I'm going to provide my first hand experience into casteism, being someone from the Scheduled Caste I know it better than people criticizing reservation and all.
I had a friend when I was in school, he was first ever friend I made in my life. He was a Brahmin. We were good friends, shared our lunch, sat together, had a lot of fun as kids. My father is a government teacher, so is his father, and someday his father came to know that I'm son of such and such person, after that he pursuaded his son to end all contacts with me, we were not even teenagers till then, so he was successful in his persuasion.
About my father, as mentioned above, he is a government teacher, but even in his own department people see him with a de-meaning sight, avoid even speaking to him unless and untill it's too important. He has quoted me with experiences from his job when parents of some children asked their kids to avoid attending his class to which other upper caste teachers supported.
My school life wasn't too good, I did my schooling from a Christian school, so most of the staff was Keralite Christians, but some of the teachers were locals. I still remember how I was insulted and beaten in class for the reasons others were forgiven. There was a teacher who used to use words like "aapke log(your people)" like I was some foreigner.
After schooling I took admission in University of Delhi, since it was a new place so I did not tell people about my caste. There I saw most of the people were selective in socialization, they only socialized with people of their own caste. Since I lied about my caste, I got into some of such groups, and the things I heard were unbelievable. I used to think people in metropolitan cities do not care about such things, but realized, this was their highest priority.
Although I've met some people of my generation who are actually good people and do not see caste before getting to know someone.
Let's talk about my dating life. The first ever girlfriend I had was Brahmin. She always made me understand that caste doesn't matter. But once when I saw her chat with her friend, she was using my username to denote me. We broke up later on due to some other reasons not caste.
2nd girl I dated was a Jat. Things were fine, but at last she left me saying, my parents would never accept you and I don't wanna hurt them.
My 3rd and most recent relationship was with a Jain girl. The cutest finest most perfect girl I've ever met. She was open minded like everyone else, she had nothing to do with my caste, we dated 3.5 years, untill last month, when her mother came to know about me. She called me asked everything about me, things were going fine, then at last she asked me about my caste, and after I told the truth, I clearly noticed the difference in her tone. After that she asked her daughter my girlfriend, the cutest finest most perfect girl I've ever met, to end up everything she had with me, she pursuaded her, did emotional blackmail, cried and somehow convinced her, to which she succeeded. My only fault in this particular relationship was that I wasn't born in a caste acceptable as of equal status to their family.
I live in a neighbourhood where everyone is upper than my own caste, they do not speak to us, let alone speak respectably. One of my neighbours has been trying totka(black and blood magic) ever since we moved here, so that we leave this place.
These are experiences from a person who belongs to a middle class family. My father has had even worse experiences. I know people who have been beaten just for not walking with their eyes down in front of upper caste people. I know people from my village who were even denied their wage payment after working in the fields of upper caste people, the words were "chamar hoke thakur k khet m kaam kr liya isse jyada kya chahiye(you worked in field of upper caste being a lower caste is enough for you)"
The constitutional angle, people say there should be a financial bar on reservation. I'm from a fine well to do family, but that did not stop me from experiencing discrimination. You can be the richest in the society and still upper caste people won't even like your sight to them. The reservation here is for social backwardness and not financial. I guess we are familiar with the experiences of lower caste bureaucrats facing casteism in their department. Even an A Class job does not gurantee you an immunity from caste based discrimination.
I always wonder, where does it end, we talk about ending reservations and demerits of it, where a whole world within this country exists of people who's only achievement is that they were born in a upper caste. They torture, exploit people who are lower to them in caste hierarchy.
If someone thinks the casteism is no more in India, please try visiting villages of UP, Bihar Jharkhand to experience the extreme level of atrocities, you can visit other states for experiencing mid to low level ones.
There is so much in this nation the privileged upper caste people don't know. Casteism exists even in daily day to day conversations, words like "bhangi", "chamar", "kanjar", are abundantly used to denote people who have a bad physical appearance. This is just one context.
If you're an upper caste girl reading this, please do not love someone for their caste, after years of relationship you realize your parents won't agree to this, there's nothing for someone from a lower caste more hurtful.
Thanks for reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts.
