Caste in our schools

A taboo in our schools

Published at Deccan Herald. Thanks to the team there.

 Thanks also to Richa for comments on the draft. 

Caste-based census has been in the news during the recent days. Caste-based violence often gets some space in the news. Caste-based discrimination, however, is too ingrained in our lives to become news. Unless, of course, for example, one of our elite high education institutes faces the brunt!  This is what Saniya Roomie and Kapil Joshi had to say in How caste discrimination plagues IITs earlier this year, “What strikes clear as day is that despite the rising cases, IITs across the country are hesitant to acknowledge the institutionalized casteism within their campuses. This is further cemented by their unserious stance on creating a robust grievance redressal system”. 

We also refrain from discussing caste at homes and at schools. Even the British were careful not to topple this proverbial apple-cart.

 

Let us focus on schools here; English medium schools to be precise. Caste is a taboo here; in mainstream schools as well as the liberal ones. Some of these schools may encourage conversations on gender and sexuality but caste is a different ball game altogether. A report by Oxfam states “Education is indeed a tool of social transformation. However, the stranglehold of caste-discrimination makes this process a slow and difficult one”. It adds that “Indian schools are often sites of extreme forms of discrimination”.  

 

Many of us who have studied in these schools pretend as if caste-based discrimination was a malaise of the past. Some of us claim that caste-based ‘problems’ occur only in far flung and rural pockets of our eastern states. We do not stop to think that even to pretend that these issues do not exist, around us today, we have to be at the top of the caste ladder. And, activities like reading local news across regions, or indulging in conversations at tea-stalls, will bring out that caste cuts across the rural – urban or the regional divides!

We have taken, caste far and wide, beyond our borders. A Reuters report from earlier this year states, “Toronto's school board has become the first in Canada to recognize that caste discrimination exists in the city's schools and has asked a provincial human rights body to help in creating a framework to address the issue”. Caste, for many of us, is about reservations and now, also about census. About both of these, majority of us, at best, understand little.

 

Back to the schools. Shying away from caste has clearly not helped. We have a generation which is reinforcing the caste stereotypes, turning its eye away when shown the mirror or simply unaware. India Human Development Survey (IHDS) of 2011-12 covering 42,152 households across the country had shown that 27% of the Indian population claims openly to practice untouchability (30% of rural and 20% of urban households). A generation that is staying in an island in its own country – knowing little about its country and its brethren! So, how about talking on caste with children at these schools?

 

Can we enable the children to be better aware about the society we all inhabit. Those from elite socio-economic backgrounds can get to know of the world beyond the islands they inhabit. Of the existence of other castes – of children who lead lives that are similar and yet very different at the same time. The idea is not to get these children to be either patronizing or condescending but for them to be aware of the biases around them. To get them to think about and question these biases. Whey they take a flight, for example, the person flying the plane will be in all probability from a particular caste or castes while the person they will notice cleaning the airport toilet will in all probability hail from a particular caste or castes. These castes will seldom overlap and be seldom discussed as well, leave alone questioned.

 

Can we have books (for adults and children), which that project caste sensitively, at the school library? Back during 2008 Emily Wax wrote in WashingtonPost on Turning the Pot, “It has been called essential reading for every Indian child, a lively illustrated storybook aimed at raising youthful awareness of the injustices of the country's caste system, much as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" exposed the indignities of slavery to white America”.

 

Conversations on caste, religion, gender and sexuality often overlap and dovetail into one another. Can we create an ambience where conservations on these not-easy-to-talk topics are normalized? Can we screen movies and encourage discussions on them? Can we have people who are more aware on the topic to come and talk with adults and children? 

 

And can we also discuss caste in textbooks? Caste has found space in textbooks, but we need to rectify the errors, rise above the biases and circumvent the lure to reinforce the stereotypes. Caste biases in school textbooks: a case study from Odisha, India by Subhadarshee Nayak and Aardra Surendran states, “. . systematic analysis of caste bias within curricular material in India, brings to fore the exclusion of Scheduled Castes. The persistence of caste bias across textbooks is in direct violation of the recommendations of the National Curriculum Framework-2005 and systematically creates an illusion that Indian society is an equitable one”.

 

Today, as caste continues to refuse to change with the rest of the world, and holds us back, this on your face and taking the bull by the horns seems to be the only way out. There are risks and complexities but that is the case with most that is worth doing. And, here, we have little to lose.