Note: This is an attempt at satire, and any effort to feel offended will be met with willful ignorance and a general lack of interest.
We have a very deeply prevalent caste system in the country. But the chances are you think it was a matter of the past. Well, that’s because you were never taught about it at school for some very important reasons.
1. Kids should never realise that their grandparents were deeply flawed individuals and their parents most likely have inherited the legacy.
2. What’s the point of teaching children about systemic oppression when you are the oppressor yourself?
3. Why do we even need to learn about caste? Dalits don’t go to schools. Wait, do they?
4. Who is going to explain to my kid when he grows up that he didn’t get into his favourite college because he’s just a dumba** and not because of caste-based reservation?
5. Children might get radical and stop asking other kids their last names to confirm their caste status so that they could just be kids without prejudice.
6. India actually has no marginalised people, no caste atrocities. In fact, the people of this country have never made a single mistake ever.
8. Casteism was a British thing and it went with the British. It’s true.
9. Upper caste people know what they are doing. They must, for they have been doing it for about 3,500 years.
10. If we teach caste and the history of caste atrocities, kids might be interested in reading history. Fir IIT kaun jaaega?
11. What if the kid comes home and offers the house help food in the same utensils as us?
12. Kids just aren’t ready to read about murders, rapes, pillages, plunders, land grabbing, segregation, racism etc.
13. If the kid starts empathising with the Dalit boy who got stabbed for growing a moustache, he might grow up and apply for JNU.
14. Our kids are just too f***ing stupid.
15. Arey JEE Mains mein aaega kya question? Kyun padhna hai?
16. We are worried that the child will find out that their parents misbehave with the garbage guy because he’s from a ‘lower caste’.
17. Teaching about the caste system in schools will make the curriculum too heavy, which would affect Earth’s gravity, slowing down its revolution around the sun.
18. Agar shaadi wagera mein pandit ko call out kar dia toh?
19. Teachers will have to actually read the curriculum.
20. What if the kid grows up to be a software engineer and then obviously tries to do stand up comedy but now can’t crack reservation jokes because they’re, well, educated?
21. What if the child realises that Sardar Udham Marxist bhi the aur Dalit bhi? Bada hoke kaise deshbhakt banega aise environment mein aise examples ke saath?
22. The President is Dalit. We have already solved casteism.
23. What if the kid realises that every time parents say someone is from ache ghar se, they mean upper-caste ghar se.
24. What if he reads about thousands of years of oppression and feels proud to wear symbols of said oppression. We will have sociopaths on our hands.
25. Rich parents are worried that the story of how their ancestral wealth was accumulated would get printed in books.
No, seriously though, this country needs some serious re-education about caste and the atrocities committed in its name.