Scheduled caste
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs, Adivasi) are Indian communities that are accorded special status by the Constitution of India.
These communities were considered "outcastes", and were excluded from the Chaturvarna system that was the descriptive social superstructure of Hindu society in the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years. These communities had traditionally been relegated to the most menial labour with no possibility of upward mobility, and subject to extensive social disadvantage and exclusion, in comparison to the wider community. The Scheduled Tribes were unable to participate in the community life of the Indian Society and were thus deprived of any opportunity for integration with the rest of the society and corresponding opportunities for educational, social and economic growth. The scheduled-caste peoples are also known as Dalits; scheduled-tribe people are also referred to as Adivasis. Gandhi used the terms Harijan and Girijan respectively.
[edit] History
The disadvantage faced by such a large section of Hindu society (SCs/STs together comprise over 24% of India's population, with SC at over 16% and ST over 8% as per the 2001 census; this proportion has remained fairly stable for many decades) was not lost on everyone. Starting with the Christian missionaries and other Indian visionaries, the problems began to be brought out into open discourse as early as the 1850s. At this time these communities were loosely referred to as the Depressed Classes.
The early part of the 20th century saw a flurry of activity by the British Raj, at the insistence of the Indian reformists, to assess the feasibility of responsible self-government in India. The Morley-Minto Reforms Report, Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms Report, and the Simon Commission were some of the initiatives that happened in this context. The Maharaja of Kolhapur, aggressively promoted the cause of the depressed classes, demanding special representation in local and legislative bodies and led an agitation preceding the Montague-Chelmsford reforms. He argued this was necessary: "To prevent Home Rule from culminating in oligarchy, we must have communal representation at least for ten years. It will teach us what our rights are."
This was also the time when the Depressed Classes had a politically and intellectually capable leader to champion their cause, in the form of B. R. Ambedkar. One of the hotly contested issues in the proposed reforms was the topic of reservation of seats for the Depressed Classes in provincial and central legislatures.
In 1935, the British passed The Government of India Act 1935, designed to give Indian provinces greater self-rule and set up a national federal structure. Reservation of seats for the Depressed Classes was incorporated into the act, which went into force in 1937. The Act brought the term "Scheduled Castes" into use, and defined the group as including "such castes, races or tribes or parts of groups within castes, races or tribes, which appear to His Majesty in Council to correspond to the classes of persons formerly known as the 'Depressed Classes', as His Majesty in Council may prefer." This decidedly vague definition was clarified in The Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1936 which contained a list, or Schedule, of castes throughout the British provinces.
After independence, the Constituent Assembly accepted the existent definition of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and gave (via articles 341, 342) the president and governors the responsibility to compile a full listing of castes and tribes, and also the power to edit it later as required. The actual complete listing of castes and tribes was made via two orders The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, and The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 respectively.
[edit] See also
- List of Scheduled Tribes in India
- Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
- Forward caste
- Backward caste
- Other Backward Classes
- List of lower-caste Hindu saints
- List of lower-caste Indian warriors
[edit] External links
- GLORIOUS CONTRIBUTION BY ‘BACKWARD CLASSES’ TO HINDUISM & INDIA - an article by a Backward-caste Hindu, N. Nirakar
- Hindu Deities, Sages and Saints Who were not Brahmins
- The Vedic Class System
- Bhakti as Protest
- Anti-Caste Information Page On caste, communalism, and class struggle.
