INTRODUCTION:

India is often called the world’s largest democratic country with a well-written constitution and related laws to ensure equality for all. However, one can question whether it is a democracy on paper by evaluating present human rights issues, corruption, discrimination, and poverty, thus does India fit the name of a democratic country? Due to the sheer massiveness of discrimination especially among the students over the past decades, the University Grants Commission (UGC)¹ of India has issued a circular to prevent caste-based discrimination in Higher Educational Institutions by asking them to take the following actions;

1. The officials and faculty members should not commit any act of discrimination against students on grounds of their social origin.

2. The institutions have to install a complaint box on their website (soft copy) and maintain a complaint register (hard copy) at the office for taking immediate action against untoward incidents on the campuses.

3. The institutions have to make sure that no faculty or officials should not be involvedin any social activities against students based on their origin.

4. The institutions have to create a committee to look into the discrimination complaints received from students.

Based on the above-mentioned scenarios, I opine that nursing colleges are the epitome of creating and maintaining a friendly environment for all students and employees without caste-based discrimination incidents for the past decades. The author aims to explore the background, existing barriers, and possible practices to overcome caste-based discrimination in the higher education sector by illustrating nursing as an example of evidence of success.

Concept and principles of caste-based discrimination:

Caste-based discrimination involves massive violations of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights towards the social groups at the bottom level in the caste system of India. Due to these exclusion practices in the states, the victims of caste-based discrimination are limited to access to education, employment², resources and pushing them and their families into severe poverty. One can easily argue that discrimination is pandemic across India³. It is reported that the students who choose to end their studies or lives are officially described as having personal or financial problems, which enables institutional authorities to seek legal justice against caste discrimination and violence⁴.

While keeping the above-mentioned scenario in mind, the Indian Nursing Council gives more emphasis toan uninterrupted learning environment and creating a conducive academic atmosphere for all students irrespective of their origin and background, by implementing the following principles in each nursing institution in India:

1. To ensure equity and equal opportunities for all communities

2. To cultivate the ‘we’ feeling among the diversity of the students and employees

3. To uproot the issues related to discrimination

4. To address the grievances of the weaker sections of the society

5. To disseminate the information related to schemes and programs for their welfare.

Barriers to prevent caste-based discrimination:

The severity and manifestations of caste-based discrimination vary from religion to religion, lived experience of the affected communities, and their socio-economic status⁵. The caste system of India divides the people based on their birth into a particular social group. In such cases, the marginalized status so acquired cannot be removed simply by individual merit, promotion, or achievements. Segregation and untouchability are the other main concepts that make caste-based discrimination powerful and entrenched to date. The discriminated communities are seen as polluted, impure, filthy, and lesser human beings. These characterizations, in turn, are used to justify the avoidance of a mix of pure ones with impure ones as well as their exclusion from certain occupations, worship, access to common water supply and meals and segregation in classrooms that are deemed to ‘unclean’ for others to undertake⁶.

Combating these types of caste-based discrimination involves a range of activities, including educational programs, awareness-raising initiatives to address deeply rooted traditions and public outreach campaigns for the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies with the full and effective participation of affected groups are essential.

The Practice to overcome caste-based discrimination:

The ministry of social justice and empowerment is responsible for the welfare and empowerment of disadvantaged and marginalized sections of society. They implement legislation, five-year plans, scholarship schemes, and concessional loans for educational purposes. UGC has taken several steps to curb caste-based discrimination in higher education institutions and fewer number discrimination cases (<100) were reported in the year 2017 in non-nursing colleges, which is less when compared to the previous years⁷.

Major initiatives undertaken are:

1. Strengthen Grievance addressal cell.

2. Develop equal opportunity cell.

3. Provision of Anti Discriminatory faculty in charge of counselling.

4. Student Counsellors for peer support.

5. Sports and extracurricular activities.

6. Setting up counselling centers.

7. Provision of anxiety helpline.

8. Setting up a disciplinary action committee to take urgent action in case of any complaints of reported ragging, discrimination based on caste, creed, religion, and gender, etc.

Major activities undertaken in nursing colleges are:

1. Grievance addressal cell with call helpline.

2. Equal opportunity cell with call helpline.

3. Mentor-mentee counselling programs.

4. Prevention of sexual harassment cell with call helpline.

5. Stress call helpline.

Evidence of success:

United Nations implemented the Dalit Women’s livelihood Accountability Initiative in India (DWLAI), designed to improve their socio-economic conditions by providing facilities for education and employment. It achieved mere success in economic improvement by helping them to take advantage of Indian Government programs through states and educational institutions designed to address poverty and gender equality⁸. Similarly, various initiatives are taken by the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment for monitoring the progress of implementation of schemes through states and Institutions. For example, regarding the construction of hostels by the state governments for underprivileged students, only 175 out of 200 were found working. The evaluation study on the effectiveness of the Post Matric Scholarship scheme for underprivileged students showed that only 21.60% of the students benefited to pursue higher study under the scheme and it showed less effectiveness in implementation. This report concluded with a note on the importance of public awareness programs related to Government schemes in nook and corner of India.

On the contrary, due to the successful implementation of guidelines to prevent caste-based discrimination by the UGC, only 72 cases related to descent-based discrimination in higher education institutions were reported in the year 2018, which is less than in previous years. In nursing colleges, it is seen that no discrimination cases are reported in the past few years.

CONCLUSION:

During reviewing the literature on caste-based discrimination, it is seen that there are plenty of articles available revealing the ill effects of caste discrimination. One can notice that in the reports including government programs, they call the discriminated castes backward, underprivileged, under-deprived, weaker sections, etc. When a new learner, might be a foreigner or a student, who is unaware of the caste system in India and reads these titles as ‘backward, underprivileged, under-deprived, etc’ and will learn that these groups belong to the backward section. I believe that this system of practice acts as a silent poison to corrode the integrity of equality in the younger minds of society. These types of caste labels have to be changed at first. For example, the Ministry of Human Resources and Development has renamed the word from ‘mentally retarded person’ to ‘intellectually specially-skilled person’ to promote their welfare. Similarly, it is essential to rename those caste labels into ‘Special Privileged Caste’. Thus, gradually we can erase all these taboo labels from society and I hope that we can witness an Indian education system that is free of discrimination in reality very soon.

REFERENCES:

1. UGC 2017. Prevention of Caste-Based Discrimination in Higher Education Institutions- Instruction of the UGC – Communicated for Strict Compliance – Committee Constituted | Pondicherry University. URL https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/6876644_Letter-to-VCs-CasteBasedDiscrimination-Eng.pdf. [Retrieved May 22, 2021].

2. Siddique, Zahra, Caste Based Discrimination: Evidence and Policy (December 6, 2009). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1550883 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1550883

3. Srivatsan R. Reflections on discrimination and health in India. Indian J Med Ethics. 2015 Jan-Mar;12(1):13-7. doi: 10.20529/IJME.2015.004. PMID: 25716435.

4. Komanapalli V, Rao D. The mental health impact of caste and structural inequalities in higher education in India. Transcult Psychiatry. 2021 Jun;58(3):392-403. doi: 10.1177/1363461520963862. Epub 2020 Nov 2. PMID: 33131461.

5. Sankaran S, Sekerdej M, von Hecker U. The Role of Indian Caste Identity and Caste Inconsistent Norms on Status Representation. Front Psychol. 2017 Mar 31;8:487. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00487. PMID: 28408896; PMCID: PMC5374864.

6. ForthG.Purity, Pollution, and Systems of Classification. In The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, H. Callan (Ed.), 2017.

7. Annual Reports: Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment—Government of India. 2017. Retrieved May 22, 2021, from http://socialjustice.nic.in/ViewData/?mid=76658.

8. UN Women. Dalit Women’s Livelihoods Accountability Initiative India. 2012. URL https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/media/publications/en/fgeprogrammeevaluationgenderatworkdssindia.pdf?v=1&d=20140917T100944 [Accessed on May 22 2021].

Received on 11.12.2021 Modified on 21.03.2022

Asian J. Nursing Education and Research. 2022; 12(4):413-415.

DOI: 10.52711/2349-2996.2022.00088