Redefining caste system in Kerala – Are you BPL or APL

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Redefining caste system in Kerala – Are you BPL or APL


Kerala is famous for its caste system. It was so horrible that even someone from India (Swami Vivekananda) called it the "lunatic asylum". Exposure to other cultures and rapid communication mechanisms improved the situation in Kerala drastically.

Yet caste based divisions are still strong. There is a strong undercurrent of both caste based and religion based politics. Take an example – Sri Narayana Guru was a visionary who realized that caste system is a plague. He said "Jaathi chothikkaruthu, parayaruthu, chinthikkaruthu" (Don’t ask, don’t talk and don’t even think about caste). But it is unfortunate that even the organization he founded is now hijacked by people who wants to spread the caste plague in our state.

Now in addition to all the caste and religion based problems, our government has now been successful in introducing a new economic based caste system. Currently it falls into two categories – APL and BPL. APL means "Above Poverty Level" and BPL means "Below Poverty Level". Now there are even proposals to create additional categories such as WBPL (Way Below Poverty Level) and WAPL (Way Above Poverty Level). Now if you thought introducing such system will eclipse caste based systems, you are wrong. It has only increased the divisions further. Now you have APL Muslim and BPL Scheduled Tribe etc.

Obviously one of the primary mandates for a government is to help who are economically backward. But this has to be done in a sensible way and a practical way. In the case of APL/BPL the objective obviously should be that in next few years, we should have zero BPL families in the state. Unfortunately this is not what is happening. Every year, BPL numbers are only increasing. Businessmen and NRIs who earn lakhs of rupees per month are also included under BPL and are given so much benefits that the families in APL are being squeezed like anything.

Governments have been increasing all types of taxation. Electricity charges, water charges, building tax etc have registered 200% to 1000% increase in last few years. Government ensures that BPL families are excluded from these rises. Which in turn affects APL families more. It has reached such a stage that these subsidies and taxes have made the living conditions of a lot of APL families to the level of BPL families. So instead of achieving merit based social progress, government actions are in some aspects turning out more poor people at the same time making a section of people lazy.
Another problem is the ridiculous level that the issue of reservation has reached. Any developed society would remove all types of reservation other than those for the physically disabled or those in dire economic conditions. But in India, we are going in the opposite direction (For example, the creamy layer was increased to 4.5lakh rupees in Kerala. This is an unfair definition but there is even demand to increase it to 7.5lakhs!!!) The following is possible future scenario in India,

A businessman sets up an administrative office. He needs to recruit 10 people for his office. According to the law of 2012 (actual scenario could be worse in the sense that there would be no general merit quota), his staff must include (the scenario is tailored for the reservation system in Kerala),

• 30% women (This 30% should follow the below rules as well)
• 20% BPL Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe
• 3% APL Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe
• 20% BPL Other Backward Classes (On rotation basis)
• 7% APL Other Backward Classes (On rotation basis)
• 10% BPL Religious Minorities (Muslims etc.)
• 2% APL Religious Minorities (Muslims etc.)
• 7% BPL General Merit
• 1% APL General Merit

Reservation was adopted after independence to give all sections of society and equal opportunity. Reservation was time bound and was supposed to be removed within 10 years of independence. However, it has grown to a monster which in long term has the potential to destroy our country.