How many more years can our “identity” politics continue like this? No one knows the answer. More than a century ago, a process of permanently and socially dividing the Indian people was initiated by Europeans and Marxists. Even though five or six new generations have risen since then, we are still revolving in the whirlpool of the arguments and controversies of the 19th and 20th centuries.
A new development is that digital and artificial intelligence technologies are now being used to divide people psychologically and culturally. We do not yet have an idea of what kinds of upheavals and turmoil biased artificial intelligence bots could create in the economic, social, and political spheres.
People are fighting with one another for their immediate gains. Foresight has disappeared. We are living in an era in which one country wants the people of another country to fight among themselves and destroy one another.
The United States, Pakistan, and China are working to create internal divisions within India and to deepen existing ones. Earlier, this work was carried out by British MI6, the Soviet KGB, and the American CIA agencies. Later, Pakistan’s ISI and China’s MSS entered the field. Now, it is said that agencies from various countries (Germany, Norway, Turkey, etc.) have entered the arena.
Attempts to create internal divisions within India began as early as the 19th century. European “Indologists” propagated the fictional story of Aryan-Dravidian divisions. Marxists later used it for their own benefit. Missionaries also used it. During British rule, the divisive social theory of “Dravidianism,” created by a missionary named Bishop Robert Caldwell, changed the very nature of Indian politics. After independence, politics based on castes and sub-castes was deeply entrenched. Later, woke ideologies developed “race theory” in newer forms. The politics of various labels was brought into education as racialism. The academic sphere became polluted.
Meanwhile, political organization took place among politically powerful groups under the name of “Other Backward Classes.” In some places, the “backward” began agitating to have themselves considered “most backward.” Developments began in which the “most backward” demanded to be included among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
There were even instances in which communities that had been identified as “not backward” in the reports of the “Backward Classes Commission” rose in protest. As time progressed in the world, the number of “backward” people in India increased!
At the beginning of the 20th century, only a few castes were said to be backward in the country. Thanks to the Mandal Commission, in the 1980s more than 3,000 castes gained the “fortune” of being classified as backward. Now the number of backward castes is more than 5,000. This competitive trend continues. It would not be surprising if, within a few years, most of the castes in the country were declared “backward.” In some places, even several Brahmin sub-sects have been included in the “backward” list.
The argument that “seats and positions in the cabinet should be distributed according to the population proportions of different communities” is being developed and firmly established in everyone’s minds. All political parties have been pursuing quota politics based on caste and sub-castes. The country has changed to such an extent that without it, they seem to believe that votes cannot be obtained in elections.
A few years ago, the Communist Party of India (CPI) of Tamil Nadu even made a statement against the Supreme Court, saying that “Parliament must demonstrate to the Court what its sovereignty and primacy mean by implementing the 27 percent OBC quota immediately.” Even for communists in India, caste is their lifeline!
The issue of caste has now become extremely sensitive. No one wants to discuss it in a serious atmosphere without conflict.
Courts have often asked people who cause riots and the politicians who support them, “Why such haste on this issue?” Even so, on many occasions courts have also delivered judgments in ways that permanently entrench caste-based perceptions.
There is also a view that some Supreme Court judgments have created new interpretations and perceptions, thereby increasing caste conflicts. In Arun Shourie’s book Falling Over Backwards, one can find analyses of many such judgments. He has called this mentality of the courts “judicial populism.”
Regardless of the community, there are few examples of benefits reaching the poor within it. Within every category there is a “creamy layer,” an upper stratum. Those people themselves reap the benefits. The affluent, their children, their grandchildren; influential people, their children, their grandchildren, and so on. The current policy is that all OBC families with an annual income of up to eight lakh rupees should receive reservation benefits and should not be considered part of the “creamy layer.” There is an ongoing argument that this income limit should be increased further. Discussions are taking place about raising it to 12–24 lakh rupees. If people earning lakhs of rupees a month and paying substantial income tax are considered “backward,” then the children of those people, who have access to facilities such as tuition, will have to compete with children from the same community whose parents earn ₹10,000 a month. The higher the qualifying income limit for the creamy layer is raised, the less likely it is that the truly poor will receive the benefits. The “cream-layer advocates” do not accept the argument that “benefits should be provided on the basis of economic status.”
India has reached this point. International forces eager to increase internal conflict within India are watching the spectacle.
It is noteworthy that the “Dravidian movement” and “Dravidian parties” emerged in Tamil Nadu based on the racist falsehood written by Bishop Robert Caldwell. This even went as far as the separatist demand by E. V. Ramasamy Naicker that “a separate nation should be given to the Dravidians.” Caste riots took place. In subsequent decades, the “Afro-Dalit” argument was created, claiming that, like the Black people of Africa, India’s “Dalits” are the Black people of India, while the “Aryans” are white people! Agitation was also created demanding a separate country called “Dalitstan.” These plans were all designed and managed by foreign powers.
Amid all this, another strange concept that has inflamed and increased divisions in India is that of “religious minority.” Although this too is a product of Western thought, it is not followed in the same way in the West as it is in India.
In India, “minority rights” means extremely special rights available only to “religious minorities” and unavailable to the community described as the “majority”.
Here, a strange policy is in force that only religious minorities should have “special rights,” while other citizens should not have those rights. If someone converts, individually or collectively, from a “majority” Dharma to a “minority” community, it is praised as “religious freedom.” But if minorities convert to the majority Dharma, a political struggle begins!
Some Western countries that have introduced the concept of “minority rights” into India’s mental landscape interpret it very differently within their own countries. There, only the concept of an “ethnic minority” is recognized. That means a group of people that is not indigenous to the country. The position is merely that the government should allow members of such communities to preserve their indigenous communal identity. The expectation there is simply that they should not be discriminated against.
Remember, the basic meaning of the concept of “ethnic minority rights” is only that they should not be subjected to discrimination. It does not mean that ethnic minorities should be given special rights and special privileges that even indigenous citizens do not have.
In India, the category of ethnic minorities is very small: Parsis, immigrant Jews, the Anglo-Indian community, the Tibetan community, and so on. Otherwise, most of India’s religious communities are themselves people of this land. They are indigenous to this place. Therefore, none of them are ethnic minorities.
Even so, in our country, religious identities such as Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist have also been given the status of “minority.”
In democratic countries, all religions have equal opportunity to exist. People have the freedom to follow whatever religion they wish in their private lives, or to follow none and simply live by obeying the laws of the country. They also have the freedom to voluntarily convert from one religion to another. That is the concept of “religious freedom.” Religion is a personal belief. It can change from time to time. Someone who is Muslim today can become Christian tomorrow. The same person could become Hindu the day after tomorrow; when will the understanding arise in our country that religion is not a permanent criterion and is not an unchanging identity?
If a person converts to a different religion every year, can the government keep changing its recognition continuously, declaring that the person is a majority member today, a minority member tomorrow, and a majority member again the day after tomorrow?
We cannot forget that the mentality of turning every caste and religion into a vote bank has become deeply rooted among us.
Historically, the “vote-bank concept” first took root by creating a “Muslim vote bank.” Alongside it, efforts were also made to create a “Dalit vote bank.” In response, a demand arose that a “unified Hindu vote bank” should also be established. Strategies also developed around the idea that “there should be separate vote banks for individual castes, but there should not be an entire Hindu vote bank.”
Instead of viewing people as “citizens of the country,” looking at them through various forms of “vote-bank” thinking has gone too far. Indian life has been moving amid many kinds of divisions and adversities.