"It's not impossible to smash the caste system"

Anand Teltumbde is a scholar and civil rights activist known for his extensive work on B.R. Ambedkar's life and work as well as the caste issue. He was arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad case in 2020 and released on bail in November 2022 after spending 31 months in jail. The 72-year-old spoke to Snigdhendu Bhattacharya

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What new aspect of caste did you learn about during your days in jail?

There is nothing I learnt about the caste issue in jail which I did not know before. As a civil rights activist for the last four decades, I knew about the preponderance of Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis in jails, both as undertrials and convicts. Taloja was no different. As per the latest NCRB data, it is almost 51 per cent as against their share of 39 per cent in the population. It is not entirely attributable to the present regime that has made these communities its main target to consolidate its constituency. This feature has continued from the previous regime. It is our civilisational feature in terms of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s dictum: ‘‘The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.’’ The communal poison being spewed these days is not the cause but the effect of this civilisational feature. 

Whether one looks at it from the prism of caste, community (religion), or class, the picture approximately remains the same. This fact poses an important question: Which among these categories should be a viable category to build a lasting peoples’ movement to better their future?

Prisons tend to bring forth the innate proclivities of people, both good and bad. The first encounter I had there with an inmate was with a question whether I was a Maratha. I was taken aback but took a shortcut by saying ‘hun’ (yes). I expected further probing about my sub-caste but fortunately, it stopped. It merely affirmed my observation that India is more casteised today than ever before.