Dear Friends ! Namaste.. Vasanthamegham is a telugu website.. It is a literary, political and economic fortnightly.. An interview regarding our children's No Religion No Caste Option issue published in their issue Dated 4th September, 2022.
My Interview in telugu is translated into English by My Friend, Writer and Translator - P. Aravinda of Hyderabad.
Interview telugu version - Click this link of Vasanthamegham - https://vasanthamegham.com/%e0%b0%ae%e0%b0%a4-%e0%b0%b0%e0%b0%b9%e0%b0%bf%e0%b0%a4-%e0%b0%95%e0%b1%81%e0%b0%b2-%e0%b0%b0%e0%b0%b9%e0%b0%bf%e0%b0%a4-%e0%b0%85%e0%b0%b8%e0%b1%8d%e0%b0%a4%e0%b0%bf%e0%b0%a4%e0%b1%8d%e0%b0%b5/
Interview English Version :
1.How did the thought of “No Religion, No Caste” come to your mind?
Ans: Your question is small …. However, there is a long journey behind this endeavor. There is the struggle of my / our life behind this thought. So, I have to talk a little about my background. I will try to make it brief. I studied up to high school, i.e. 10th class, in a village called Bondamunda in Sundargarh district of Odisha state. My father is Duvvuri Veera Venkata Satya Surya Durga Prasad Rama Rao and my mother is Yashoda. As my father was a Railway employee, We lived in Odisha for nearly 40 years till my father retired in 1998. We used to live in Railway quarters. Due to the social background in which I grew up involving my caste and religion and related traditions, I had firsthand experience of the notions of purity and pollution and untouchability. I was very uncomfortable with all such things but did not know how to resist them. I came to my grandmother’s village Peddapuram in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh for my Intermediate course. I failed to get a seat in M.P.C (Maths, Physics, Chemistry) in SRVBSJB Maharani College, so I joined in Bi.P.C (Biology, Physics, Chemistry). There, I made friendship with Mohammed Ibrahim and through him I got introduced to progressive literature, Marxist and Communist ideology. It is that ideology which protected me from erroneous, casteist behaviors such as declaring “even if I am poor in material sense, I am not poor in my caste”. The book “Memoirs” written by Shiv Verma introduced me to the lives of the martyred freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, Sukhdev and Rajguru. Their courage and willingness to sacrifice their lives for the sake of people’s freedom and liberty made a deep impression on me. Sri Sri’s Mahaprasthanam, Chalam’s writings, Alex Haley’s Roots, Jack London’s Iron Heel, Raavi Sastry’s Aaru saara kathalu and many other books that I read changed my way of thinking. After Intermediate, I studied B.Sc in P R Govt College in Kakinada and wrote EAMCET exam three times in an attempt to get into medicine. In the third attempt, I got a seat in B.Sc Agriculture and so I joined Bapatla Agriculture College. My thoughts in a progressive direction continued as a result of my friendship with Uma Sankar in B.Sc Agriculture. There used to be caste based friendships and groups in Bapatla Agriculture College. As Uma Sankar and I came from different social backgrounds, there were obstacles to our friendship in Bapatla. Therefore, both of us opted for transfer to Rajendranagar Agriculture College in Hyderabad. In Hyderabad Agriculture College, I got introduced to progressive student politics and revolutionary politics through friends. These friends are mostly from Dalit and Bahujan backgrounds, and they had a strong influence on me. I was always pained by the humiliation heaped on human beings in the name of caste and religion. I tried to understand the notions and underlying causes of untouchability and social hierarchies by reading social reformers such as Dr B R Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule and Periyar. I understood that change is not possible without fighting against the feudal Hindu Brahminical ideology and caste arrogance. I realized that every one of us must fight in our own ways against the existing system if we want to change it.
Due to the financial problems at home and my father’s health condition, I took up a marketing job in Dhanuka Pesticides Company after completing B.Sc Agriculture, without trying to get into post graduate course. After working in that company for two years I quit the job, partly due to a certain amount of ecological consciousness and partly due to a sense of guilt that I was deceiving the farmers by encouraging them to buy unnecessary pesticides. Some of my friends also encouraged me to leave that job. After that, I joined as a program officer for an organic farming program being run by a Hyderabad based NGO, Center for World Solidarity. Ms. Clarance was my colleague there. Over time, we became friends and slowly our friendship turned to love and subsequently we got married. Ours was a inter-religious and inter-caste marriage. My parents and brothers were very unhappy and uncomfortable with my marriage and quarreled with me. After some time, they adjusted to the situation. We got married in Hyderabad on October 17th 2000 in a simple stage marriage without any pomp and needless expenses. Varavara Rao garu and Hemakka acted as the elders from my side. The then President of Kula Nirmoolana Porata Samiti Prof Satyanarayana, some more friends and leaders of mass organizations were present for the ceremony. On Clarance’s side, her father Saladi Krupanandam (her mother Potti Clara Catherine passed away in 1999), her uncle Talluri Paul Ramarao, sister Karuna Ranjani, brother-in-law Dr Vara Venkatarao and some more relatives and friends attended the marriage ceremony. We did not follow the customs of any religion or caste as part of our marriage ceremony. We became one with just the warm wishes of the elders and friends from both sides. In this city of Bhagyanagar, which is a symbol of love, and hosts an aggregation of people belonging to different regions, languages, cultures and beliefs, our love story is one among the many fragments of life.
We changed jobs due to various reasons and needs. Due to our inter-caste and inter-religious marriage, we faced caste and religion based discrimination in many forms when looking for rental accommodation in this high-tech city of Hyderabad too. We have two children, we named them Spandana and Sahaja. Keeping in mind our different social backgrounds, we gave our children both our last names. Even though Clarance is a believing Christian and I am an atheist, we decided not to force our beliefs on our children. We thought we should give freedom to the children to decide on their belief system once they are 18 years of age, i.e. when they legally become adults.
But, things don’t work as per our wishes, right? There should be corresponding favorable institutional conditions too in the society, right? When such conditions do not exist, our wishes bring forth new democratic aspirations in the society. We didn’t have to fill in details of religion in the school form for our elder daughter. But, when we went to admit our younger daughter in another school in 2009 November / December, they insisted that we should fill out the column for “Religion” in the school application. Clarance called me immediately from the school and informed me of this. I told her we need to think and decide, so I asked her to come back home without filling anything. Subsequently, I talked to the school Principal regarding our marriage and our decision to bring up the children free of any religious or caste based traditions. However, she said it is mandatory to write the father’s or mother’s religion as the child’s in the application form. Alternately, she asked us to get Government orders waiving such a requirement. She also said that if all the details are not given, there could be some issues in the future such as when taking TC from the school. Thus our long struggle against caste and religion started. We met the DEO, Commissioner of Education and the State Human Rights Commission on this issue but with no result.
Then we filed a petition on this aspect in the combined Andhra Pradesh High Court with the help of our friend and APCLC leader D Suresh Kumar. On April 24th 2010, the then High Court Judge C V Nagarjuna Reddy ruled that “Right to religion means , Right not to have any Religion too” and gave interim orders not to pressurize the petitioners, i.e. us, to specify a religion and not to refuse to give admission on that basis. Thus, we got some support for our fight. On that basis, we filled in “No Religion, No Caste” in the application and admitted our younger daughter Sahaja in school. In 2017, we took our elder daughter’s TC from school without specifying religion or caste. But, when filling in the online application for Intermediate, there was no option to specify “No Religion, No Caste”. So, we had to fight for this at every step. In 2017, we filed a Public Interest Litigation petition in Telangana High Court demanding a separate identity of “No Religion, No Caste” in various forms. D Suresh Kumar only handled this PIL for us. In parallel, we started an online petition on this in change.org ( No Religion No Caste Change dot org Online Petition ). By August 30th 2022, this petition garnered 55,394 signatures. Among those who signed the petition, there are people from both Telugu states, from different states in the country, NRIs and even foreigners. The organization Democratic Teachers Federation (DTF) also impleaded itself in our PIL. The final judgment on our PIL 66/2017 is yet to be pronounced. In the meanwhile, we took the TCs for both our daughters without any mention of religion or caste.
2.Have there been similar efforts in the past?
Ans: We are not the first ones to fight this battle. As the problem is still not solved, we will not be the last ones either. Even though this question came to the forefront multiple times, none of the governments provided answer to it.
Each school follows its own methods. Typically, there is a time crunch when applying for jobs or admissions in educational institutions which puts pressure on parents. Because of that, in most cases the father’s caste and religion is entered as that of the child. Even though some people tried something different at a personal level, they remained as personal matters but did not transform into a general policy. One thing to note is that non-religious belief is as old as religious belief. Lokayats, Charvakas and many others in our country contended with religion. In the Census too, they acknowledge six religions (Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh) and in case of people like us, they added a seventh category “Religion not Stated”. This is not correct. We aren’t people who did not state a religion, we are people who don’t follow any religion. Many Marxists, Communists, Atheists and Humanists in our country come into our category. Therefore, during the 2021 Census, it is necessary to give recognition to another identity which is “No Religion, no Caste”. One inspiring thing in this context is the fact that Sneha from Tirupattur in Tamilnadu obtained a “No Religion, no Caste” certificate from the MRO in 2019 after a 9 year long personal struggle. Similarly, a couple from Telangana - David and Rupa – requested Kothapet Municipality to give their son Ivan Rude’s birth certificate without a mention of religion and caste. The officials there rejected their request. So, they also filed a writ petition on that in Telangana High Court and are awaiting the judgment. Their son recently completed 3 years. As his birth certificate and Aadhar are still not ready, they explained their problem to the school management, got some time relaxation from them and admitted him in the school. So, there are many people in our country fighting for a no religion, no caste identity. On August 12th 2022, Kerala High Court Judge V G Arun ordered Kerala government to identify deserving candidates under the EWS quota from among the candidates who claimed no religion, no caste and apply the reservation to them. This is a good development. All such aspects add strength to our struggle.
3.As far as the depressed castes are concerned, there is an aspect of self-respect in the declaration of their caste. It is also proven that reservations are a minor means of attaining social equality. Given these aspects, how do you justify the “No religion, no caste” certificate for your children?
Ans: What you said is true. Today in our country, the declaration of their caste has come forth as a sign of self-respect for the depressed castes. Reservations are useful to a certain extent in achieving social equality in education and jobs (especially in public sector). The ruling classes are using identity consciousness to further their electoral politics. Coming to our struggle, what we are asking for is not at all against the reservation system. In fact, many of our Dalit and Bahujan friends encouraged us in this endeavor. They said they would also like to follow us in declaring their identity as “No religion, no caste”. Our Dalit friend Suvarna Kumar, who is a journalist, not only gave us strong encouragement, but he also gave up his reservation. When I asked him why he gave up the reservation that came as a right to depressed castes in order to provide social resolution to the caste oppression of generations, he said that he felt he didn’t need reservation given his conditions and his quota will be useful to someone else who really need that reservation. I felt very encouraged by his words. He also said that people like us, who have nothing to lose (e.g. reservation), should come forward to fight for people’s rights. I told him then that people like me who come from upper castes should fight against ourselves in order to rid ourselves of dominant caste arrogance. I think this sort of consciousness is necessary to de-castify ourselves. As much as social reservations are justified, allowing a “No religion, no caste” identity to those who seek it for various reasons is equally justified and democratic. Just as a toll free number is provided to give up gas subsidy or any other government scheme, all applications should carry a column for those who want to give up their religious and caste identity. Allowing such a thing will actually benefit those who avail of reservations and other government schemes. It will bring down unnecessary competition and truly deserving people will get the benefits. As dreamt by many social reformers, it will also allow true humanism to blossom beyond the limits of religion and caste.
4.What sort of questions did you encounter from your friends from the depressed castes regarding your struggle?
Ans: Some of them thought we are doing this as a sensational act for personal recognition. Some said our action is antithetical to the reservation system. But, majority of them supported our action and said that they would also like to give up their religious and caste identity. That support is the greatest moral strength for our fight.
5.In view of the fact that the questions raised are appropriate, how would you explain your fight against religion and caste?
Ans: As a science student and as someone who understood human social evolution, I see that religion and caste are about 4 or 5 thousand years old while human beings as a species have been there on the Earth for 10 lakh years (check this figure, seems incorrect). That means, there were no notions of religion and caste and corresponding divisions among human beings for 9,95,000 years. They made their appearance in the society much later. We should be able to change this situation with our conscious practice and cultural struggles. Many social reformers came up with ideas to bring about a change in society. We should bring those ideas into collective practice. We should encourage an identity for human beings beyond religion and caste. Instead of fixing identities at and by birth, if the freedom to choose one’s profession and beliefs were encouraged, change in society becomes possible. This sort of a change has been going on in the society for a while now. We see that the number of people dependent on their caste based professions is decreasing significantly. Instead, most people are opting for different means of livelihood not based on their caste. This is a good transformation. There should be proper formats to encourage the progressive changes coming in the society. People should not be coerced to remain in and conform to a particular religion or caste. When people are pulled back or prevented from making progress beyond the limits of religion and caste, it is not good for the progress of society. Our attempt at “No religion, no caste” is also a small reflection of social change. It is not against the rights of any section of people.
6.No Caste, no Religion is not your individual matter, nor is it your partner’s. This is something concerning your children. How did they respond to it? How did it impact your family? We would like to know the reactions of your relatives too.
Ans: You are right. This is not my personal fight. It is the fight of all those friends who introduced me to such progressive thoughts and consciousness. If my partner Clarance, who disregarded religion and caste to share her life with me, did not cooperate with me from a democratic perspective, this struggle would not have been possible. Even though Clarance is a believing Christian, she democratically supported my atheistic thoughts and became a co-petitioner in the PIL we filed. We both decided collectively that we should give freedom to our children to decide on their own beliefs once they become majors. If the school management allowed us to fill in anything we wanted in their form, maybe we would not have started this effort. So, we convey our thanks to the school management. This is a journey to find an answer to the question we encountered in life. This is not just our individual journey. We didn’t teach religion to our children. But, in the process of growing up, they are observing various things. We are encouraging and supporting them to understand things from a scientific and rational viewpoint. Our relatives and friends are following our journey with interest and appreciation.
7.Your children must have now reached an age where they understand why any mention of religion and caste is not needed in certificates. Prior to this, how did your children deal with religion and caste in daily life?
Ans: Our children behaved the same way with their friends regardless of their religion and caste. They maintain good friendly relations with their friends. With regard to this topic, they answer their friends’ questions scientifically to the extent of their understanding. They are pained by the attacks and violence perpetrated on the depressed castes and religious minorities by the dominant castes. They are also pained and concerned about the violence and death faced by inter-caste and inter-religious couples. They would like to see a change in this situation.
8.How did you deal with the legal complexity in this situation?
Ans: As soon as we realized that there is no scope for recognition of a religion-less, caste-less identity in our governmental policies, we knocked on the court doors by filing a writ petition in April 2010. If the government had provided a meaningful resolution to our question then itself in the light of the court’s interim orders, we wouldn’t have struggled this long on this question. Since that didn’t happen, we filed a PIL petition in 2017 during our elder daughter’s intermediate course. We are still waiting for the final judgment. In June 2022, the Telangana High Court ordered the government to respond to our PIL. If the Telangana government responds positively to our plea, our state would be the first one in the country to give recognition to people without a religion and caste. Thereby, it would give direction to other states in the country and would strengthen the secular thought included in the Constitution. It will be a meaningful conclusion to our 12 year long struggle.
9.With regard to your struggle, we think some more aspects need to be added to it. It is fine to ask for caste-less, religion-less identity. But, it is desirable to also provide identity to children based on their mother’s name and give primacy to mother’s identity over the father’s. Especially, in case of single parent, making father’s identity mandatory in official papers seems to be rather unfair. What do you think about it?
Ans: Yes. As you said, we need to democratize the codification of personal information in various official papers and forms. Mother’s name should be given primacy over the father’s name. In case of a single parent, children should be identified based on mother’s identity. Recently, they started allowing a different gender other than male and female in the forms and this is a good development. Adivasis are also demanding that their religion be recognized as a separate tribal religion. There are many such sensitive issues. They need to be discussed and resolved. Except under special conditions for receiving some governmental benefits, enumeration of religion and caste should be stopped. For a promising future, all of us should strive to truly eliminate social disparities.
10.What sort of support did you get from your friends for your struggle? Or, did you face any opposition from them?
Ans: Starting from the thinking process through to its practice, we always had the support and encouragement of our friends. Many friends from mass organizations provided support to us. They shared their thoughts and experiences with us and assured us of their help any time. They signed our online petition and also shared 12,660 times among their circles to gather additional signatures. This is not a routine matter. Many newspapers, monthly magazines and web magazines covered our struggle. Many news channels and digital media too covered our issue. Among the 55000 people who signed our online petition (No Religion No Caste Change.org Online Petition), there are many poets, writers, intellectuals, democrats, activists and thinkers from various countries. Change.org Online Platform representative Ms.Namrata and their team helped to spread our message to many people. Our petition garnered not only supporting signatures but more than 2200 comments supporting and encouraging us. Innumerable people shared and appreciated our petition in Facebook and Whatsapp. We are thankful to all the people who gave us such support. However, just as there are people who support a thought, there are always people who oppose it and look at it suspiciously – that is life.
11.How do you evaluate your success in this matter from a cultural perspective?
Ans: Many people fought for a religion-less, caste-less identity. They gave creative expression to their defiant thoughts. There are great revolutionaries, reformers and democrats who even gave their lives for the establishment of a more humane society and for the advent of a new man. All those struggles provided the inspiration for our effort. However, this is a very basic thing. There are many more things that we need to achieve.
12.After this experience, what are your thoughts on struggles on the cultural front? Especially, if they are tied up with governmental policies?
Ans: Today, we need to carry on a very big struggle on the cultural front. We are living in the context of attacks being carried out on the working class by dominant castes and majoritarian religion. This situation has to be strongly countered by an alternative working class culture. We have to strive to improve scientific outlook in the society. We have to redefine the society with human being and human labour as its center. We must fulfill Gurajada’s words “all religions will cease to exist, only knowledge will remain”. We have to hold aloft the flag of humanity.