There is a saying that especially gains momentum during election time in India: Indians don’t cast their votes but vote their caste!
Despite nearly seven decades as an independent nation, it’s an election candidate’s community that takes precedence over other qualities that should be logically deciding his eligibility to occupy public office.
While this has its inherent flaws, many argue that it’s an important facet of Indian politics that makes the country maintain its democratic credentials for which it is much appreciated around the world.
Politicians who have been elected on the basis of their castes have often dominated the national scene after rising through the ranks in state-level elections. People like the peasant leader Kanshiram, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Nitish Kumar, to name a few, have also made it big on the national stage. Even without the legitimacy of an elected office, many of them still hold considerable clout and play the role of ‘kingmakers’ when the time comes to decide top ministerial positions.
With much of the political decisions in Indian domestic policy hinging on the caste system, there are times when things get out of hand. The agitation in the northern states of Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and the national capital Delhi by members of the Jat community for government job quotas, which ended yesterday, had brought parts of the state to a standstill.
The irony is that the Jats are predominantly prosperous farmers with a great deal of political clout who now want to be officially labelled as belonging to the OBC (Other Backward Caste) category so that members of their community can benefit from the 27% job reservations assigned to them in the government sector.
The agitation soon got out of hand with about 20 people losing their lives  during the riots that had also seen a mall, a railway station and hundreds of buses and cars set on fire, forcing the government to deploy the army. A lobby group put the loss to around $5bn.
The Supreme Court had earlier dismissed a Jat petition for government job quotas saying that caste alone cannot form the basis for such privileges, saying that it’s social backwardness of the community that matters.
In fact a survey conducted in 2012 across several northern Indian states to assess the social “backwardness” of the Jat community threw up an interesting fact: their status was comparable to those belonging to the higher castes!
Last night the Jats promised to call off the protests after winning assurances from the government that their grievances would be looked into, but it is clear that such a situation cannot be allowed to repeat itself.
Job quotas should be only made available to economically weaker sections of the population, irrespective of caste or creed. Special considerations, if any, can be made for the children of members of the armed forces.
In any case, the ancient caste system is an abomination. It is high time that the process to banish it for good begins in right earnest.