There are few images — not even an Instagram reel worth a mention – of cars in Calcutta sporting stickers that declare their occupants to be “Bangla Bangers”, “Chattering Chatterjees” or “Manly Mondols”. In Kochi, one would be hard-pressed to find people proudly showing off being “Nefarious Nairs” or “OG Syrians”. But in North India, stickers showcasing caste and community pride are displayed with aplomb. So much so that the Uttar Pradesh Police embarked on a special 10-day drive – reportedly on instructions from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath – to issue challans against vehicles with “caste and religious” stickers. This is not the first such attempt. In 2020, there was reportedly a similar crackdown.
Clearly, the crackdowns on stickers don’t stick.
It is easy to dismiss these declarations of community pride as not-so-subtle warnings, even threats. Or simply joke at their expense. But that would be ignoring a larger question; failing to see the innocuous symptom of a much more serious disease.
By definition, cities constitute a necessary condition for civilisation. The modern city in particular, unlike its ancient and medieval counterparts, is meant to be a place of anonymity. As you jostle through the crowd at the Rajiv Chowk Metro Station, or stand in line at McDonalds or KFC, it is impossible to know the caste background of those you share space with, eat with, or stand next to at a urinal. That logic, followed to its conclusion – especially when, as we are constantly told, the fruits of post-liberalisation capitalism and New India’s efficient administration are ripening – should mean less segregation, less obsession with hierarchy and ascribed identity. In an ideal world, perhaps.
But the (North) Indian city is a long way from that ideal. And while it is urban in terms of population, it is far from urbane.
Take NCR. Gated residential highrises and see-through glass office buildings share their walls and fences with still-rural areas and illegal colonies where the productive classes live. The colonies where so many white-collar workers, businessmen and entrepreneurs reside are both colonial and feudal — apartheid in a glitzy cover. Here, domestic workers, drivers, delivery persons are more often than not criminalised. This writer knows of at least five examples where “maids” are not allowed to spend time in community spaces within a residential complex. Separate lifts for the productive, working classes are a matter of course. And the less said about caste diversity in elite workplaces, the better.
These class and caste boundaries are policed with as much force – if far more subtlety – as an attack on a Dalit groom when he decides to enter on a horse in rural UP. Yet, at the same time, the city remains – if only by virtue of its sheer scale – a challenge to entrenched privilege, identity and inequality.
The true elite – whose capital is not merely financial but also cultural and social – do not need to mark their identity on the street. Their access and networks operate in less obvious ways – they do not overtly talk about caste, they pretend it does not exist. It is often people and communities in transition — in a situation where social capital makes them ripe to be played by a character actor on Made in Heaven but not yet the main cast – that go in for the more obvious forms of caste assertion. On the streets, there is no way to ensure that you are mistaken for someone less-than. The sticker on the car ensures that an identity that is linked with power, and perhaps insecurity, continues to be on display in a setting where it may not hold the same sway. It is expressed by claiming a parochial identity on a car that costs more than most Indians’ annual salary and is made in either Japan or Germany.
A sticker, then, is a subtle threat that hints at overt, masculine violence. Of a “khulla haath” and “back” that can be summoned should an altercation occur. That sentiment can’t be “challan-ed” away. And those who look down at it must realise that our colonies and offices, curated feeds and fashion sense, often serve the same purpose. In fact, the car sticker might be the most honest of the lot.
