The government has announced a caste-based census.
The motive behind this is clear from the fact that the government or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters are praising it by saying that the BJP has snatched away the biggest issue from the opposition. On the other hand, the opposition has called it its victory. They said that the BJP, which used to call the demand for a caste-based census a conspiracy to divide the Hindu society, has now itself been forced to announce a caste census. Many people have noted that this announcement was made amidst the incitement of communal terrorist violence in Pahalgam.
After this violence, anti-Muslim hatred flared up all over India and instead of the government, questions started being asked of Hindu Kashmiris and Muslims. Muslims were attacked. But gradually people also started asking why the BJP government could not protect tourists despite keeping Kashmir under its complete control for 5 years? This question is being asked by the families of the killed people and despite all the efforts of the corporate media, the common Hindu has also started asking this question. It was to pacify this question that the government announced a caste-based census. In this way, it gave newspapers and TV channels a topic to divert the country’s attention from this question. In both cases, this is being seen as a well-known trick of the BJP government.
People are saying that the government has taken this step to silence the opposition and avoid criticism for its failure to keep the citizens safe in Kashmir. Now the opposition is left with no issue, BJP supporters are celebrating. This announcement has shocked all those BJP people who had released and circulated this poster immediately after the Pahalgam attack: “Asked religion, not caste.” This one poster exposed the brutal insensitivity of the BJP. Even in the midst of this violence, it has not forgotten its casteist politics. Taking advantage of this violence, she was telling Hindus that their most important truth is their religion, not their caste, because their enemies attack them by asking about their religion, not their caste. But now the same government is going to ask Indians about their caste. The Prime Minister, who just a year ago called those demanding a caste-based census “urban Naxalites”, is now talking about a caste census. Those who were calling those demanding a caste census Ravan are now finding arguments in favour of it. What will happen to slogans like “If you divide, you will kill” and “If you are united, you are safe”? Through these slogans, the BJP has been trying to say that the first truth of Hindu society is not caste and we should not emphasize caste identity.
Recently, the Censor Board ordered the removal of caste-indicating words and scenes in the film “Phule”. Apart from this, for the last 10 years, caste-related contexts are being removed from school textbooks. Caste-related contexts are being removed from Delhi University curricula. It is interesting that on the same day that the caste-based census was announced, the Telegraph newspaper published the news that NCERT in its book has said about caste that it was not a fixed social unit and people were allowed to move from one profession to another. It was not an oppressive system and provided stability to the society. It was the British who defamed it. The hypocrisy of the BJP or its parent organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) regarding caste is clear to everyone. They know that Hindus will never forget their caste and they take all the important decisions of life in the context of caste. RSS cannot run an anti-caste campaign. It has neither the courage like Ambedkar nor Gandhi to inspire their society to change. Remember that Gandhi was attacked for his campaign against communalism. We also know that the BJP, which talks about Hindu unity, takes all its political decisions within caste equations.
In 2013-14, Narendra Modi was presented as a Hindu hero as well as a leader of a backward caste. Modi has repeatedly tried to portray himself as the oppressed and garner sympathy by citing his caste background. By forming an alliance of castes other than the dominant castes among the backward and Dalit castes, the BJP has responded to caste-based politics of social justice with Hindutva caste politics. That is, the BJP knows the truth of caste and has also been taking advantage of it. But the Hindutva ideology cannot accept it at the ideological level. It calls the concept of caste a colonial conspiracy. The BJP wants to exploit caste but cannot accept it in principle because doing so would break its illusion of Hinduism. The RSS claims that all Hindus are under its umbrella, there is no caste. But after reading Bhavar Meghvanshi’s book, this lie of the RSS will also be understood. Many people who are not from the BJP ask with good intentions whether our identity will ultimately be rooted in caste? They say that with a caste-based census, our identity will ultimately be rooted in the sphere of caste. But we know that a caste-based census has nothing to do with this question. Our decisions in every social and political sphere of life are linked to caste, whether we like it or not. Therefore, a caste-based census cannot be blamed. There is no need for a caste-based census to divide Hindus. They are already divided. There is no meaningful difference between them.There is no difference.
Therefore, the only way to make this divided society Hindu is to expose a common enemy, the Muslim, against whom they all become Hindus together. Yet, quite independently of the caste-based census, the question is whether Babasaheb’s dream of caste annihilation has finally been postponed forever? This question has nothing to do with the caste-based census, but its importance for democracy cannot be denied. It is necessary to end the caste system that has prevented a majority of society from becoming individuals. That majority belongs to the Dalits and the most backward communities. The caste-based census was no obstacle in their way of becoming individuals. Yet, one of the great ambitions of Indian democracy is that caste should never be allowed to disappear, because it is the easiest unit of political bargaining and transaction. The unit around which the vote can be easily gathered. Then the referendum is nothing but another name for caste-based manipulation. But if we now postpone the aspiration of becoming a human being forever, then it is not auspicious for both society and democracy.
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