NID Prof’s Book on Caste Conflict and Social Justice in Bihar Backdrop
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- Pandora Box
- Monday, 12 March 2012 15:26
- Published on Monday, 12 March 2012 15:26
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Gujarat Global News Network, Ahmedabad
The book Caste Conflict and Social Justice: the discourse and design by Mihir Bholey a senior faculty of Liberal Arts at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad analyses the issues of caste conflict and social justice to explore whether they are two mutually exclusive socio-political phenomena or do they influence each other either partially or substantially.
The focus of this book is to enquire can there be social justice if caste conflict of sorts prevails? The politics in India and more particularly the politics in Bihar ever since the post-Mandal era has seen to be obsessed with two agenda – social justice and social engineering which in the realm of realpolitik became euphemism for the politics of reservation and the politics of inventing new caste equations for obvious electoral gains. No doubt, they have been the reasons for the on-going caste conflicts all over which often bring the nation and governments to a standstill. The intermittent Jat-Gurjar and Meena agitations in Rajsathan are fresh in our memories besides the numerous caste mayhems in Bihar which turned the green fields of Bihar into killing fields and took decades to wane. Caste in the post-independence India has been co-opted by politics both for sincere and vested interest. This overture encouraged castes organize themselves as assertive political groups and eventually as tempting vote banks too, playing crucial role during elections. The growing political consciousness across castes and caste groups has created numerous reasons for conflict in Bihar as also in other states.
Caste conflict in the traditional context may have social factors in the backdrop based on hierarchy, dominance and discrimination. But the book suggests that it would be naïve to attribute all the incidences of caste conflict in recent times to the social factors alone. In the present context the major causes of conflict are largely political and economic. In other words, it’s about equitable, if not larger share in the economic and political power structure. Backed by the in-depth analysis of the numerous scholarly discourse on caste conflict and the data collected through a field survey conducted in Bihar, the book Caste Conflict and Social Justice underscores that conflict and exploitation may be attributed to a kind of ‘dominant class syndrome’ which prevails across all castes and caste categories in Bihar as elsewhere in the country. In Bihar, caste conflict and atrocities have not entirely followed a fixed pattern particularly in cases of violent conflicts. It had not only been top-down but also horizontal and lateral – a stark reminder to the prevalence of ‘dominant class syndrome’ in the socio-political sphere in the state.
Ensuring justice in an unequal and hierarchical society is a tough call. To establish social justice in the hierarchical and feudal social structure of Bihar was both an imperative and a challenge too. It required justice of all kind – social-economic and political to achieve the goal. In the post-Mandal era, it was in this backdrop that leader like Laloo Yadav dominated the political scene of Bihar for close to two decades. With him, the subaltern experienced resurgence in Bihar while the erstwhile socio-political elites beat the retreat. A Yadav-led social engineering subsuming the oppressed was in place to write the future political script in the state. The voiceless had now a voice and a euphoric sense of dignity too. Laloo’s magic spell took time to fade. He undoubtedly succeeded in bringing social justice to the centrality of political agenda and ideospace. Nevertheless, the regime remained devoid of development on various indices – from human development to economic. The book questions the efficacy of such type of social justice which on the one hand replaces the idea of ‘class’ with caste and on the other does precious little for the latter too. In the end, the half-hearted social justice creates more caste conflict than delivering justice and social harmony. Social justice was a political philosophy close to the heart of the socialist ideologues like Jayprakash Narayan and Rammanohar Lohia who vowed for socialist ideals of “casteless and classless” society. However, the book brings into discussion the factors which first let the lofty ideal of social justice be hijacked and then subverted into crafty social engineering and divisive caste politics by the self-proclaimed protégées of the socialist stalwarts. The book also tries to explore whether the caste-centric social justice in the contemporary times has been able to change the social reality of India or it has just been a political myth created for power politics.
The book Caste Conflict and Social Justice by Mihir Bholey seeks to find answers to many questions which keep vexing our mind – questions like what role people see caste playing in the present socio-economic context, do OBCs endorse the idea of economic status being the basis of reservation, what is the impact of political intervention into caste, which castes have benefited most from the so called social justice (read reservation) politics, can social justice be attained if caste conflict continues et al? The book makes a deep enquiry into these issues by not only analysing the major political discourse both academic and journalistic on various dimensions of caste conflict and social justice, but evaluates them too on the basis of empirical data collected in Bihar through an intensive field research. The book thus presents the case study of Bihar and raises a fundamental question - can there be ‘social justice’ if ‘caste conflict’ of sorts continues? The answer is obviously negative.
Through a field survey conducted in Bihar among the three caste categories – Upper Castes, OBCs and SCs the book tries to probe the mind of people on various socio-politically contentious issues. And the findings are stunning. For example: even in the changing socio-economic context caste is seen not as a social institution but overwhelmingly as a vote bank by people across the three caste categories. Contrary to the largely held view a sizeable percentage of OBCs also considers that economic status may be the criteria for extending reservation rather than caste. People across the three caste categories accept that political intervention in caste has widened the gap rather than creating social harmony. Not only that, a sizeable percentage among the marginalized castes in Bihar also believes that the so called social justice in the state has actually empowered the dominant castes among the OBCs and SCs rather than all of them in the category. In a way, it has created a new set of ‘dominant upper castes’ among the so called oppressed and marginalized castes. The book by no means questions the relevance of social justice for the hierarchical and stratified Indian society. But it certainly questions the divisive politics of caste being played in the guise of social justice and the efficacy of reservation centric approach to social justice which overlooks the interest of ‘marginalized class’ due to its overt obsession with caste and its politics. It tries to discuss it not on the basis of bias or presumptions, but through an in-depth research conducted among the three caste categories Upper Castes, OBCs and SCs whose views and opinions are selectively represented by our political class.
Concludingly, the book also analyses the results of the 2010 assembly elections in Bihar which has often been dubbed as a referendum against the so called social justice politics of Laloo Yadav going on in Bihar for decades apparently for the politics of development and ‘social inclusion’ led by his bête noire Nitish Kumar. No doubt, the caste overtone in politics has apparently been less shrill in Nitish Kumar’s regime as compared to his predecessor. Nevertheless, looking at the new social engineering and consequent socio-political realignment of castes to safeguard their interests at the cost of larger social good, the book concludes that the obituary of caste politics has not yet been written in Bihar. Perhaps, it doesn’t seem to be likely in near future till there is a realization among both; the people and the political class in Bihar that the ideal of social justice is subsumed in ‘class’ not ‘caste’.
The book has been published and launched internationally by Lambert Publishing, Germany keeping in mind the interest of the European universities and scholars besides the rest in Indian studies and political sociology. It’s available through internet and can be procured vide all the major online bookstores viz. Flipkart, Amazon, MoreBooks among others. In India it’s being made available by the publisher’s Indian distributors present in all the major cities.
The book will be released in Ahmedabad on Saturday, March 17, 2012.
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