UP caste-based rallies banned: The HC ruling behind the state govt order

What the government order says

The government order prohibits a range of public displays of caste identity. Most significantly, it imposes a complete ban on caste-based political rallies across the state, stating that they promote social conflict and are a threat to “public order” and “national unity”.

The order also takes aim at the common practice of displaying caste names, slogans and stickers on vehicles, directing authorities to challan such vehicles under the Central Motor Vehicles Act. In public spaces, signboards or proclamations that glorify a particular caste or declare certain areas as “caste territories or estates” are to be removed immediately.

In a major procedural change for law enforcement, the order bars the mention of an accused person’s caste in most police records, including first information reports (FIRs), recovery memos and arrest memos. It directed the caste column for the accused to be deleted from the central Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems crime portal and for the mother’s name of the accused to be recorded along with the father’s.

The only exception is for cases where there is a legal necessity to record caste, such as those filed under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The order calls for strict monitoring of social media to curb messages that glorify or denigrate any caste and mandates “strict action” against those who spread caste-based hatred online.

The Allahabad High Court case that triggered the order

The government’s directive is a direct consequence of the Allahabad High Court’s judgment in Praveen Chetri v State of UP & Another, a criminal matter that had come up before Justice Vinod Diwakar. The petitioner, Chetri, was arrested in April 2023 for allegedly smuggling illicit liquor. He had approached the High Court seeking to have the criminal proceedings against him quashed.

While examining the case files, Justice Diwakar noted that the police had recorded the caste of each of the accused – ‘Mali’, ‘Pahadi Rajput’, ‘Thakur’ and ‘Brahmin’ – in the FIR and seizure memo. Finding this practice “regressive” and “resistant to the idea of a progressive, transformed, developed, modern, and unified India”, the court asked the Director General of Police (DGP) of Uttar Pradesh to submit a personal affidavit justifying the “requirement and relevance of mentioning the caste of a suspect”.

The court ultimately dismissed the petition, finding that a prima facie case existed against him. However, Justice Diwakar used the opportunity to address the larger issue of casteism that his query to the DGP had raised.

What the High Court observed and directed

Justice Diwakar criticised the DGP’s justification that mentioning caste was a long-standing practice for identification, calling it a “legal fallacy” when modern tools like Aadhaar cards, mobile cameras and fingerprints, among others, are available.

In the judgment, the court embarked on a wide-ranging discussion on the socio-psychological impact of caste. It observed that the caste system “poses a serious threat to secularism and, as a consequence, to the integrity of the country,” invoking Dr BR Ambedkar’s vision of a “casteless society.”

The court took note of the modern manifestations of caste pride, especially in northern states like UP. “Individuals commonly mark their cars, bikes, and sometimes homes with caste identifiers,” the judgment stated. “Vehicles adorned with caste emblems, slogans or even warnings.” It also commented on the rise of caste-based content on social media, which it said reflected “cultural narcissism” and a “toxic digital masculinity rooted in caste.”

Critically, the court said the problem of caste is “not just in society or religion but embedded in the mental framework of the State itself,” noting that law enforcement agencies often “reflect, reproduce, and sometimes intensify caste-based prejudices.”

Invoking social reformers such as Ambedkar, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule, Swami Vivekananda, Narayana Guru, Vinoba Bhave, Kandukuri Veeresalingam and Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the court observed that the promotion of caste-based identities is “counter to the spirit of national unity and progress” and that “such practices are, in effect, anti-national.”

Based on these observations, the court issued a series of binding directions for the UP government. It mandated the removal of all references to caste or tribe from police forms and notice boards. It also ordered the immediate removal of caste-based signboards from public spaces and directed the state to frame standard operating procedures to prohibit caste disclosure in investigations.

The court also made some non-binding recommendations to the state government. It recommended that the government may amend the Central Motor Vehicle Rules “to explicitly ban caste-based slogans and caste identifiers on all private and public vehicles.” It suggested the amendment of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 “to flag and act against caste-glorifying, hate-inducing content on social media”.

Further proposals of the court included “media literacy and anti-casteism campaigns targeting youth on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and WhatsApp” and the setting up of “a Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism for citizens to enable them reporting portals and mobile apps to anonymously report violations.”

While the High Court deprecated caste-based political rallies in its judgment, it did not issue any direction to ban them. However, the government, in its order, has issued a complete prohibition on such rallies, making it arguably the most politically significant provision of the new directive.