Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them, George Orwell said. He forgot to add Indian politicians, for they have a penchant to promote stupid ideas—and persist with them even when their absurdity and lethality become self-evident. Some such ideas are socialism, non-alignment, minimum support price, moral policing, and caste census.
The Congress is actively promoting it. Senior leader Rahul Gandhi has promised that his party, if elected to power, will conduct a caste census. In a way, this is not surprising, for he—like his mother, Sonia, who had a big say in the UPA government (2004-14)—has turned Leftward in the last few years. And, the Marxist revolution having become an abandoned dream, the Left has pinned its hopes on a new fantasy called social justice.
Social justice is the velvet drapery that conceals an ugly beast—identity politics. To be sure, no politician or intellectual in our country argues against social justice, but it is only caste-based leaders who zealously promote it. The demand for a caste census is the ruse; the basic objective is identity politics or social justice.
In the last few decades, social justice has become a holy cow—to be worshipped, with no questions about its supposed holiness. It is time to question the premises and precepts of social justice.
The concept of social justice is not new, but it became popular in the last few decades, resulting in flawed policies like caste-based reservations in India and insidious programmes like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the West. The concept gained legitimacy and prominence with the publication of A Theory of Justice (1971) by John Rawls, one of the great liberal philosophers of the 20th century. “Our concern is solely with the basic structure of society and its major institutions and therefore with the standard cases of social justice,” he wrote.
“The first statement of the two principles reads as follows. First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all,” Rawls wrote.
Thomas Sowell, one of the greatest thinkers alive, demolished social justice doctrines in his book Fallacies of Social Justice. He hit the nail on the head by highlighting the improper and misleading use of the verb ‘arrange’ in Rawls’ theory. “Rawls refers to things that society should arrange. Interior decorators arrange, governments compel. It is not a subtle distinction.”
Any practice of social justice is predicated upon compulsion and the coercive power of the State; it is essentially a statist concept, very close to socialism and communism. It would not be an exaggeration to assert that social justice is socialism through the back door.
Further, social justice, like socialism, brings misery and despair only. The facts bear this out. Bihar is the most social justice-infested state. The Bihar caste survey, which the Nitish Kumar government carried out, showed that 34.13 per cent of all families in the state earn up to Rs 6,000 per month. Every third family earns Rs 200 a day or less!
And it’s not a case of ‘privileged upper castes’ fattening at the expense of Dalits and other backward classes (OBCs). While 43 per cent of Scheduled Caste families and 42.7 per cent of Scheduled Tribes families are poor, 33.16 per cent of OBC individuals and 25.09 per cent of families in the general category (read upper castes) are poor. Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, a shipwreck drowns all.
Social justice is the name of the shipwreck that Bihar has suffered. To begin with, it has been a red herring, diverting the attention of political and intellectual elites from the real issues mentioned above like administration, law and order, and economic reforms.
Unsurprisingly, social justice warriors have played an ignominious role in exacerbating caste divisions in society and increasing the toxicity of identity politics. Since identity politics is inherently vile, it also promotes degradation, even criminalisation, of political and public life.
Social justice is said to be a great policy, but why is it that people in Bihar leave their state in droves? Even during the Khalistan militancy in Punjab in the 1980s, they would go there. The reality is that social justice does not create an egalitarian paradise but a hell for people, especially those at the bottom of the pyramid.
In essence, as also in practice, social justice is the antithesis of justice. It is unfortunate that politicians have accepted social justice as a dogma; they never even discuss its principles and incongruities. Even more unfortunate is the intellectuals’ unquestioning acceptance of the dogma. The dogmatic attitude of political and intellectual elites is worrisome.
The author is a freelance journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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