We’ve been independent for more than 60 years now, but there are certain Indian tendencies that just refuse to fade out. The urge to assess people’s merit and often even character on the basis of their caste and sub-caste is one of them. This habit has been a part of our psyche for centuries now, for never really has India experienced a society with complete socio-economic equality, at least in the last few hundred years. It is understandable that an ignorant and illiterate potter or cobbler in the 17th century differentiated between people on the basis of their community or caste. However, educated and so-called ‘modern’ Indians in the 21st century giving so much importance to caste and its ilk is both shocking as well as saddening. And this isn’t limited to just one state or region: it is an all-encompassing, deep-rooted national ailment.

A friend, who hails from the North-East but has ‘Sharma’ as her surname, was recounting the interaction she had with a co-passenger on a train. The elderly lady asked her what her ‘full name’ was, and when she heard the ‘Sharma’, looked obviously disappointed: she assumed my friend to be a ‘North Indian’. It was much later that this girl revealed that she was Assamese, and there was a visible change on the lady’s face. Another acquaintance, a Tamil Brahmin who looks very unlike most in her family, was mistaken for a Maharashtrian in her office (a reputed newspaper down south). They gave her little or no work at all till the day she accidentally spoke a few words in Tamil, revealing her Brahmin status. There has been no dearth of work for her since then.

If we try to scratch the surface, we’ll realise that it isn’t just Raj Thackeray who thinks this way. A certain level of regionalism is present in most of us, a little more pronounced in some places than in others. It is evident in the way people look around in search of members from their community when they vacate their seat in a train. It shows in the ease with which a journalist can extract information from the local paanwalas if he speaks their language. It is painfully glaring in the obvious advantages you stand to get if you’re in a queue at the passport office or RTO and the person at the counter is from the same ethnic background as you.

But most ridiculous of all is the precision with which young men and women mark out their expectations from prospective brides and grooms. Check out any popular matrimonial website and you’ll be astonished at how ridiculously educated people look for matches strictly within their own caste and sub-caste, as if that were any guarantee of a perfect match. Confront anybody on this and they’ll say they’re just trying to ‘play safe and ensure parity in culture’. I’d like to ask, just how difficult can a Kokanastha Brahmin’s life be if he’s married off to a Deshastha girl? At a time when globalisation and shrinking horizons have resulted in a spurt of multicultural ties and interaction, aren’t we acting incredibly childish by expecting the younger generation to rely on caste and sub-caste to tell them if they’ll make a good pair? Whatever happened to good old compatibility, intellectual and otherwise, and what has that got to do with what blood you’ve been born of?
 
The problem is an oft-discussed one but has few solutions and fewer people willing to give it a deep thought. The years have rolled by and circumstances have changed, but the perspective remains the same. If education hasn’t been able to change us, only we can tell what will. Till then, be prepared to wait a little longer and pay a little more under the table if that sarkari guy at the counter is not from your community.