How Caste Hierarchy And Dalit Discrimination Has Been A Reality In Mumbai

Raju Dhabne hails from a small town in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district. Being a Dalit, he faced caste discrimination. So, while moving to Mumbai in search of employment about eight years ago, he decided to change his identity.  Dhabne, who has completed his graduation from a night school, assumed an upper caste name and paid for the documents that bore his new identity. The new surname opened many doors for him. After doing odd jobs, he found employment in an accountancy firm in Mumbai, which was run by a Gujarati family.

During the interview, the HR head, among other things, asked him which caste he belonged to. The vermillion tilak, the red rakhshasutra tied to his wrist and the upper caste surname helped Dhabne get the job. His graduation degree did not matter.

“I told them that I was a Brahmin as the firm only employed people from the upper caste,” says Dhabne. His surname granted him access to the office pantry, the pooja room in the office and the residence of his boss. He worked in the firm for about four years.

One day, another peon from the office spotted Dhabne and his family savouring non-vegetarian street food in Girgaum where the Dhabnes lived. This was reported back to the HR department. The next day, when Dhabne went to work, he was not allowed to enter. The security “interrogated” him about his caste, thrashed him, and sent him away. He needed hospitalisation for the injuries he sustained.

After this incident, Dhabne decided to retain his surname. “My family was against the idea and continues to use the upper-caste surname. I faced difficulty in finding a new job because everyone wants to know your caste,” says Dhabne, who has now started a roadside biryani stall in Bandra along with his wife.

Employers have been selective in giving jobs as there have been many instances of the SC/ST Act being misused. A woman entrepreneur, who operates a food processing unit in the Eastern suburbs of Mumbai, says: “I was once threatened by an employee who said that she would file a complaint against me under the SC/ST Act if I did not increase her salary by 75 per cent. I had to oblige and she continues to work here.”

Mumbai, one of the largest cosmopolitan cities in the world, has an underlying caste hierarchy. “Everyone thinks that Mumbai is an open-minded society. This is a myth. Caste has and continues to play an important role in corporate Mumbai,” says Jyoti Dhanvade, who has been researching on this issue for close to a decade now. “I have interacted with many HRs. Caste is central to finding employment,” she says.

In March 2015, a group of students from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) created six short documentaries that looked at the practice of caste in Mumbai through the prism of food, language, work, education, religion and marriage. Titled ‘Castemopolitan Mumbai’, these 20-30 minute long documentaries were conceived and made by 29 final year students of the Media and Cultural Studies Department at TISS.  

In 2019, a study conducted by IIM-Bangalore discovered that a large number of mergers and acquisitions in the corporate world take place between directors of the same caste. Firms seek out other companies whose directors share caste identities with their own directors. Corporate interactions tend to gravitate towards people of similar castes, the study revealed. 

Though caste politics is considered a mainstay in Mumbai, there is often a denial that it exists, says Praveen Ghag, the president of the Girni (Mill) Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti, that has continued with the 1982 mill workers’ strike and is fighting for their rights. Since no leader has called off that strike, it continues even today. Though the migratory workers who found jobs in Mumbai came from all parts of Maharashtra, the settlements of all the groups at different locations in the city depended on their caste, points out Pandharinath Sawant, a resident of the Patra Chawl in Lalbaug.

“The white-collar upper caste sahibs and their managers lived in Girgaum, while the workers lived in Lalbaug and Parel. The caste hierarchy was strong. The houses of the lower caste were located in a different area and there was segregation even within the mill complex,” says Sawant, 90, who comes from a family of mill workers and had close interactions with the caste structure in the mills. “The lower castes who migrated to Mumbai from the villages of Maharashtra to escape the ruthless caste life there found no relief in Bombay,” he says.

The working hours were long and without breaks. They were treated with no respect and dignity, says Sawant. The first of those to take up the anti-caste cudgels for the mill workers was Mahatma Jyotiba Phule (anti-caste social revolutionary) and the Satyashodak Samaj, a largely non-Dalit but oppressed section that had developed social frameworks across many parts of rural Maharashtra. They challenged the upper castes who held the mill lands, provided employment, were money lenders and kept the lower caste oppressed for generations in bonded labour. “The lower caste mill workers were like slaves. They faced all sorts of oppression,” says Sawant, whose family was “slightly better off due to their higher caste”.

There is often the denial of the existence of caste as a factor in Mumbai and also the silence that surrounds it. Spaces in Mumbai are marked by castes. There are no non-vegetarian restaurants in Matunga, an area in central Mumbai that is occupied by Tamilian Brahmins, or in the Walkeshwar area, occupied by the Gujaratis and the Marwaris. Dharavi, with its mixed population, has a strong existing caste structure even in the tanning and other industrial units located within its fold. While the tanning units employ many from the lower castes, the same is not the case for the other industrial units there, says Samugam, who works in a tannery. “It is easy for lower caste people to get jobs in Dharavi as the units are linked to caste,” he says. Chembur, an eastern suburb of Mumbai, has a proliferation of statues of Babasaheb Ambedkar due to its predominant Dalit population.

The city acts as a shield for lower caste identities as it is camouflaged in the vastness of the city. There are many from the lower castes who take on newer identities to merge into the city which is getting increasingly polarised on the lines of caste.

Pramod Nandan, a techie from Andhra Pradesh who has been working in a firm in Mumbai, claims to be a victim of caste politics. “It started slowly. The team made excuses to not share my tiffin, then it was the coffee breaks and soon I stopped being a part of the social circle. There was an office party and I was not invited. I am highly qualified, but that does not seem to make any difference,” says Nandan.

(This appeared in the print as 'Maximum City?')