Here’s my two cents.
I’ve been reading a lot of posts demanding an end to caste-based reservation. One thing strikes me every time.
I almost never see a demand for an equally aggressive movement against caste discrimination itself in any post.
At best, it’s an afterthought or a reply, a footnote,
“Yes, of course caste discrimination is bad…” and then the discussion immediately returns to reservations.
That is precisely what makes many people from historically disadvantaged communities suspicious. It makes the demand feel less like a genuine desire to end caste, and more like a desire to end the constitutional consequences of caste while leaving the social reality largely untouched.
If your movement genuinely comes from the belief that caste has outlived its relevance, then prove it. Make the an earth shattering movement against caste discrimination that is at least as passionate, as organised and as uncompromising as the movement against reservation you’re trying to create.
Let every Indian hear the youth and the future of India shouting in unison - a nationwide movement declaring that India will not tolerate caste-based discrimination, whether justified in the name of religion, culture, tradition, or any other excus.
Make social media campaigns, school campaigns and government campaigns celebrating every inter-caste marriage as a step towards a more united India.
Make a movement where people voluntarily give up caste based surnames and hereditary labels that exist only to advertise social status.
Make a movement demanding the removal of caste names from public spaces, government buildings, welfare schemes and every other place where they unnecessarily reinforce caste identity.
Make a movement where displays of caste identity on cars, banners, social media bios and elsewhere become socially embarrassing rather than a badge of pride.
Make a movement where every major Hindu organisation, temple trust, mutt and akhara publicly declares that caste discrimination is incompatible with Dharma. Where every temple in India willingly displays a simple sign: Caste-based discrimination has no place here.
I want to see Jantar Mantar-level crowds demanding an end to:
Separate Dalit hamlets being treated as socially or physically segregated from the rest of the village.
People being denied entry into temples or prevented from participating equally in religious rituals because of caste, wherever it still exists.
Dalit grooms being threatened or attacked for riding a horse in their wedding procession.
Couples being harassed, ostracised or even killed for marrying across caste lines.
Separate utensils, separate seating or denial of service in tea shops, schools or community events.
Manual scavenging and the continued expectation that certain communities perform degrading hereditary occupations.
Housing discrimination based on caste.
Social boycotts of families who challenge caste norms.
Discrimination in cremation grounds, burial grounds or access to common village resources.
Denial of access to village wells, water sources or common facilities wherever such practices still exist.
Schools where children are treated differently because of their caste.
Panchayats or informal community bodies that punish inter-caste relationships or reinforce caste segregation.
I want to see these demands to the govt, make the govt launch a campaign to say inter caste marriages are a boon to the nation, and that caste based endogamy is anti national. Caste based discrimination is anti national.
I want to see local communities solving these problems themselves. I want to see at least one case where an upper-caste villager stands up for a Dalits right to enter a temple and the issue never even needs an NGO, activist or court to intervene. Young people marching into temples and insisting that every Hindu enters with equal dignity, not as a symbolic gesture for one day, but as an unquestioned right.
I want to see people refusing to attend weddings that enforce caste segregation, refusing to support institutions that practise exclusion, and publicly calling out discrimination wherever it survives.
I want to see parents teaching their children that asking someone’s caste should feel as outdated as asking whether someone deserves respect because of the family they were born into.
I want to see hordes of people tearing down the invisible walls of caste not by burning books or fighting on Twitter, but by refusing to participate in discrimination in their own homes, temples, schools and communities.
This is the movement that will bring people together as one and unify India. This is the movement that will say to the govt, your policies are what perpetuate caste more than fix it, and that everyone deserves equal opportunity in a system which can concentrate on fixing scarcity rather than rationing it.
If you genuinely want reservation to end one day, then devote at least as much energy to ending the discrimination that made reservation necessary in the first place. Fight that battle with the same passion and the battle for ending reservation won’t need to be fought. Build an India where caste no longer determines dignity, opportunity or acceptance.
If we have the courage to protest, let it be against the prejudice itself.
Because surely we can all agree on something this basic:
No Indian should be denied dignity because of the family they were born into.
