The ingenuity of the world lies where it starts
to discriminate. The feet and hands of the person at ‘prey’ are determined to
be either bend down or folded before, for mercy and rights; rights which are
their fundamentals and provided to them by their so very national government,
whose leaders once accepted these people as partners of democracy.
These
people are the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe, who have been from ages of
India at scrutiny of Varna system of Vedas.
Another
name given to SC and ST is Dalit and Adivasi respectively. They constitute
16.2%1 of the Indian
population. The atrocities of Dalit and Adivasi were somehow relaxed in the
year 1947 when India saw the era of its independence. The Poona pact2 and the efforts of
Dr. Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar, who was the great out of all people striving
hard to get these people their rights and a position to withstand in the
society. After the independence of India, the government came up with
constitution and B.R. Ambedkar as the chairman of its Drafting committee, made
several provisions for SC/ST. A critical analysis is tried to attempt of such
government of India policies for SC/ST in this essay.
History of caste
based discrimination
If the pages of
history are revised we will get to know how well the Varna system has exploited
the nature of caste in India. The Varna system had divided the society into 4
castes: The Brahmin, The Kshatriya, The Vaishaya and The Shudras.
Each caste was assigned a duty and no caste
member was allowed to breach his or her duties. Shudras were the one who were
to serve all the above three castes. This led the shudras to never grow and
emerge out; their lives were no more than a slave even being free.
1 2011 Population census records
2 It was Pact made
between Mahatma Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar which later led to dissolution of the
idea of separate electorate for Dalit and agreed upon for affirmative action.
Constitutional
Provisions start narrating themselves from the idea of fundamental rights like,
Article 14 (Equality before law), Article 15 (Prohibition of discrimination)
and Article 21 (Prohibition of discrimination and protection of personal
liberty).
Article
23 and Article 24 dealing with economic safeguards of SCs and even Article 46
(promotion of educational interests of SCs)
Employment opportunities and other safeguards made for
them under Article 16.
The safeguard in extending a hand in protecting them from
untouchability and caste based discrimination. Article 17 deals with this
provision.
The
focus here is to understand the idea of how government of India and
constitutional provisions exclaim for equality, non discrimination and liberty
and how is nature of untouchability a still constant practice in contemporary
times.
Policy
framework
Constitutional provisions which provide for equality and
liberty have led to the path leading to policies such as ‘reservation’ for
them. This policy is for bringing them at par with the society and providing
them an area to grow and expand.
To
protect them from future atrocities and suffering and met out the past
sufferings the ‘Protection of Civil rights act (PCRA)’ and even ‘SC/ST
Prevention of Atrocities Act was promulgated (SC/ST POA)’.
But the whole point of discussion of
a policy lies where and how is it being implemented. How well is it being
produced in the forefront of the needy for which it has been designed. The
experiences and evidences show different perspective.
A crime is committed by a non dalit
against a dalit every 16 minute. Everyday more than 4 untouchable women are
raped by touchable. Every week 13 dalits are murdered and 6 are kidnapped.
This is
merely not data; this is real scenario of policy failure. Who is to blame is a
separate question, but foremost stands to realize that we live in a democracy
where people kill each other or rape women because the ‘prey’ is not of his own
clan or caste. This cannot be a minor crime mind setup. This is a dialogue and
role of play of politics with power and without values.
Discussing about the untouchability
comes to my mind the scenario ‘manual scavengers’. These are the people who
still in the present day millennium pick up the daily excretion shit of so
called upper caste with their own hands. This practice is popular in Indian
villages.
In the
historical times they were supposed to tie a broom with their waist and walk
across the streets so that they are cleaning the footprints and sand off the
road on which they walked while walking.
The treatment they are given is not
describable, as it neither can be compared to how to we treat an animal or
person, nor society treats any other living being alike them. The sufferings
are countless. The government has prepared policies for them, various NGOs are
working for their rehabilitation, one being ENACTUS (part of University of
Delhi campus, a student led NGO). Government has banned Manual scavenging long
back but the real implication of policy or practical implication of policy was
never gone through or checked.
Does this means that, in a democracy which is the world’s
largest democracy has policy flaws. A policy can be framed but implied in real
or documentation is never a matter of cause. The policy makers may be smart and
ready to serve the public selflessly but, is it that their smartness is limited
or we as a society is not ready to accept that there exists a group of people
near us, who work with us or for us or
3 Annihilation of Caste, The
Annotated critical edition B.R. Ambedkar; an introduction by Arundhati Roy;
page 21
amongst
us are of different last names ? How well is the government ready to deal with
failure of policy at social and rural levels?
Measures
to Improve
Every
policy is framed with a motive of welfare or intention of nation’s development.
If out sudden or slowly the policy makers realize that their made policies are
not making any impact on the society or targeted audience then this is loss of
society as a whole for whose welfare the policy was aimed as the welfare isn’t
being delivered.
For the impact on welfare of SC/ST,
policies should focus on their “planned emergency urbanization”, because the
entire discrimination is more popular in rural area. And when the word
urbanization is used, it is strictly to mean that population of SC/ST should be
transformed into more modern ways of development. There can be following
measures which can be kept in mind while framing policies related to the
specific SC/ST:
The areas which are predominantly
dominated by the SCs or STs should be kept in mind and policy should be
targeted at those specific areas more and concentrated efforts by the executive
of the country should focus on implementation of policy fully and in a planned
manner.
Concerning the reservation or
affirmative action policies, the policy makers should realize the need of a
more critical analysis of the policy and its outcomes. The policy is for
welfare without any doubt, but, the implications related to it should be more
in a way futuristic for them like, students opt for colleges but do not attend
colleges because of part time work they are doing or girls busy in household
chores as their parents go for work; policies can consider these factors and
carve out a way like providing stipend for Below Poverty Line students, books
etc.
In case
of rural lifestyle, unemployment is the biggest issue for SC/ST. They depend
upon agriculture and facilities are denied to them in the form of
discrimination, like irrigation facility is denied. This type of factor if
removed and livelihood provided, equality will and can be easily sustained.
All
what requires is a concrete study of the raw issues and not just the umbrella
issues. The policy implication and policy formulation are two varied branches
of a single tree. Both cannot be independent. Both depend upon each other for
survival, therefore it should be made mandatory to consider the inclusive
factors of issues and both implied and framed policy factors.
