Caste Is Everywhere
By Akhileshwari Ramagoud
11 February, 2016
Countercurrents.org
(Disclaimer: I was born in a ‘backward’ caste)
Hyderabad: There is this moment in most of our lives when we are literally ‘put in our place’, that is the place the caste into which we are born occupies hierarchically, low, untouchable. This is our first experience of caste, and the memory is etched forever in the deep recesses of our soul, and for the rest of our lives, we are not allowed to forget either or caste or how we were made aware of it. In this modern age, those who deny existence of caste or its role in making us who we become, are those who haven’t experienced ‘caste’, that is those who are upper castes for whom caste is not an issue as it is neither a disadvantage for them or anything to be ashamed of or a source of discrimination.
Being economically advantaged from birth, caste had no meaning for our family. The caste name in my father’s name was a source of pride for us. All my brothers used the caste name as their surname, like my father, without being aware that it was a giveaway of the low status of the community. The inherent advantages of wealth protected us till I was into my 20s. As I attended a co-educational college, my male friends would come over to my house and this fact was perfectly acceptable to my family. But it was not to our landlord in whose house we were tenants. Moreover, I was not deferential enough to the lady of the house and would not take her bossing us, mere tenants, lying down. Once she passed a snide comment on my socializing with young boys and I gave it back to her. She was mad that here I was, an over-smart youngster, daring to ask her, a woman old enough to be my mother, to mind her own business. “How dare you talk to me like that, you low caste woman! What is the worth of your jati (caste), and what is your worth?” she thundered in Telugu. That left me stunned. A low-caste woman and me? This woman whose husband was a ‘mere’ school teacher (please remember that I hadn’t yet learned what was politically right) had the gumption to tell me that when we were the richest in my home town? When I attended the top school and top college in Hyderabad? Whose family travelled in an imported car, the prestigious Buick, which was one of the five or six in Hyderabad? Whose grandfather had been given the title of ‘Raja’ by the Nizam of Hyderabad for the philanthropic work he had done in his lifetime? But there I was, a low caste in the eyes of our Brahmin landlady, who thought that the only way she could put me in my place was to throw caste in my face. It worked. It works every time; it works for every ‘low’ caste person; the lower in the hierarchy, the worst it is. Fortunately, I had the strength and inherent confidence that the privileges of education and wealth give, to recover from the insult. But the humiliation was etched very deep into my soul.
Inevitably, my friends both in school and college were ‘upper castes’ though ‘caste’ was not an issue in our state then and as youngsters it was immaterial to us. In college, a friend invited our ‘group’, two girls and four boys, for lunch in his house. It goes without saying that ALL were Brahmins with the exception of me. The host-friend shared the fact that his grandmother would be around and she of course was very conservative and hence we girls should behave. No issues for me, I said in total ignorance. But he had forewarned the other girl in the group, soul-mate. This friend gave me a briefing how I should sit and in what order I should eat the half-dozen items that formed the typical Brahmin lunch. Or I would be giving away the fact that I was a non-Brahmin and get my friend into trouble. Therefore, I was to follow her as she ate. As we sat down on the floor as tradition demanded, the leaf plate was placed in front of us, and food began to be served. Suddenly my friend hissed at me: your saree is touching the leaf plate, she whispered urgently. Push it under your folded feet, she commanded glancing worriedly towards the kitchen door to see if Grandma had noticed it. Brahmins make sure that their food is not ‘contaminated’ by the cloth touching the leaf-plate. Okay, now eat different items in the order I am, she said. The order was yet another confirmation of a person being a Brahmin. I had no wish to expose my non-Brahmin-ness and cause grief to everybody in the house including my friend and his parents who were broadminded enough not to mind allowing a ‘low’ caste to eat in their house.
Then there was the other occasion when I was in the house of this dearest friend of mine. Her home was a second home to me and her parents accepted me as their third daughter and they were ‘Amma’ and ‘Naanna’ to me (Mother and Father in Telugu) and their sons were ‘Annayya’ or elder brother. One day, my friend and I went to her home after college. Amma was in the kitchen and I went in there after washing feet and asked what she had made for us to eat as both of us were ravenous. This was the pattern my friend and I followed whenever we reached her home in the evening after college. Only then I noticed that Amma had visitors. Of course, I had to help her to serve them snacks, water and tea. After they left, Amma laughingly said that the visitors were horrified when I entered the kitchen but were reassured when Amma told them I was a fellow-Brahmin. Laughingly she said, Akhila’s looks and name both are Brahminical! The visitors had no reason to suspect anything!
A common argument that is heard while discussing caste is that the ‘low’ caste people experience it only in rural areas. Another farcical argument is that educated people don’t discriminate on caste basis. Casteism has been for so long in practice and so deeply ingrained it is in our societal mindset that even exposure to the larger world through education, living or travel abroad or in cities has not made any difference. Caste is not about caste per se; it is about power, about privilege, about status hence, those who have been enjoying the power of caste find it so difficult to shake it off or give it up voluntarily. Hence, even as we entered the 21st century while we publicly denounce caste and casteism but privately practice it. We now know to what extent casteism is practiced in universities, prestigious institutes, in the bureauracy, in fact, everywhere. A few examples will suffice to drive home the point.
A few years ago, a new superintendent was appointed to a prestigious government hospital in Warangal city in Telangana. The doctor assumed charge but not before he had the chamber of the Superintendent ‘purified’ by a special puja, changed all drapery and replaced the upholstery. Because the previous occupant was a Dalit and he was a twice-born!
In another instance, several participants of a conference of SC and ST bank employees shared their experiences of being ‘untouchable’ in the public sector banks. Almost as a rule, Dalits were never posted as cashiers, the fear of the bosses being that if the cash was handled by a Dalit, Goddess Lakshmi would take offence at the ‘desecration’ and would forsake them and they would end up on the road! Another participant spoke of an unwritten rule of ‘allotted’ water coolers and the Dalits dare not take water from the ‘other’ cooler.
Not too long ago, an organization was concluding its day-long public hearing in Hyderabad over violence that was being experienced by Dalits. Even as it was closing, a gentleman rushed in and appealed to let him tell his tale of woe. He said he had seen news of the public hearing in the day’s newspaper in ‘daily engagements’ column in mid-morning and by the time he rode to Hyderabad from a district headquarter it was almost closing time for the hearing. The organizers had no problem in extending the hearing. He was a Mandal Revenue Officer which meant that he was literally the uncrowned king of a group of villages. Any revenue officer anywhere in our bureaucracy is an all-powerful official and in a Mandal, even more so. One day a couple of men walked into his office and sought clarification over a piece of land. He asked them to come back in a few days while he got the information ready. One of the men was so enraged that he slapped the MRO and said that he being a Dalit was daring to ask a Reddy to come back instead of attending to the task immediately. A government official was slapped while on duty yet the many doors he knocked for justice did not open. Even the most powerful person in the local administration, is rendered impotent in the face of the power of caste.
A young girl who joined college, made the ‘mistake’ of admitting her caste, that she was a Dalit. While very few girls were willing to be her friends, some of her classmates did befriend her but their interaction was limited. Once, one of her friends bought ‘phalli’ from a vendor outside her college and all the girls in the group took a few nuts from her hand. When it came to the Dalit girl, the girl who had the packet in her hand, shook some of them into her own hand and gave it to the Dalit girl, dropping them in her hand, taking care not to touch her.
Caste is the blight that this country suffers from, and we should have the courage to admit it. Only then reform will be possible. Only fools live in denial.
What’s in a name?
Plenty. Like the difference between Pochamma and Padma, between Mallamma and Manjula, between Balamma and Bhagya. Names are a dead giveaway. Names like Pochamma or Pochaiah (for the man), Mallamma, Yellaiah, Kashaiah, Sayamma, all indicate low caste among the Telugu people. In fact, each region has names that are typical of the region that indicate the low/high caste of the name-bearer. However, nowadays thanks to the popularity of Telugu films and TV serials, the old-fashioned and casteist names have given way to modern, urbanized and Sanskritised names even in villages and across the castes. Way back in the 1970s, when a friend conducted a survey for India’s first satellite TV experiment, he found a common complaint among the Dalit and other backward caste boys: when they enrolled in the local government school, the school teacher refused to register their real names like Krishna, Venkat, Ramulu and the like. Instead he gave them new names like Mysaiah, Sattaiah, Pentaiah and so on considering the caste they belonged to.
A recent survey of semi-Nomadic groups revealed a different situation: young boys who were given traditional names, had their names changed to modern names by a teacher who was from among the oppressed castes. He did not want the younger ones to suffer lifelong like he did, from a name that revealed his caste as ‘low’. This was the ‘benefit’ of having one of their ‘own’ to guide the youngsters in the labyrinthine and shadowy lanes of casteism.
The urban slums too suffer from the ‘name problem’. Invariably, the bulk of the army of domestic maids that serve the better off households, belong to the ‘low’ castes. Nowadays we don’t see anyone with names that indicate their caste. While some women take a different name for work to hide their caste, there are instances of Muslim women adopting Hindu names to be acceptable for employment in Hindu households.
Another way of demeaning an entire community of people is to use the caste name as a term of abuse. Among the Telugu people, such abuses abound. The caste-as-abuse-word indicates the ‘lowliness’, low or no value and the unacceptability of the characteristics attributed to the community, whether it is their lifestyle such as the nomadic communities or the means of livelihood they have been traditionally forced to adopt such as scavenging. Among the caste names used derisively are Madiga and Mala (untouchable), Gangireddu, Fakir (nomadic), Picchakuntla (semi-nomadic). There is suffering, discrimination, injustice, ridicule and every undesirable quality in a name, in a caste name.
Akhileshwari Ramagoud is a senior Journalist and Academic [email protected]