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Caste in India - Evolution & Manifestation An Interview with Prof. Anand Teltumbde PRofessor Anand Teltumbde [26] is a management professional, writer, civil rights activist and political analyst. He is the author of The Persistence of Caste: The Khairlanji Murders & India’s Hidden Apartheid and other books on Caste and Class in India. He is currently a faculty in the Vinod Gupta School of Management at IIT Kharagpur. CON- CERN interviewed Prof. Teltumbde over email on Casteism in India. Do you agree with an assessment that most institutes of higher education, particularly among the Science & Technology disciplines, have been apolitical? What is the reason for this? It is not quite correct. In the late 1960s the radical politics firstly took roots in elite engineering colleges of the country. The then Regional Engineering Colleges (currently called NITs) had become the centers of radical student politics. Many naxalite leaders came from these colleges. Even IITs did not remain unaffected. It is not difficult to explain this phenomenon. Science and technology (S&T) students are relatively more sincere, focused, objective, and have prowess for rational thinking. They tend to look at the world around from the same analytical viewpoint as they do the physical world. The theories of Marxism with their scientific method and promise of change are more likely to appeal to them than to others. However, on the other side there is a stronger lure of better career if they persist in their studies. The opportunity cost of radical politics rises with the risk associated with radical politics. The horrific repression the naxalite movement suffered in Bengal and then in other parts of the country generally created a scare wave that multiplied this cost. The rational thinking that impels them to radical politics also dissuade them away from it. Later, after the advent of neoliberalism, things changed for worse. The collapse of Soviet block and reversal in China in intervening times weakened the appeal of Marxism. Neoliberalism subtly worked in, pulverizing society into discreet individuals who would be increasingly vulnerable with rising crisis engendered by its social Darwinist policies. There was euphoria in corporate world with the rise of new 6 Issues Of <strong>CONCERN</strong> No. 7 February 2016
sectors of economy enabled by new technologies. The good students with S&T background were promised irrationally high salary packages. It thus increased the opportunity cost manifold with simultaneous risks of repression by the neoliberal state. It is therefore that the S&T campuses appear apolitical. As a matter of fact, not only the S&T campuses but almost all campuses have been depoliticized over the years. Campus politics is virtually decimated during the neoliberal era. Actually, campuses of higher education institutions are not the factories to feed corporate mills with inert human resource tutored in various things to run the businesses as ongoing entities. They are supposed to equip students with critical faculties to make them discern right and wrong to shoulder the larger responsibility towards human society as citizens. This can only be accomplished through campus politics. How has Caste evolved in modern India? Were the independence and the Mandal Commission landmarks in this process? Where from does the modern India start? I think we can reckon it from the establishment of British colonial rule in India. Momentous changes befell during the colonial rule in the context of castes. Capitalism came to India piggy-backing it. While purely from their own colonial logic, the British undertook massive infrastructure (roads, railways, ports, communication network, urbanization, etc.) and institution (police, justice system, taxation system, etc.) building, it hugely impacted the Hindu social order. Marx for instance saw at the time of introduction of railway network that it would lead to collapse of the decadent structures like castes. Many people lament that he was proved wrong but I think otherwise. The spread of capitalism did have debilitating impact on castes in as much as it killed associated ritual notions of castes among the communities that came in contact with capitalism. The dwija castes in urban centers that adopted capitalist (mercantile or industrial or both) entrepreneurship, found caste exclusion a hurdle in their business relationship and slowly adjusted to ignore them. It needs to be noted that castes emulate the advanced sections within; the latter determine the laws and valency of customs. While not all dwija castemen became capitalists, following their leaders, they also came to discard rigid ritual notions of castes. The colonial regime proved a veritable boon to the lower castes, particularly Dalits, which were one of the important pivots of the caste system. The entire articulation of Dalits and their movement could be attributed to the changes that happened during the colonial regime. A school [27] for "Untouchables" near Bangalore, Mar 1935 With the entry of the British in India, Dalits got opportunities to get into their employment as domestic servants, and military men. The latter proved vastly liberatory as it enabled them to realize their military prowess. They won many battles for British. Symbolically, the February 2016 Issues Of <strong>CONCERN</strong> No. 7 7
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Page 23 and 24: Documentary The Death of Merit [44]

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