, or disadvantaged castes. This gives incentive for family members to encourage people in their family to marry outside their caste as opposed the current arrangement.
5. Document inter caste marriage life.
Using all communication media, document how inter caste marriages work. This needs to be honest and truthful, depicting warts and all. A team needs to be assembled and funded to collaborate with couples who married outside their caste. It needs to start from how they met to how their social life is, and how their kids life is. This will help those that do want to marry outside their caste but do not know how to do it. Building infrastructure to facilitate inter caste marriages would help as well. Infrastructure could include things such as co-mingling cultural activities for teenagers, to supporting them when they ask for support in any form.
6. Extend reservations to children of egalitarian families that help children from historically deprived castes
If a family adopts or mentors a child from a historically deprived caste as one of their own kid, then reservation should be provided for a kid from such family. To receive this benefit, the sponsoring family has to raise the child of a kid from a historically deprived caste as their own. They have to pay the same fee as they pay for their own kids education. They have to send a kid from a historically deprived caste to same tutoring as they send their own kid. This can be similar to the god parent concept. Make a legally binding inheritance rights where the families that sponsor/pay also bequeath a percentage of their wealth.
7. Remove all reservations when inter caste marriages or caste conversions are the norm:
The goal is to get to a society where caste does not play an unfair role. Once such a state is reached, there should not be a need for any reservations. How does one know when one has reached such a state? One criteria is when the number of non-caste or inter caste marriages reach a point where the insidious aspects of caste are not prevalent. Another criteria could be when caste conversions reach a critical mass. To pick a number, if 40% of the marriages in the society are inter caste marriages, the nature of the society will be dramatically different. This can be done in an incremental way. When the percent of inter caste marriages is 5% remove 12% of reservations. When the percent of inter caste marriages is 10% remove 25% of reservations and so on. Similar metrics can be imagined around caste conversions.
8. Avoid using stigmatizing terms
One of the ways in which the effect of caste can be understood is in the way the words associated with caste are used in society. Using the term backward caste is ambiguous about whose burden it is that a person belonging to a caste is backward and in which way are they backward. Given the history of caste, it is more appropriate to say that members of certain castes were historically deprived or excluded. Likewise using the term "Dalit" or "oppressed" caste puts the burden of oppression on current generation of people that are not themselves identified as "Dalit". It is important to acknowledge the historical deprivation and exclusion. It is also important to move past the legacy of caste once certain benchmarks are met. For those that don't belong to a "historically deprived caste", they should be given a dignity without encumbering them with the guilt of their ancestors. Terms such as "historically deprived castes" as a way to identify those that have been harmed by the caste system are more helpful. They capture the history without burdening the future.
