Caste discrimination and other bogus concepts

Now that election season is upon us, we’re going to be subjected to the usual rhetoric on caste discrimination – we’ve already heard the great Varun Gandhi’s vitriol on the other religious kind of rhetoric (it’s a moot point whether the BJP which is desperately looking for allies would pushed into supporting Varun only because the Election Commission’s actions made him a national hero). So, while getting in her Brahmins, Mayawati will go on about how she will get the Dalits a better deal; Lalu Prasad will do the same for the OBCs; and so on.

But how real is the discrimination and, to that extent, how much has electoral representation helped alleviate this? That is, are the OBCs in Bihar any better for having had Lalu and family in charge of the state? There is the argument that Lalu being in power gave the OBCs a ‘voice’ – they can now go and report a crime against them in the police station, for instance – and ditto for the Dalits and Mayawati, but I’m not sure how far you can live on ‘voice’ if it doesn’t get followed up quickly enough with some income. If it did, Digvijay Singh would never have got voted out in Madhya Pradesh.

Unfortunately, the data on political representation is too scanty to arrive at a firm conclusion – we know, for instance, that Mayawati is a Dalit leader but if 50 per cent, say, of her MPs/MLAs are Brahmins, we can hardly put that down as Dalit representation, can we? Apart from the reserved SC/ST seats, there is no data on what proportion of MPs/MLAs are from different castes. That’s clearly the subject of a PhD thesis or two, given that it can’t be too difficult to figure out the castes of a few thousand MLAs/MPs based on their surnames. On the face of it, though, the evidence is likely to show that political representation doesn’t make more than an iota of a difference. The average income of OBC households across the country is around Rs 60,000 (I’ll come to how I know that in a minute) while that in Bihar is just two thirds of that at Rs 41,000. Assuming, and I’d appreciate it if political scientists gave me more information on this, that most of Lalu’s MLAs were OBCs, this is as clear a rejection of the political-representation-helps’ thesis.

Take the other argument made, while talking of the need for OBC reservations a few years ago – OBCs are 33 per cent of the population (in later NSS surveys, more castes were added to the OBC list and so the proportion of population shot up to over 40 per cent) but they’re just 24 per cent or so of what are called ‘professional’ jobs. Clear evidence of ‘discrimination’. Economist Surjit Bhalla looked at the data from the government’s own National Sample Survey (I wrote up the stories in this newspaper) and it turned out there was no discrimination. Here’s why: OBCs were 32 per cent of the population, but they were just 26 per cent of those who’d passed high school … the rest of the numbers pretty much flow from this one – the OBCs were 24 per cent of those who were enrolled in colleges and 24 per cent of those in professional jobs. So, if there’s a problem, it lies in the proportion of OBCs passing out of schools, it is not in reservation in colleges or in jobs.

My friend Rajesh Shukla who is the Chief Statistician of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (the only organisation in the country to do a large annual income survey) and I are, in fact, working on a data-based book on income/expenditure/savings patterns of various castes in the country – hopefully, we’ll be done in a couple of months. While it’s early days yet, what’s interesting is that for most areas – income/expenditure/etc – the caste factor is a lot less important than others.

A sneak-peak at one or two sub-heads in the book will give you some idea of what I’m saying. Take the income levels of those working in agriculture. SC/ST families here have income levels that are around half those of the upper-caste Hindus, but break this up into land-ownership, and you’ll find this is what accounts for much of the difference. If you’re still not convinced, look at the income levels of those employed in the modern services sector – the income levels of SC/STs is broadly similar to that of the upper castes! I could go on, but you get the picture – the SC/STs in modern services are as educated as the upper castes are, and this is what is primarily determining salary/income levels.

So, if you’re interested in reading about this kind of stuff, do write in, book your copy now, and that kind of stuff!