The news that a recent survey has established says that 27 percent of Indians still practice caste in many ways. Most Indians have grown up in an India where we have seen such behaviour, though the kind of people who read English-language op-eds probably think of it as something that happens in rural, backward villages rather than urban India.

Almost every third Hindu (30 percent) admitted to the practice. That is, they refused to allow Dalits, the former “untouchables,” into their kitchen or to use their utensils. But bizarrely enough, data from the survey showed that untouchability was also practised by Sikhs (23 percent), Muslims (18 percent) and Christians (5 percent). These are faiths that pride themselves on their enshrining of equality and the brotherhood of faith. Dr Amit Thorat, the survey’s lead researcher, at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, was quoted by the Indian Express as saying, “These findings indicate that conversion has not led to a change in mindsets. Caste identity is sticky baggage, difficult to dislodge in social settings.” 

Part of the reason for the controversy, undoubtedly, was surprised that a sentiment one might associate with, and therefore more easily accept from, someone more traditional and perhaps rural emerged from an English-educated urban professional and certified liberal. People of Saredesai’s ilk tend to disavow caste loyalties as unworthy relics of an unequal pre-independence past. As intellectual heirs of a freedom movement that explicitly rejected caste and outlawed caste discrimination, we aren’t supposed to admit to caste feeling even if, in some cases, it lurks somewhere beneath the surface. Any elitism Sardesai acquired at the elite educational institutions (Campion and Cathedral Schools in Bombay, followed by Oxford University) would normally be assumed to be an elitism of merit, of respect for education and cosmopolitan values. Caste pride sits oddly with such a background.

India is a land of multiple identities, and one of the key identities, inescapably, is caste. To some, it’s an instrument of political mobilization. As the “backward caste” Yadav ascendancy in north Indian politics has repeatedly demonstrated, when many Indians cast their vote, they vote their caste. English-speaking urban Indians may scorn such behaviour, even while accepting it as part of India’s political reality. After all, none of us would object if a Dalit leader advertised her pride in being a Dalit or called for Dalit solidarity. It would be the Indian equivalent of America’s “Black is beautiful” slogan or black pride campaigns. But the outrage at Sardesai is, of course, because the journalist’s not a member of an oppressed community celebrating its achievements. He is someone at the top of the heap, not merely a Brahmin but a Goud Saraswat Brahmin at that — the member of a tiny elite. And he’s thrilled about members of this privileged tribe acquiring even more power and prominence. 

In other words, caste will always be there but, as this episode unconsciously reveals, for many of us it doesn’t pack the same punch it used to. If it becomes more and more one of many interchangeable, mutable forms of identity — one fraternity of many that an Indian can lay claim to — it can cease to matter so much. The majority of Indians aren’t there yet. But if we can’t escape being conscious of caste, let’s be conscious of it as the equivalent of an old school tie — nothing more, nothing less. That will remove its sting.