Social Justice in India

 

A few days back some people of Odisha chose to boycott an Anganwadi (a preschool for children from less privileged classes) because a Dalit woman was appointed cook there. Even the fact that the Dalit woman was a graduate didn’t help to assuage the opposition. Inequality is part of India’s DNA. Social injustice is a God-given reality here.

Seventy-six years ago, India’s Constitution sought to abolish that God-given injustice called the caste system. Yet India’s social system remains a deeply contested terrain, shaped by caste primarily, and then by gender, class, religion, language, and region.

More than a decade has passed after a “strong” right-wing government took over political power in Delhi. Development for all – Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas – was its motto. But nothing has changed for the better vis-à-vis social justice. On the contrary, a lot of things became worse.

Caste still reigns supreme and it remains the most persistent axis of injustice. It structures access to land, education, employment, marriage, and dignity. Rig Veda, composed orally some 3500 years ago, sanctified the brutally unjust caste system which is too deeply entrenched in the country’s collective psyche to be erased by any reform movements.

Who wants reforms anyway? Hindutva, the ideological framework that sustains the ruling party in India now, has always disapproved of the country’s secular Constitution and demanded to make the Manusmriti the final lawgiving authority. This legal code was written between the 2^nd century BCE and 3^rd century CE. Too antique for today’s world driven by information technology and other technologies. Yet India’s present leaders insist on making that the foundation of the country’s social system. And that text fanatically upholds the injustice of the caste system.

Social injustice is God-given in India, I repeat. And the right-wing government is too religious to question what God has given.

Economic inequality is another glaring horror in the country. More and more wealth just flows into the hands of less and less people. Rapidly too. You know the stats, don’t you. About top 1% controlling over 40% of the total national wealth. The richest 10% owning 65% of all wealth. The bottom 50% hold just 3% of the country’s wealth. Whose country is it? The figures tell us the answer clearly enough. This injustice promises to loom larger as we move on, with economic disparity reinforcing the ancient God-given hierarchies more brutally than ever.

Religion is the third most powerful marker of social injustice in India now. Soon after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, a godman named Baba Ramdev declared that he would behead anyone who doesn’t chant Bharat Mata ki Jai provided the law let him do it. Now that chant has changed into Jai Sri Ram, more explicitly religious. Godmen and godwomen are just too eager to behead people who don’t chant that.

Another man in saffron robes was enthroned as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh when Ramdev was tickling himself with the vision of the beheaded enemies of Bharat Mata. This man, Ajay Bisht aka Yogi Adityanath, entertained himself by bulldozing the houses of Muslims in his state.

How many Muslims and Christians in the land of yogis and babas can place their palm on their heart and say that they feel secure in Modi’s India?

There you have the answer for any question related to social justice in India.

PS. This post is a part of ‘Echoes of Equality Blog Hop’ hosted by Manali Desai and Sukaina Majeed under #EveryConversationMatters blog hop series. Feb 20 is World Day of Social Justice.