For my third research piece, I read a paper titled “Rule of Law, Rule of Life: Caste, Democracy, and the Courts in India”. This article talks heavily about some of the problems with India’s democracy. It goes into detail about some social forces that make a true democracy impossible. Social campaigns are forced to speak different messages to different peoples in order to have a chance at winning elections because of the vastly different mindsets between castes. The article says that in order for India “to achieve complete inner unity, it is necessary that...caste should be killed and effaced”. Without a united mindset that can all be appealed to in the same way, there is no way for a democracy to work across the country. We have seen India unite together under one common cause before; “To create Pakistan, all that was necessary, was “purity of intention and cleansing of the hear,” leaving “greed” and “fear”-along with “biradaris, tribes, personal animosities and rivalries” - behind.
I believe that this unification of caste must start from the top down. The government needs to, by any means necessary, eliminate legal caste discrimination and ensure that caste does not play a role in judicial rulings. This article speaks a lot about the judicial rulings, and how these are affected by caste. The judge has to address both the issue of how to properly defend the law in any situation, and also how to make sure that caste discrimination is not coming into play.
Matthew
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