67 years of independence, why people still vote on caste in india..

Being raised in a cosmopolitan family where every other person was married into a different caste I never had a real exposure to the caste system in india.Though I vaguely remember that when I was little my grandmother used to tell me stories about ambedkar,she was an iyengar bhramin of kerela and my grand dad was from U.P. She used to tell me how bad she felt when as a child she saw,people who brought the harvest from their farm were supposed to beat drums when they came to their village,and all the village people were supposed to close doors and they were not even allowed to see their shadows.She said she never understood as to how the people who were feeding them were treated so badly.

Never had a real idea of cast system ,untill I was rejected from the college of my dreams for a few marks, while a friend who got lesser marks was admitted. I felt very bad that day,I never knew that she even belonged to a particular caste till that day,she had everything I had and still,she was considered to be underprivileged.

I always felt  it was wrong to give reservation, since nobody discriminated on the basis of caste anymore. I was quite convinced like most of us but later I found out that my observation was not actually correct.

I have a good friend Urmilaji ,thirty years my senior, a breast cancer survivor, she belongs to scheduled caste.I have not seen such a fierce woman in my life.She has done it all,been in jail,sat on dharnas,was a union leader,everything you can expect from a hero in some Manoj Kumar movie.While going on a road trip I got an ample opportunity to have a heart to heart to talk to her regarding the issue,what she told me was quite shocking.

She told me that when she was young  ,the scheduled caste women were not even allowed to wear gold,they were not allowed to enter particular temples,go to particular schools  and  not go near particular ponds .The village people would come to the homes even burn down their houses and take their women if they didn’t follow these rules.She also told me how at the time of wars in ancient times,the forts were closed when attacked and the farmers and scheduled caste people who lived outside the fort were left to fend for themselves.

She says ,some people still treat them very badly after knowing their caste,how her sister who is a doctor still treated in the same manner.Things have not changed in villages much even after independence.You still see such caste based crimes in villages to this day.She told me that though she never supports BSP or mayawati,the people she helps always do.Those people do not care if mayawati dosent do anything for them,they get satisfaction in seeing someone from their caste wearing so much gold and making a monument for herself.

Mayawati to this day is the only politician who could get ambekar maidan in lucknow filled in her rallies.The crowd there is not just the ones brought on busses and trains but people actually spent to see someone of their community be in that position.

When we talk of downtrodden it mostly implies to the scheduled castes and tribals of our country.People living on the footh path, farmers and poorest of the poor are mostly the ones who have been oppressed for centuries.

Due to the way they have been treated since centuries they have now got a tendency of not trusting their oppressors, since it has been imbibed in their history since centuries.This may not be real at all, only existing in their  mind,but this feeling is very powerful.

Unimaginable things happen to dalits even today in villages, they are still discriminated against, and this feeling instead of going away is getting stronger due to reservation.While some have gained a lot from reservation the real people who need reservation are still deprived.Tribal girls do not even get a chance to attend primary schools and to this day are being sold to human traffickers.But we seldom see any action from anyone on these issues.

Change will happen,it is the law of nature,but in this case it will happen at its own course.It will still take decades for Indians to vote without considering their caste, especially for those who have actually been oppressed over the centuries.