Bangalore: Dalit Voice was the first in India to announce that everything in “Hindu India” is determined by caste (our ethnic identity). The recent Parliament election is the latest proof that caste is the guiding force for every action. Our international award-winning book, Caste -A Nation Within the Nation, our exhaustively deals with this question. Take the case of Assam: The country’s premier Brahminical daily, the Hindu, says everything in Assam is decided by caste. But the Brahminical people, who are our rulers because of their caste, say they hate caste and tell us that caste is dead. They say everything should be decided on the basis of “merit”, even as they hang on to their caste.
Of the 13 Chief Ministers since independence, all but one are from the Congress or from the Congress stream, and
only one belonged to a SC. He became Chief Minister by accident and default, during the chaotic politics of the post-Janata Party headed by Golap Barua, and lasted all three months and seven days. Of the rest, the first was a Ganak-Brahmin, six were from the decidedly upper caste Kayasta-Kalita stream. Three Ahom’s, including the present incumbent Tarun Gogoi, one Muslim and one Koch, a community that was once seen as being in transition from a tribe to caste. The Ahom’s, once part of Assam’s ruling dynasty, are now seeking ST. Status. However, the state has never had a ST Chief Minister though its ST population even now, more than three decades after the reorganization of Assam (170-72) when the Tribal majority districts of present-day Meghalaya and Mizoram were separated, accounts for 12.8%. In 1961, it was 17.42% (The Hindu, June 4, 2009).
