Re-caste the problem

A poorly paid, unmotivated and continuously politically interfered with bureaucracy will sell pretty much all the bits of paper the government gives out and citizens need or want. Therefore, this newspaper’s report that UP babus were wonderfully pliant when asked to, as it were, “re-caste” prominent politicians, should not so much surprise the political class as worry them. There’s already a market for fraudulent caste certificates. But as the stakes go higher in caste-based positive discrimination, the market is likely to become bigger and deeper. Consider the attractive incentive structure for both the supplier and buyer of forged caste certificates when these pieces of paper can narrow the field in brutally competitive entrance examinations. Leaked question papers are already a part of education economics. False declarations of caste have all the potential to be the same. And if and when a new law reserves private sector jobs, the market for sarkari rubberstamped deprived status will become bigger.

It is possible, of course, to shrug this problem away by saying that since the PDS runs despite forged ration cards and welfare schemes, despite fake muster rolls, forged caste certificates will be no more system-busting than these other paper frauds on social justice. There are two problems with this argument. First, one of the reasons the PDS and welfare schemes are in such a mess is wrong beneficiary selection. Thousands of crores of public money have been wasted on good causes backed by bad logic. This is nothing to shrug off. Indeed, there’s a very good reason to go back to the drawing board and look at some of the fundamental principles of social policy.

The second reason forged caste identities can’t be dismissed as another usual Indian vice is that these pieces of easily obtainable paper make the point sadly few have done in the quota debate: the assumption of total congruence between deprivation and caste has been questioned authoritatively but to absolutely no effect as far as political action has been concerned. As this newspaper has always argued, as opinion polls published in this newspaper have conclusively shown, a great majority of the better-off wants targeted action for the socially disadvantaged—people are just not sure that caste is the right marker. As caste identity becomes increasingly purchasable, those doubts will grow.