Dear fellow citizens of India,
India is a diverse country as we had learnt back in our school days. Have you ever thought about why we have a particular pattern in history of not emphasizing on minorities?
The answer may remain unsaid but we all know that the caste system has been plaguing the Indian society since ages; it all comes down to which caste we belong to. The recent incident of Dr. Payal’s death has led to people saying that it wasn’t about her caste and one must look at it as the death of a doctor. The reason behind her committing suicide is erased because caste discrimination is still existent but most of the population is of the mentality that ‘if we can’t see it; we don’t believe it’.
People opposing reservation on the basis of caste are the people who are not ready to accept that they can’t compete and make it to a certain level and another person who because of their caste may get into that level. But, why are people averse to see the struggle behind that person reaching up to that level where you have been standing without facing any discrimination? Every day there are incidents regarding discrimination on the basis of caste; some are killed, thrown out of villages, not given the same facilities, bullied and what not. People are pulled down on the basis of their caste but some remain averse simply because they are not in limelight by the mainstream media; thus believing that this doesn’t exist.
It’s the scriptures that people follow knowingly or unknowingly because such things are inherited since the person is born. These are the hegemonic gatekeepers of the society who every now and then try to incorporate this discrimination by not giving equal educational rights, not allowing them to draw water from the same well, not providing equal subsidies and rights like that of the mainstream society.
During a conversation with a long distance relative, they said, we should not go to that restaurant because the “labour class” people visit there. By saying labour class, they clearly meant the lower caste people and was avoiding as they were an upper caste middle-class person. When there is such discrimination in even access to places, do you really think that there won’t be discrimination when it comes to rights and utility?
Eradicating caste from Indian society is a huge task which would involve a lot of backlash, hatred from different religion and caste and especially from the people who identify themselves as “Right Wingers” and you never know in the process of doing this task you might be labelled as an ‘Anti-national’ because you are trying to break the age-old system that has been the basis of this country. The structure of the caste system has a strong hold over the country but, it’s not impossible to do this task but it’s a tough job and requires guts to sacrifice one’s privileges.
With freedom and rights come, its own pros and cons, saying that people misuse their rights to get access to something would be completely unjustified. Before pointing out someone of their privileges look within yourself and think of the privileges you have and will enjoy in the future.
Yours lovingly,
Another citizen of India