The Backward Guy - The Idea of Self-Respect in India
I was declared a backward guy the moment I was born. Yes, in the country where I was born the government as a matter of policy and practice divides people into 4-5 classes based on a number of castes. The classes are termed Forward, Backward, Most Backward, Scheduled Class by the government each comprising of several castes. People like me have to take solace that at least the government has only 4-5 classes, but people in the country recognize thousands of them.
Angelica L. Reeves
I never bothered about this division when I grew up, despite the fact that I often saw a section of people discuss and fight about this issue in passionate terms. However, once you reach high school it is not possible to ignore it as people start talking about it much more fervently as these classes determine the required scores to get admission to colleges for education and jobs later on. It is just that the Forward class people need more scores to get admission in to a college than all the others and Backward class people need more than the Most Backward and Scheduled classes, but lesser than the Forward classes and the required scores keep decreasing with each "lower" one. My initial concern was not the societal benefits of affirmative action in the name of caste as the same uplifting of individuals can be done through other factors. It was about the implied assumptions that go in to characterizing some one as belonging to forward, backward and most backward classes. One certain implication is that it is a characterization of who I am.
It is the nature of this system that I've to trade my self-respect for these divisions perpetuated by this country's people. It not only deprives me of my self-respect, but also perpetuates a slavery mentality among most people in my country. People even go out in the streets saying that they are backward, most backward,etc. asking for concessions. By such actions they don't mind acknowledging the fact they are by nature backward or even most backward..The sad thing is that these people even use the word equality a lot.
The problem here is that the concessions offered are not based on any economic inequality which is a real factor in allowing us access to resources that will let us compete with other people. I've seen many rich folks belonging to the scheduled and backward classes and poorer folks belonging to the forward class and vice versa. In fact all these classes may have the same or similar inequality in income distribution within each group. By just taking in to account the class, this system rewards richer folk with access to resources a certain edge in access to resources for furthering their prospects. It makes sense to offer cheap training opportunities and resources to people from poor communities as it is part of the process of uplifting individuals living in unfortunate circumstances regardless of identities and reducing inequality in the society. But that is not the way things work here. It is important to understand the ideas of respect and equality to deal with this problem so rampant in the society that so often goes under the deceiving hide of uplifting.
The Idea of Respect:
Schopenhauer defines three ways or aspects through which people derive self respect. The first aspect is deriving respect from what we have in terms of wealth, education, skills, physical beauty, strength, fame and power. The second aspect is deriving respect from how we look in the eyes of others. The third aspect is deriving respect from who we are as individuals. This includes our character, intentions, will, and our true being with as much as potential as anybody else in one aspect or the other. Some deep philosophies and science point to even more deeper shared realities among all beings and that there is an eternal aspect to our deeper selves. It is also widely recognized that people differ in which aspect they draw their self-worth from.
The whole idea of caste or class divisions based on caste is a definition of who I'm, based on some supposed difference in my fundamental nature of being and not based on my profession or my image among others as I don't have both at birth. It is also the case that one aspect affects the other even though they are distinct. What we have affects to what extent we realize who we are and how we are viewed by others. Since these interactions happen in all possible ways, defining what we are without any real basis leads to oppression in all other spheres and in many ways lead to loss of self-respect and slavery mentality. People with such mentality can be easily exploited and oppressed without any protest. On the other extreme, people have started using their class identities (not necessarily their economic status) to demand so many things from governments. Their loud protests for equality conceived in a distorted way is in fact a tacit acknowledgement of what some people in society have defined their nature to be. Such mentality is in fact considered slave mentality.
The Idea of Equality:
The tricky idea of equality has been misunderstood by nations across the globe through out history and has led to several revolutions and wars. An important question is to define equality in a way that is approachable in a society taking in to account the huge differences in disposition, talent and access to resources among people.With a fuzzy and unrealistic understanding of equality, people have committed grave crimes over several centuries.Some prevailing notions of equality in the society varies from sentimental notions of equality of all human beings in all aspects and some very unrealistic economic equality notions such equal wages for all jobs and works.
There is a huge amount of empirical evidence that there are huge differences among people in their dispositions, talents, available resources at birth and in several kinds of intelligence. This creates a cycle that perpetuates through several generations as people with better resources may get a competitive advantage in acquiring more resources for life. Only in a just system can there be any hope for upward mobility even in an economic sense or moving to a higher plane of existence in an existential sense for people born into ordinary circumstances.
A reasonable idea of equality that can be achieved in a society with great effort includes equality in terms of access to justice regardless of social identities and status, access to the basic needs of life like good food, clean water, fresh air and a reasonably neat place to live and possibly access to opportunities for developing the vast potential people hold. Such a conception of equality is not new in this world. This is in fact the grand vision of the founding fathers of several great nations.
Reinforcing divisions in society supposedly based on the inherent nature of people and perpetuating oppressive and exploitative structures remains a great obstacle to achieving such a grand vision of a healthy human society. These efforts are also not being helped by people's focus on short-term benefits that come with such policies and sometimes their unquestioned submission to whatever values the society dictates to them. People have to share the blame equally with the oppressors for such a sad situation.
Ways to come out of this situation needs to be explored in multiple ways and needs to be shared with people through several means. A country and the world with its vast human potential remaining in such a state of ignorance and mental slavery doesn't befit the collective intelligence of humanity nor this great earth full of intelligent beings. This greatly rests on the coming generations of people in every country on earth. With them lies the hope for this world and the great effort has to be continued now with a greater awareness of its significance.
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