The desire is growing among Indians to shed a caste and religion-based identity
Kajal Manjula, a woman from Surat, wants the Gujarat High Court to declare her as a person with no caste and religion. She wants such a certificate in the “larger interest of justice” because she feels the two factors have only given her sufferance and have discriminated against her. So long as these are around, the country “cannot develop properly”. It is not the first such petition. In 2019, Sneha Partiba Raja, a lawyer from Tamil Nadu, became the first Indian to get a certificate declaring she has no caste or religion. She went for the certificate because she felt the need for a self-identity that was sans caste or religion. In 2020, a Telangana couple moved the High Court saying applications for birth certificates should have a column for those who believe in neither caste nor religion. There are many similar instances. They want equality of citizens without differentiation along caste and religious lines. What can the judiciary or the legislature do about it? Is caste so entrenched and enmeshed in the Indian social structure that it is a necessary evil? Caste determines the social placement of people according to their caste at birth and is responsible for all social disabilities and inequalities. Caste is also a constitutional paradox. Soon after Independence, negative discrimination on the basis of caste was banned by law and so enshrined in the Indian Constitution. The same Constitution, however, guarantees socio-economic reservation to the underprivileged on the basis of caste.
There is no law that legitimises caste hierarchy which, however, is the basis for legal interpretation of social, political, economic and cultural relationships. As recently as in 2018, the Supreme Court admitted to the pervasive presence of caste when it said that a person’s caste is determined by birth and is unalterable. In this backdrop, how serious are the utterances of politicians and the civil society that the malady of caste should be erased? It cannot be done by enacting a law. Since the Constitution recognises no caste, there is no need for a no-caste certificate either. Should anyone issue it, on what basis will it be deemed legal? Yet, we have all these petitions intent on fighting social prejudices. The minimum that some people want done right away is to introduce NOTA (none of the above) in all applications where information is sought on people’s caste and religion. The Madras High Court has anyway ruled in 2016 that “if any person does not want the caste to be disclosed, we feel there is no need to mandatorily do so”. A lingering thought, however, remains. What about the person who benefits from caste-based reservation and welfare schemes but wishes to relinquish caste? Would not that person be forced to choose between social emancipation and hunger? Does it then mean that getting rid of caste prejudice is only for those who can afford it? Manjula’s petition should kick-start a national debate.