Caste Enclaves
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1600662.cms
Sociologist Andre Beteille recently wrote in these columns about caste reservations vitiating educational institutions. He blames Indian politicians for bringing caste consciousness into universities (as if it never existed there) and found that caste prejudices were actually declining in campuses in the early 20th century.
It is surprising that Beteille, who once wrote that inequality can be studied not only as a mode of existence but also as a mode of consciousness and that in traditional systems these inequalities are closely related to inequalities of caste, is now blaming government for having vitiated the social atmosphere of universities.
The reservation issue does not seem to be a political crisis anymore. It has become a deep academic crisis marked by the fast surfacing biases of the intellectual class.
The rot that has set in in Indian academia can be traced to the history of modern education in India. History of education in India is replete with incidents of imperialists using policies to enslave natives.
Though the Anglicists represented by Ram Mohun Roy brought some semblance of modernisation in education, it was totally confined to the bhadralok of Bengal.
The East India Company and later the British government believed in divide and rule. They instituted a system where a handful of dwijas (twice born) had an absolute control over the majority.
The education system that we inherited from the British never represented Indian society. The educational dispatches of the British officials amply prove this.
One of the dispatches said that education and civilisation may descend from the higher to inferior classes and so communicated may impart new vigour to the community, but it would never ascend from lower classes to those above them.
If education is imparted solely to lower classes, it would lead to general convulsion where foreigners would be the first victims. The mindset of some contemporary intellectuals and journalists reflects the trend initiated by European colonisers.
Jothirao Phule started the fight against caste exclusion in our education system. His book titled Slavery took the Marathi world by storm in 1873.
It was Phule who told the Hunter commission in 1882 that the British were collecting revenue from shudras (backwards) and ati-shudras (Dalits) to educate upper caste Brahmins. This, he claimed, was atrocious and the remedy he suggested was universalisation of primary education.
Later, his disciple B R Ambedkar demanded equality of opportunity from the Simon commission in 1928. It is from his memorandum one discovers that enrolment of lower castes in colleges was zero in 1882 and just one per cent in 1923-24.
These facts have never been discussed in our mainstream discourses, though economist K S Chalam brought out the nature of apar-theid in education in the 1980s and 1990s. University education in India has remained by and large an upper caste prerogative.
Caste prejudices continued to exist in our university campuses in the first half of the 20th century due to under-representation or no representation of lower castes. There are stories of how university professors used to search for the sacred thread of students to find out the identity of certain castes.
The present anti-quota agitations are a continuation of the legacy of imperialists and few self-centred individuals. It is strange that while social scientists in the West are working out strategies to implement diversity to provide opportunities to different communities on campuses, Indian scholars are busy espousing an imperialist discourse.
It is common knowledge that education and society are inseparable. Society as a whole is reflected in the education system. Education is a change agent. What kind of change and progress can we anticipate if the education system is burdened with stereotypes of the inherited merit of the few? There are only a few scholars who publicly talk about social inclusion.
How do we expect universities to flourish and compete so long as we keep them as islands of caste prejudices and vanities?
(The writer is an IAS officer. Views expressed are personal.)
Published in Times of India June 1, 2006
Caste Enclaves
Caste Enclaves
by
Raja Sekhar Vundru
Sociologist Andre Beteille recently wrote in these columns about caste reservations vitiating educational institutions. He blames Indian politicians for bringing caste consciousness into universities (as if it never existed there) and found that caste prejudices were actually declining in campuses in the early 20th century.
It is surprising that Beteille, who once wrote that inequality can be studied not only as a mode of existence but also as a mode of consciousness and that in traditional systems these inequalities are closely related to inequalities of caste, is now blaming government for having vitiated the social atmosphere of universities.
The reservation issue does not seem to be a political crisis anymore. It has become a deep academic crisis marked by the fast surfacing biases of the intellectual class.
The rot that has set in in Indian academia can be traced to the history of modern education in India. History of education in India is replete with incidents of imperialists using policies to enslave natives.
Though the Anglicists represented by Ram Mohun Roy brought some semblance of modernisation in education, it was totally confined to the bhadralok of Bengal.
The East India Company and later the British government believed in divide and rule. They instituted a system where a handful of dwijas (twice born) had an absolute control over the majority.
The education system that we inherited from the British never represented Indian society. The educational dispatches of the British officials amply prove this.
One of the dispatches said that education and civilisation may descend from the higher to inferior classes and so communicated may impart new vigour to the community, but it would never ascend from lower classes to those above them.
If education is imparted solely to lower classes, it would lead to general convulsion where foreigners would be the first victims. The mindset of some contemporary intellectuals and journalists reflects the trend initiated by European colonisers.
Jothirao Phule started the fight against caste exclusion in our education system. His book titled Slavery took the Marathi world by storm in 1873.
It was Phule who told the Hunter commission in 1882 that the British were collecting revenue from shudras (backwards) and ati-shudras (Dalits) to educate upper caste Brahmins. This, he claimed, was atrocious and the remedy he suggested was universalisation of primary education.
Later, his disciple B R Ambedkar demanded equality of opportunity from the Simon commission in 1928. It is from his memorandum one discovers that enrolment of lower castes in colleges was zero in 1882 and just one per cent in 1923-24.
These facts have never been discussed in our mainstream discourses, though economist K S Chalam brought out the nature of apar-theid in education in the 1980s and 1990s. University education in India has remained by and large an upper caste prerogative.
Caste prejudices continued to exist in our university campuses in the first half of the 20th century due to under-representation or no representation of lower castes. There are stories of how university professors used to search for the sacred thread of students to find out the identity of certain castes.
The present anti-quota agitations are a continuation of the legacy of imperialists and few self-centred individuals. It is strange that while social scientists in the West are working out strategies to implement diversity to provide opportunities to different communities on campuses, Indian scholars are busy espousing an imperialist discourse.
It is common knowledge that education and society are inseparable. Society as a whole is reflected in the education system. Education is a change agent. What kind of change and progress can we anticipate if the education system is burdened with stereotypes of the inherited merit of the few? There are only a few scholars who publicly talk about social inclusion.
How do we expect universities to flourish and compete so long as we keep them as islands of caste prejudices and vanities?
(The writer is an IAS officer. Views expressed are personal.)
posted by Dr.Raja Sekhar Vundru | 4:30 AM
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