Nobody Likes Equality
Not many days ago I was part of a furious debate on how
religion affects nationalism in India. The debate was in a closed social media group
of mostly upper caste Hindu members from a middle-class background. Some had
families who had been affected by partition seventy-five years ago. It was
clear that the trauma of that separation continued to linger in their family,
even though these individuals had personally not been affected. On the other hand,
they had ‘successful’ lives – a good education, a respectable job, a car a home
and all the trappings of comfortable middle-class life in urban India. While cheering Indian athletes speaking different
languages, with different ethnic features and practicing religions, they were
not the least bit concerned how their views on religion were completely at odds
with the diversity that represented the country in so many spheres.
The use of the internet has grown exponentially during the Covid pandemic. It has played a life-saving function for providing information on essential and live-saving services. In my limited experience, it seems there has also been an explosion in the circulation of sexist jokes in this period. Everyday sexism or acts and statements which are disrespectful of women seem to pass muster even among women themselves as innocent fun, with few rarely objecting. It is accepted that not only are women and men are from different planets, but their value in the family and society are and should remain different. And all this is among the ‘highly educated’.
The idea of ‘equality’ is of comparatively recent origin,
barely 300 years old. It germinated during what is now known as the Age of
Enlightenment. Two books which introduced the idea of individual rights head on
were the Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, and the Vindication of Women’s Rights by
Mary Wollstonecraft. The age of enlightenment not only challenged the predominance
of ‘doctrinal’ thinking with reason, evidence, and science, but also questioned
the existing social orders based on hierarchies implicit in feudalism and
patriarchy. These ideas shook the foundations of a societal order predicated on
the justification and submission to inequality that was accepted at that time. About
seventy years after these two books Karl Marx published the multi-volume Das
Kapital challenging the inequalities of class based on the new industrial order
with evidence and reason.
While Europe was in this intellectual ferment the Indian
subcontinent was submitting to colonialism. Material resources from the subcontinent
were siphoned by off-shore traders and new hierarchies were being added to the
existing caste and feudal social order. Historians have noted that the independence
movements in India like that in the US, did not espouse the idea of ‘equality’,
as a universal principle, but were more an articulation of the desires of the ‘native’
upper class for a seat at the table of the rulers. The first Indian political party
was born from an idea promoted by a British bureaucrat among upper class Anglicised
Indians. Many years later when Independence had been achieved, the idea of
equality was enshrined in the constitution. However, it remains to be owned as
a core national principle.
From my childhood I have been lucky or unlucky for various
reasons. I lost my father when I was very young and was brought up by women. Even
though I was the older son this limited my exposure to patriarchal practices. Being
from a Brahma family which was a reform group within the larger ‘Hindu’ religion,
I was not made aware of my caste. I could happily participate in all the fun and
frolic of Durga Puja without being subject to the religious strictures. Having
chosen a professional life as an entrepreneur, I missed being part of large institutional
hierarchies. Even without these experiences I realise that I am an upper caste,
Hindu male. I am also comfortably middle-class with an elite professional
background. In other words, I cannot be considered to have faced much inequality
or unfairness. However, as I shared earlier, there are many like me who feel that
they are being unfairly treated or that the idea of equality has gone too far. They
would probably feel better if the social order was maintained in a way they
were not deprived of their dues.
In my work on social empowerment and community development I
have come to realise that equality is a philosophy and thus difficult to
understand. The feeling of unfairness or of being treated unequally compared to
some other persons or groups, is a real-life experience and is much better
understood. The challenge in much of the work around empowerment is to get the so-called
oppressed communities and groups to recognise the unfairness that they face in
their day to day lives.
In a steady state social system these social hierarchies are
rarely challenged. In systems like caste or patriarchy or race (especially in
the US) the person on the lower rung believes equally strongly in this
hierarchy and makes all efforts to maintain it. In the last seventy-five years,
this steady state has been challenged in many ways. Hitler’s pogroms opened the
eyes of the world to how racial subordination could lead to such widespread
atrocities. The idea of ‘human rights’ as being universal, or applicable to all
human beings was born. As colonies became independent, imperial hierarchies changed.
Patriarchal hierarchies were challenged as women were included as equal voters in
many countries. In India, Ambedkar repeatedly alerted the country to the many
ills of the caste system.
Through my own work in the social sector over the last thirty
years, I feel that there are two key hurdles to understanding equality. The
first is to understand that equality is not sameness. Women’s equality does not
mean that all women will necessarily behave like men. Their hair will be short
(the fear of the ‘bal katti’) they will wear pants and they will smoke and
drink. My departed mother had this fear of her potential daughter-in-law, a
fear which I am happy to share she overcame quite soon but I guess not without
some internal struggle. Equality is an acceptance of differences or diversity where
we acknowledge and respect others’ freedom to be different. But this acceptance
difference is often tinged with a fear. The fear is simple. If the other person
or group starts taking freedoms, what will happen to mine? Won’t my freedom become
compromised?
This fear of losing one’s own previously assumed freedoms is
the second and more difficult hurdle. Equality does not only mean the freedom
to choose the way one dresses or speaks or stay where they want, or who they
associate with. It also means that the many common social, economic, and
political spaces or opportunities need to be shared. If there is inequality
implicit in the social order we inhabit today, then some people have more
opportunities and occupy more space than others. If we who have been occupying
much of the space do not mentally agree to give some space, how will the other feel
emboldened to come forward? If we do not
overcome our own fear of loss, equality will be difficult to achieve.
Some of you will be wondering why I am discussing fear of loss
rather than the idea of claiming of entitlements in this discussion around
equality. There is a school of thought which holds that rights need to be fought;
they can never be given. I agree that rights are contested, but when I see
around me, I see many fights, and every fight seems to have its justification.
Its time I feel that we take a step back and review our concept of rights and
equality.
The feeling of inequality and unfairness can be very hurtful
and can evoke anger. The key strategy of rights activists has often been to raise
the sense of aspiration and entitlement and evoke this hurt and anger. Each rights
movement has created its own sense of aspiration and outrage. With a
multiplicity of movements, we probably have now entered the ‘Age of Entitlements’.
The problem that I see with this age of entitlement is that many of these aspirations
can be at cross purposes. Commentators have noted that Donald Trump signified
the aspiration of the disaffected white male, an erstwhile ‘privileged’ group, unable
to face the loss of its various assumed freedoms. In India the current
political dispensation is building its own support base among the upper caste
Hindu male building upon its anxieties around loss of social and economic
freedoms.
In the last thirty years or so, the idea of ‘intersectionality’
has become popular among those who work on gender equality and women’s rights. The
term was coined to explain the experience of the Black American Woman, who
faced multiple layers of disadvantages, and this was substantially different
from that of the White Woman. The other half of this analytic framework also indicates
that the white woman, while facing the disadvantages of gender subordination,
has the advantage of race and taken together may also have some class
advantages over her black sister. In my own work with men on gender equality I
have found that this framework is equally applicable to poor or rural men who
may not necessarily be from the upper caste.
An understanding of ‘Intersectionality’, as a mingling of privileges and disadvantages is probably the only antidote to rising fear loss of freedoms in this age of entitlements. It is true that there are many in our country who have multiple social disadvantages. They are often invisible in their informal shanties, slums and in villages and all efforts need to be made to arrange for essential services, livelihood, and dignity. However, there are also many who are in the visible space who are increasingly feeling insecure and threatened and who do not recognise the many privileges they have on their side. I received this meme where the income-tax payer is cast in the role of the ‘minority’ needing ‘reservation’ while I was writing this piece. Well-meaning people who would rarely say that they do not believe in equality, also feel that equality is being carried too far. They easily fall into this trap of feeling ‘wronged’ because they rarely make a balance sheet of their privileges and disadvantages.
Till we all make that balance sheet for ourselves, we can all
say we do not like inequality. But is the reverse necessarily true?
Very good. Its a wake up call to the entitled....
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