Thread: My experience of reverse caste discrimination
I grew up in Pune without discriminating or being discriminated ag.Troubles started from day 1 at TISS where I went to pursue my Masters. It was the first time away from home, first time dealing with life independently.
Most part of my TISS journey went in depression so much so that after the first year, unable to deal with negativities, I pleaded with my mother to quit the program. I had joined social work because I loved volunteering for social causes and thought of making it my career.
Reverse caste discrimination was so on your face and dealing with it and keeping quiet about it started affecting my health. Professors would march into the classroom with "Jai Bheem", day in day out example after example was trotted to show that Hinduism is the worst
After a class one day , my classmate says to me " you oppressed us for so long, now it's our time" and coolly walked away. Whom would I tell this to? Do we have laws for prevention of atrocities against other categories or cells like the Sc/St cells that pervade colleges?
A north-east ST "tribal", uber hippie pot smoking guy told me w/o any compunction tht he forged caste certificate & converted his status to avail benefits. My own roommate, a converted neo Buddhist faked her father's income to receive stipend for fieldwork, while we had to pay!
I had two classmates from the north, both declared themselves OBC and availed tuition benefits, hostel accommodation from first year onwards while their families own acres and acres of agricultural land
I had dalit friends and I never discriminated against them but in classes, in examples, in case studies and in separate Dalit and tribal studies specialisations, all that was discussed was caste, atrocity, Hinduism...no other religion was targeted in such a way as Hinduism was
That vile Kancha Illiah was invited as speaker during my second year and received standing ovation for his hate filled talk on Hinduism where he said Bhagawat Geeta was the evil text , in fact the most violent text in the world and that's why Hindus are violent being.
In the first year first semester I remember having to watch that propaganda movie "Ram ke naam" and write a review essay report on how "hindutva fanatics" killed Muslims.not one soul talked about the train burning that killed Hindu karsevaks; neither the teacher nor students
The quality of education at TISS had fallen to such an extent that for a masters class of 145 students , we had one teacher and we did not have even enough chars to sit on.Sometimes we would sit atop the desk for lectures. TISS had become a degree churning institution
During presentations teachers had no standardised criteria for giving marks. Talk in English, Hindi,telugu ,Malayalam and with a ppt or without a ppt,never mind the quality to the presentation and time limit given to you.Write ur fieldwork reports in any format, who reads anyway!
So called upper caste people bitten by guilt of caste system turned vehement social justice warriors on campus. whole ecosystem supported&spoke for only the SC/STs, others voices were muzzled. Those of us who were discriminated became powerless in face of blatant discrimination
During elections, votes were being canvassed based on caste . Don't vote for him, vote for this guy, he belongs to us, we were told...It was in TISS for the first time away from home I experienced caste discrimination and felt pathetic to be born a upper caste and to be subjected to quiet and not so quiet ways of reverse discrimination
During my field work in Bikaner, Rajasthan, one night we had to sleep at our study informant's home.They were poor Brahmins and had nothing to eat.Yet they gave us a chapati each from their own quota of food .I cried seeing the poor conditions of many brahmin families there
It's very easy to bracket every brahmin as vile, oppressive and not care about their human condition.The family with whom I stayed was one of the poorest in the village.Other social and caste categories had pucca houses and some even had tv sets and motor bikes
My experience at TISS really made me understand how breaking India forces are cultivated, given a full course meal to savour from materials, to theories supplied , armed with propagandising and abusing positions of power
Today when I see the fake manufactured riots taking place, all this trauma just cames back to me and it feels that under guise of atrocity acts, vengeance and reverse discrimination is being propagated on a full scale.
