The late French philosopher, sociologist and anthropologist, Pierre Bourdieu, while observing the ways that social actions interact to produce differences in our society, pointed out that at times “social magic can transform people by telling them that they are different,” thus creating differences between people even when there might be none.
Telling a student in Delhi University that he/she has secured a place in the first division because he/she scored 60 percent while his/her friend, who got 59.5 percent, has the less exalted status of a second division, creates a difference between them even when there might not be slightest difference in academic calibre.
After a gap of 80 years, the government has allowed the Ministry of Home Affairs to include caste as a field in census forms. The last caste-based census was conducted in 1931. The critics of this move echo thoughts similar to Bourdieu’s: that by forcing people to identify themselves on the basis of their castes, we might create societal rifts, when an official validation of such classification would best be avoided.
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