Taken from a X post.
India is haunted by an ancient Asura.
It lives inside our homes.
Marriage halls.
Classrooms.
Government offices.
It doesn't merely divide India.
It can burn this country to rubble.
So why haven't we killed it?
Because after Independence, we gave it a boon.
A reason to survive.
A reason to remain politically valuable.
The Asura was “caste.”
The boon was “reservation.”
First, understand the name.
“Caste” wasn't an Indian word.
It came from Portuguese.
Casta.
India spoke of Varna and Jati.
Krishna speaks of four Varnas.
Based on Guna and Karma.
Nature, qualities and work mattered.
Then came the British.
They needed India in boxes.
Census.
Classification.
Hierarchy.
Records.
Local identities became fixed categories.
Birth became paperwork.
Paperwork became destiny.
By 1901, the Asura had found a permanent address inside the State.
Then something strange happened.
We kept fighting caste by making caste harder to escape.
1931.
The last British full caste census.
1948.
Ambedkar warned.
Reservation must remain a minority.
1955.
Kaka Kalelkar warned his own remedy could become “worse than the evil.”
1961.
Nehru wrote:
“Reservations at the cost of merit are bad.”
India kept walking.
1979.
Mandal Commission.
1980.
The report arrived.
1989.
Rajiv Gandhi's government passed the SC/ST Atrocities Act.
1990.
V.P. Singh brought it into force.
His government had BJP and Left support.
Then came August.
Mandal exploded.
27% OBC reservation.
India burned.
Students self-immolated.
The wheel never turned back.
1995.
New Atrocities Rules.
2015.
Modi strengthened it further.
More offences added.
2016.
The tougher law took effect.
2018.
The Supreme Court added safeguards.
Modi Goverment reversed them within months.
2019.
The Court itself recalled those safeguards.
Meanwhile, the lists grew.
SC.
ST.
OBC.
More communities wanted in.
Between 2014 and 2024, 117 communities entered ST lists.
Then another shock.
2018.
97% of OBC quota benefits went to under 25% of OBC communities.
983 communities got nothing.
Decades passed.
Yet the queue grew.
Not to leave the system.
To enter it.
India had entered a policy lock-in.
Remove it.
Risk an explosion.
Expand it.
Make caste more valuable.
Every government inherits the trap.
Every government fears touching it.
Meanwhile, Viksit Bharat was promised.
Development.
Opportunity.
Aspiration.
But the old machinery grew stronger.
What use are new highways if merit takes the first flight out?
What use are IITs, IIMs and AIIMS if effort feels secondary to birth?
A child chooses neither surname nor caste.
Yet a label at birth can follow them for life.
We speak of changing destiny.
Then give destiny's pen to the label at birth.
Want to know about Bharat's ancient civilizational viewpoint?
Read here.
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