A questionnaire asking me for my pecking order within the social hierarchy would depart me dumbfounded
Along with Bunny I discover myself caught within the crossfire of a caste struggle. Following the instance of Bihar, which in 2023 carried out a survey that recognized respondents’ caste and which revealed 63% of the state’s inhabitants have been OBCs and EBCs (Extremely Backward Castes), calls for for the same train have been raised in different components of the nation.
Advocates of a caste-based census largely belong to opposition events who argue that to interrupt the age-old stranglehold of social and financial discrimination that the decrease castes have suffered, it’s vital to acquire a numeric valuation of the varied castes.
While addressing the compelling want for social justice, this argument additionally seeks to undermine the Hindutva agenda of making a monolithic ‘Hindu vote’ as an electoral ploy. A caste census would reveal the deep divisions inside the nation’s social construction, belying the parable of a unified Hindu vote financial institution.
Opponents of the caste census declare this might exacerbate such schisms by highlighting them and result in additional inter-caste friction.
Bunny and I are all for social fairness. But a caste-based census poses a predicament for us. For if such an train have been to happen, for the lifetime of us we wouldn’t know fill within the clean area for ‘Caste’.
Neither of us has a clue as to what caste we belong to, if any. The matter by no means got here up in both of our households.
Maybe we may put ‘Atheist’ for caste, I recommend. How do we all know that atheists haven’t additionally shaped a caste, to get their share of quotas and reservations, or no matter? asks Bunny.
She may effectively be proper. At the final estimate there have been over 4,000 listed castes and subcastes, and nonetheless counting.
For all we all know, which admittedly isn’t a lot, atheists would possibly effectively have shaped a neo-caste, together with Freemasons, Marxists, Rotarians, and others.
How about we are saying we’re Outcasts? I ask. We’ll go one higher and say we’re Outcastes, says Bunny, clinching the deal.
Disclaimer
This article is meant to carry a smile to your face. Any connection to occasions and characters in actual life is coincidental.
END OF ARTICLE
Leave a Reply