Should India apologise for caste injustice, like Nepal did?
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“Why should I have to pay for something my ancestors did?” That is a refrain frequently heard from members of the upper castes during discussions about casteist violence and prejudice or reservations in India.
This belief has found renewed expression in the “Reservation Hatao Movement”, a social media campaign that gained visibility in late July. It calls for the abolition of caste-based reservation so that “merit” and equal competition can prevail.
Many Indians believe that caste is a relic of a bygone time and that the government’s social justice policies have addressed these problems.
This ignores the inherited control over land, wealth, education, social networks and institutions through which caste privilege reproduces itself, presenting outcomes produced by historical inequality as though they emerged from neutral competition among equals.
The Indian state, similarly, speaks the language of social justice without unsettling the structures of social power that shape Indian society.
It is against the backdrop of this refusal of historical accountability that Nepal’s decision to offer a formal state apology to Dalits for centuries of caste-based oppression acquired significance in India. In April, referring to Nepal’s decision, MP Chandrashekhar Azad asked in Parliament when India would apologise to Dalits for centuries of injustice.
Azad’s intervention, along with those of others who have raised this issue, reflects one dimension of...