The recent judgement of the Supreme Court that only Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists can be recognized as scheduled castes and that conversion/reversion to Islam or Christianity will erode that status has opened a fundamental debate on where scheduled caste identity really is in India. It is imperative to note that this classification was created to deal with centuries of social and economic oppression, not to reward any particular religious identity. However, when the law puts restrictions on caste-based protection along religious affiliation lines, it risks becoming a religious gatekeeper that divides people who share the same history of marginalization on the sole basis of religious belief.
This approach not only misunderstands the original intent and spirit of affirmative action but also increases the marginalization of Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians who are already at a disadvantage in the sharing of basic facilities and opportunities.
Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians are often the most marginalized sections of their own communities and the larger social fabric of the country. The number of Dalit Christians is reliably estimated to be around 15-20 million (i.e., around 60-70% of the total Christian population of ~27-28 million in India as per Census trends of 2011 data).
They live in segregated habitations with limited access to clean water, sanitation, electricity, and housing. In rural India, they are found in large numbers in the lowest rungs of the informal sector, often as landless laborers, manual scavengers, rickshaw pullers, or low-paid domestic workers. Their children are more likely to drop out of school at an early age, attend poorly resourced schools in their neighborhoods, or be forced into informal or menial work at a young age. In villages, Dalit Muslims and Christians are often the last in line to access public services such as ration shops or vaccination drives. This disadvantaged position does not disappear even when they convert. Moreover, it is often compounded by the fact that they are not covered by any formal mechanism of caste-based protection.
Dalit Muslims face similar or even higher levels of consumption expenditure and landlessness. The interpretation of the Supreme Court that conversion to Islam or Christianity renders an SC irrelevant, in a way, adds another dimension of exclusion to an already vulnerable life. A Dalit Muslim or a Dalit Christian who converts to another religion not only forfeits the chance of SC reservation in government jobs, higher education, and political participation, but also renders any claim of backwardness on the basis of caste irrelevant in law, even if his socio-economic status is the same as that of his Hindu SC relatives.
This implies that while their Hindu SC counterparts may enjoy access to reserved seats, scholarships, and development programs, they are forced to contend without these advantages, even as they emerge from the same context of deprivation. In the sphere of education, this may mean fewer chances to pursue professional courses; in employment, it may mean continued dependence on informal and low-wage work; and in the sphere of local politics, it may mean under-representation in key bodies that control resources and set development agendas.
This impact is even more critical when we discuss the issue of protection against violence and discrimination. If a Dalit Muslim or a Dalit Christian is attacked, humiliated, or socially boycotted on the basis of his or her caste identity, the law does not allow him or her to approach the SC/ST Act for relief; rather, he or she has to rely on general criminal laws that do not provide the same level of investigation and higher penalties for caste violence.
Moreover, such a judgment also overlooks the fact that caste-like hierarchies still exist in Muslim and Christian societies, especially in rural areas of India. There is no special treatment or protection provided to such people who are subjected to such social hierarchies and discriminations merely because they belong to a Muslim or Christian community.
The idea behind the Scheduled Caste concept was to elevate the most disadvantaged sections in society, irrespective of their religion. The Constitution Order of 1950, concerning Scheduled Castes, was made in keeping with the demographic and political situation of the time. However, it did not imply that caste oppression ceases to exist when a person converts his religion. Caste is a social construct, evident in the distribution of landholdings, access to education and healthcare, and social encounters of respect or disrespect.
A Dalit Muslim in a village or a Dalit Christian in a town may be considered socially “low-caste” by the dominant castes, despite their religious identity being different from the dominant castes. However, under the new law, they are not given the same constitutional recognition as their Hindu-SC counterparts, despite their social conditions, which include overcrowded homes, underfunded schools, and inadequate healthcare, being remarkably similar, if not worse.
Studies based on the analysis of data from the NFHS have shown that the health risks of Dalit Muslim and Christian (minority caste) women are higher, with a likelihood of being 1.13 times more likely to suffer from hypertension and 1.19 times more likely to suffer from diabetes compared to Hindu Dalit (Hindu Backward Scheduled) women.
The recognition of caste disadvantagement even among religions, at least in the domain of anti-atrocity and protection legislation, would ensure that Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians are not excluded from important protections when they need them most. An evaluation of the interrelationship between religion and SC status would allow the law to make a clear distinction between religion and social history and prevent conversion from automatically removing protections associated with inherited disadvantagement.
A parliamentary or constitutional mechanism such as a review of the Scheduled Castes Order, 1950, may take account of the fact that caste goes with people, not just particular religion, and discrimination does not disappear simply because a person changes religion.
Scheduled Castes were never meant to be a religious badge. They were meant to be badges of historical and social backwardness. The Dalit Muslims and Christians are already among the most underprivileged sections in Indian society. They suffer from poor housing, poor education, poor healthcare, and poor political representation. Do they need to be made even more underprivileged by the imposition of a legal doctrine that denies them their caste-linked identity and cuts them off from the main constitutional avenues of upliftment? If the Constitution needs to be made to protect the weakest, it needs to be made to do so on the basis of social conditions and not on the basis of the names given to religious faith.
