The Constitution of India does not provide a definition of the Scheduled Castes. Article 366(24) states that castes/groups notified under Article 341 shall be Scheduled Castes. However, neither Article 341 nor Article 366(24) prescribes the criteria for their identification.
The President issued the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 which nearly corresponds to the Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order 1936 notified under the Government of India Act 1935.
The Government of India Act 1935 did not define the criteria for the identification of Scheduled Castes. Clause 26(1) of the First Schedule to it defined the Scheduled Castes as castes that corresponded to the classes of persons known as the “depressed classes”:
“the scheduled castes” means such castes, races or tribes, or parts of or groups within castes, races or tribes being castes, races, tribes, parts or groups 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 specify.”
Identification of the depressed classes
In 1916, the definition of the depressed classes was raised in the Indian Legislative Council. It was suggested during the discussion that the expression should include criminal and wandering tribes, aboriginal tribes and untouchables.
In 1917, Sir Henry Sharp, the Education Commissioner, prepared a list of depressed classes which included the aboriginal or hill tribes, depressed classes and criminal tribes. While preparing the list, Sir Henry stated that depressed classes “[…] includes communities which though not absolutely outside the pale of caste, are backward and educationally poor and despised and also certain classes of Muslims. Some have interpreted it as simply educationally backward”.
In 1919, the Southborough Franchise Committee adopted the test of untouchability to define the depressed class. The Indian Franchise Committee 1932, inter alia, was appointed to ascertain if a separate electorate must be provided to the depressed classes. The Committee also had to arrive at a definition of “depressed classes”. The Committee interpreted the phrase “depressed classes” as the ‘untouchability class’, that is, the class whose touch or approach is deemed to cause pollution as it exists in the United Provinces.
The report stated that the depressed classes “should not include primitive or aboriginal tribes nor should it include those Hindus who are only economically poor and in other ways backward but are not regarded as untouchables.” The Committee accepted the tests of untouchability formulated by Hutton. Hutton had submitted a Census Report in 1931 by which depressed castes were defined as castes, contact with whom requires purification. The instruction which was given to determine if the caste is an untouchable caste was as follows:
“I have explained depressed castes as castes, contact with whom entails purification on the part of high caste Hindus. It is not intended that the term should have any reference to occupation as such but to those castes which by reason of their traditional position in Hindu society are denied access to temples, for instance, or have to use separate wells or are not allowed to sit inside a school but have to remain outside or which suffer similar social disabilities. These disabilities vary in different parts of India being much more severe in the south of India than elsewhere.”
Test to Determine Untouchability
The following tests were directed to be considered to determine if the caste faces untouchability:
a. Whether the caste or class in question can be served by clean Brahmans;
b. Whether the caste or class in question can be served by the barbers, water-carriers, tailors, etc., who serve the caste Hindus;
c. Whether the caste in question pollutes a high caste Hindu by contact or by proximity;
d. Whether the caste or class in question is one from whose hands a caste Hindu can take water;
e. Whether the caste or class in question is debarred from using public conveniences such as, roads, ferries, wells, or schools;
f. Whether the caste or class in question is debarred from the use of Hindu temples;
g. Whether in ordinary social intercourse, a well-educated member of a caste or class in question will be treated as an equal by high caste men of the same educational qualifications;
h. Whether the caste or class in question is merely depressed on account of its own ignorance, illiteracy or poverty and but for that would be subject to no social disability; and
i. Whether it is depressed on account of the occupation followed and whether but for that occupation it would be subject to no social disability.
Though the test that was proposed to be used was that of untouchability, the criteria above and in particular, criteria (f), (g) and (h) indicate that other forms of social disability which cannot be strictly confined to untouchability were also considered. The report recognized that there may be a variance in the degree of restrictions based on the degree of untouchability. For example, a few castes may have been denied entry to a temple as compared to castes which were denied entry to the inner sanctuary of the temple.
The Note submitted by Assam casts light upon the heterogeneity amongst the castes which face untouchability. The Note states that untouchability as it existed in Madras, where an untouchable’s touch necessitated immediate purification, did not exist in Assam. Mr Maullan, the Census Superintendent in Assam defined the depressed class (which he termed as “exterior castes”) as castes whose water is not acceptable and in addition are so deficient in education, wealth, influence, or for some reason connected with their traditional occupations which prevents them from acquiring any further social privileges.
The Superintendent further noted that there are influential and wealthy castes even among the jal-achals (that is, those whose water was not acceptable). The note also distinguished the untouchability that certain castes faced from other untouchable castes:
189 “The exterior castes themselves are, however, guilty of similar treatment to each other and an exterior caste which considers itself to be on a higher social level than another exterior caste adopts exactly the same attitude as the higher castes do towards the exterior castes. A recent case in Sunamganj illustrates this point. The local ferryman there (a patni by caste) was prosecuted for refusing to row a Muchi and that it has always been the practice, if a Muchi wanted to cross the river, for the paddle to be given to him so that he could row himself across.”
The Note of the Superintendent of Assam on Mahars further elucidated the point that there was no “uniformity” in the untouchability faced by members of various castes. The Note explained that Mahars were included in the list of depressed class though they were jal-chal in the limited sense in as much as a man of the forward caste “can smoke huka filled with water by a Mahar”. They were included because they were untouchables with respect to everything but for smoking requirements and they were a socially and educationally backward community:
“I have made close and careful enquiries and there is a general consensus of opinion that the Mahars are not jal-chal and are a depressed class. The story of Raja Subid Narayan making them jal-chal for smoking requirements only, seems to be true. If the Mahars are at all jal-chal, they are jalchal only in the sense that a man of the higher caste can smoke a huka filled with water by a Mahara. There is not a single graduate among the Maharas in this subdivision and not even a single matriculate can be found. The deputy Inspector of Schools reports that the only educated Maharas he has met in the whole subdivision are three persons working as Vernacular teachers in Primary and Middle English Schools. So the Maharas are depressed both socially and educationally.
The list prepared by Madras noted that castes to whom the “technical stigma of untouchability” does not apply, had been excluded from the list. This approach when juxtaposed with the approach adopted by Assam, varies with respect to the stringency of the untouchability standard employed. It is evident that there is no one “form” of untouchability. Untouchability, like other forms of social disability differs in degree and severity.
Based on the tests for identifying untouchability laid down by Hutton, the Provincial Committee prepared the provincial estimates of depressed classes. In Madras, Bombay and the Central Province, there was a general agreement between the Provincial Committees and the Local Governments on the estimate of the depressed classes because the distinction between the depressed and other classes of the Hindu Communities was clearly defined. On the other hand, the States of Bihar, Orissa and Assam while stipulating the castes which faced untouchability observed that untouchability in the States did not exist in the same form as it existed in South India.
Mr SB Rambe, Mr CY Chintamani and Mr RR Bakhale submitted a note of dissent, inter alia, on the depressed classes in which they claim that the tests for untouchability were not applied with uniformity. They observed that untouchability only existed in Madras, Bombay and the Central Province. They claimed that in other states, untouchability was not an adjunct of a person but the occupation that they pursued and thus, those castes should not have been included in the list of the depressed classes.
Dr B R Ambedkar on depressed classes
It is here that the Note submitted by Dr B R Ambedkar on depressed classes is of particular importance for it encapsulates the heterogeneity within the castes which suffer untouchability.
Dr B R Ambedkar highlighted that applying a uniform criterion to identify the depressed class would be inappropriate. Dr Ambedkar observed that the differences in the tests of untouchability do not indicate differences in the conditions of the untouchables because the notion underlying both the standards would be the same, that it is below the dignity to interact or touch persons of certain castes. He observed that the difference in the rigidity with which untouchability is practiced does not eliminate the notion of such a practice.
This indicates that the depressed classes were identified based on the notion of untouchability and not in the literal sense of the term. The effect of adopting the notional and not the literal test is that the social condition of all the castes included within the depressed classes is not uniform. Though the Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order 1936 did not exactly correspond to the List published by Hutton or the Provincial Franchise Committees, the inclusions and exclusions to the list broadly matched.
The heterogeneity within the class is also evident from the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 where certain castes are notified as the Scheduled Castes in specific localities. For example, in the State of Madhya Pradesh, of the twenty-five castes, only nine are Scheduled Castes throughout the State. The criteria used to identify the Scheduled Castes itself indicates that the endeavor was not to include all castes that suffered from identical forms of untouchability. Thus, the Scheduled Castes are not a homogenous class.
Reference
State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (2024)