Social - Reforms and State

This post is prompted in part by Shivam's post which reported a incidence of atrocity against dalit.

While Indian constitution was being written, members of constitution assembly realized, correctly in my view, that that their aim of establishing ideal of equality and freedom as a guiding force behind the republic could not be fulfilled as long as the Indian society was mired in prejudice and discrimination whether on the basis of caste or of gender.

With this in view, various laws were enacted which on one hand dealt severely with any incidence of discrimination and on the other hand provided affirmative action to victims of discrimination.

And yet even after more than 50 years of laws, what has been achieved in the way of the goal is hadly impressive. Granted it was always a difficult task considering the diverse nature and deep roots of prejudice, still the continuing oppression does raise questions whether the way is a correct one or a sufficient one.

I think solely relying on state to reform society was a mistake.

My contention is not their should not be the laws against caste oppression & discrimination, but that there is something rotten within the society and some kind of reform is required
It can not be accomplished by state, for the reason that while the laws may be written by enlightened individuals , state is a reflection of society. In that case, may be it is unreasonable to expect state as the sole agency of change.

Same can be argued for failure of anti- dowry laws.

The complaint that this law is abused can not be justified with the incidents of atrocities.
As an analogy the complaint that police routinely abuse IPC can not be countered by quoting incident of crimes. However I will broadly agree with need for specific laws against caste oppression.

And yet there is one aspect of dalit activism, which disappoints me. Whether supporting reservation or laws, anyone belonging to the upper caste is presumed guilty beforehand, in other words it reinforces caste identities, in effect ensuring that caste discrimination remains.

Also the fact that it was not members of upper caste who committed the crime (ref. Shivam's post) that how the problem of caste based discrimination is more complicated than a upper caste against backward caste/scheduled caste that it is made to be. Case in point TamilNadu where even though it has been more than 40 years since Dravidian parties came to the power discrimination against Scheduled caste, often by powerful backward castes continues. In UP and Bihar also the oppressor and oppressed change from place to place. Somewhere it is Rajpoot vs Yadav in other places it is Yadav vs. Dalit. A recent phenomenon that I observed was that in Bihar many persons belonging to middle class (mostly upper caste) have dropped their surname due to fear of discrimination.

I think in addition to social prejudice , there is also economic factors, as in rural India, it is the landed gentry which dominates. I have not yet read upon land reform so I can not comment on the way to resolve this.