Taking Caste Seriously: Why the Goan Fitna needs a rigorous caste-based analysis

Subsequent to the conclusion of the public meeting held on the 13th of March at the Clube National against the Ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Act, a little group gathered to catch up with each other and throw around a few ideas. In the midst of this camaraderie, one of the colleagues, no doubt charged with emotion after the meeting, proposed a route to mobilizing against the Ordinance. “Why don’t we mobilize on the basis of caste” she said. “The situation on hand is clearly about caste” she continued. “The Ordinance benefits hotels (Marriot and Cidade) owned by the Saraswats, while on the other hand the fisherfolk loosing their homes to the CRZ, the village groups to mining are all clearly from ‘lower’ caste backgrounds.” If there was any levity in the group it all melted away with that statement. They looked at her in shocked silence for a while, and then threw up their hands! “Oh no! We don’t believe in caste! We can’t do that!”

Now I don’t as yet want to explore the possibilities as to whether there is in fact a Saraswat versus the rest divide in our society that is at the root of the troubles that Goa is facing. What I would like to take up however is the response of the group to this suggestion. “We don’t believe in caste” and therefore we cannot mobilize on the basis of caste. One very often runs into this sort of response, especially when it is so clearly evident that the battles that are being fought are in fact being fought by ‘lower caste’ groups struggling for recognition, livelihood or access to justice. The very simple question that I would like to ask these touch-me-nots therefore is the following. Does the acknowledgement of racial discrimination make us racist?

It shouldn’t be difficult for Indians to answer this question. Most Indians who have gone abroad, and more recently almost any Indian, after such fiascos as Harbhajan’s “Teri maa ki/ you monkey’ escapade, will vociferously claim that they are racially discriminated against by white people. If they then recognize that they are being racially discriminated against, does this now mean that all of us Indians are racist? Clearly not! If therefore we can admit the fact that the mere recognition of discrimination on the basis of race does not make us racist; then similarly the recognition of discrimination on the basis of caste does not make us casteist. To what then can we attribute our hesitation to discuss caste based discrimination?


In 1932 in the course of the Second Round Table, Dr. Ambedkar raised the issue of separate electorates for the Untouchables. The concept of separate electorates had already been extended to other minority groups, including the Sikhs and the Muslims. Gandhi however would have none of this. Arguing that this would result in the disintegration of the Hindu community, he took to his favourite method of protest, the fast. As his health worsened, Ambedkar was forced to give up his demand for separate electorates and settled for reservations, while the Untouchables were included, against their will, into a combined Hindu electorate.

I raise this fact of history to argue that the suppression of caste questions has been a fundamental feature of Indian political mobilization, especially that of the national struggle. The issue of caste-based discrimination was just not seen to be as important as that of the larger objectives of independence. Since the questions of upper-caste dominance were not effectively addressed prior to Independence, the departure of the British resulted in the upper-caste dominance of the country that we are witness to today.

It is my belief, that no issue of justice in this country can be effectively addressed, unless we also seriously address the issue of caste-based discrimination. Our failure to do so is ultimately based on our own membership within dominant caste groups that benefit from the status-quo that result from not addressing caste-based inequalities. Our discomfort with discussing the inequalities born of caste is not because we don’t believe in caste. On the contrary, it is because we know that once we open that Pandora’s box, the benefits that have accrued to us, and not to others will become so blatantly obvious.

We may not believe in caste, and yet we practice it on a daily basis, through the minor inflections of our speech, by how seriously we take people, by what we consider beautiful and what ugly. We practice caste-based discrimination when we recognize that some people have fallen on bad times, and other people are just poor, when we recognize some people as coming from ‘old families’ and others as having ‘no culture’.

Taking caste seriously would allow us to rupture the communal divides of Catholic, Muslim and Hindu along which we tend to break society down into. Inquire into caste, and you will see how groups mobilize not necessarily across religious lines, but definitely along caste lines. When they do mobilize along religious lines, it would be interesting to see whose interests are being served by this mobilization. Is it merely that of the upper-caste groups within the religious fold, or is it the interests of all of the caste-groups? Surprisingly, it is an emphasis on caste in such states as Bihar that has curbed the growth of both Hindutva, as well as Muslim fundamentalism. It is in light of these arguments that I am personally convinced that an emphasis on caste would in fact help the ongoing Goan upheaval (fitna) take up the essential justice questions that must be addressed if the so-called ‘Goan negativity’ has to end.

Having said so, there is a need for us to subsequently articulate the learning from caste-based analysis sensitively. Our caste locations provide us with a predilection for certain positions. These positions may not be shared by all persons, based on their own caste locations. It is true that not everyone within a dominant caste will give up their unequal privileges without a fight. However there will be those from such a caste, who will see the point, and lend support to the fight for equality. To argue that one’s mere location in a caste makes one anti-egalitarian is to fall right back into the casteist trap. Thus what one will eventually fight are the monsters of Brahmanism, rather than Brahmins themselves. Having said this however, alliances need to necessarily be forged among the Dalit groups in the Goa. There is really no alternative before us. Such an alliance will help us curb the evils that Brahmanism has bred in our State and country; that of Hindutva, the accompanying ills of minority (Muslim, Sikh, Christian) fundamentalisms in the country, as well as the orgy of consumerism that is pushing many in this country and also in Goa, into the arms of a slow, shameful and miserable death.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 17 March 2009)