Question

Choose an Interest Group _________________

• What circumstances caused this interest group to form? When did they form? What is its history?
• What incentives (solidary, material, or purposive) does this group offer members?
• What type (economic, environmental, etc.) of interest group is it? Why?
• What makes this interest group powerful (i.e. size and resources, leadership, cohesiveness, etc.)?
• What congressperson(s) has/have this interest group supported? Why?
• What bill(s) has this interest group been successful in influencing and/or opposing?

Answer 1

Interest group

Interest groups or common interests group is a group formally formed by a group of people having specific common interests/ purpose/ goal/ objective. Generally, these groups have a common objective of availing some benefits from government. Across the globe, there are various International interest groups such as American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) Italy’s Confindustria (General Confederation of Industry), the United States’s National Education Association, and Guatemala’s Mutual Support Group (human rights organization).

In India, some interest groups have been formed on the basis of occupational and economic interests, such as trade unions, peasant organizations, teacher-student groups, women’s associations, dalits (scheduled castes and tribes), organizations, businessmen (commercial) organizations, etc..

Scheduled Castes in India – This is an interest group in India. Government of India issued an order in 1950 to categorise the people under this group. Therefore, a person is considered to be a member of a Scheduled Caste, if he or she belongs to a caste which, under the constitution, has been declared to be a Scheduled Caste for the area, for which he or she is a resident. It is the authority of President of India to categorise as caste a Scheduled Caste.

Scheduled Castes were formed with the purpose to safeguard the interest of those who suffer from caste discrimination and to provide for them special concessions to help them catch up with the rest of the population in the process of development.

Following are the basis to categorise under the group of Scheduled Castes:

1) occupation of a low position in Hindu social structure

2) Being backward in education,

3) Having inadequate representation in government service and in the fields of trade, commerce and industry,

4) Being socially and physically isolated from the rest of the population

The Scheduled Castes in India constitute distinct caste groups with specific cultural, occupational and religious characteristics. They are divided into more than 900 sub-castes and are thinly distributed in 600,000 villages of India. About 90% of the Scheduled Castes live in rural areas and they constitute 15% of the population of India.

The Scheduled Castes in have been considered as one of the weakest interest groups. They have been attributed so many nomenclatures such as untouchables, harijans, dalits, panchamans, atisudras, avarnas and antyajas. The word Dalits denotes poverty and their oppressed condition. The ‘servile classes’ phrase was used to denote the servile nature of their working relations with the higher castes and the degraded nature of work with which they were involved like scavenging, sweeping, etc. The Scheduled Castes were named as Harijans by Saint Narsimha Mehta and Mahatma Ghandhi 7 popularized this concept. The Harijans are those who are entangled in subhuman social existence, abject poverty, economic exploitation, and a sub- culture of submission and political powerlessness. The SCs were the former untouchable castes of Hinduism. Besides the four traditional castes there was another group of persons even during the early days of Chaturvarnya, who came to be described as untouchables because they were of darker skin and were engaged in unclean occupations. These people were the outcastes and as such were socially ostracized by caste Hindus. As the lowest strata in the society, the untouchables formed the fifth Varna Panchamas/ Chandals or the 5th caste. They were assigned a position very much lower than that of the Sudras. Their hereditary occupations were street sweeping, scavenging, weaving, tanning, flaying and the like. They were expected to do all the dirty jobs in society, which others were restrained from doing. And this group was denied the right to enter the temples and worship with other Hindus, schooling, use dress and ornaments which will mark them off as upper caste people, to draw water from public wells and to improve their economic and educational conditions. They were compelled to live segregate on the outskirts of villages and towns under most filthy and miserable conditions and were ill clad and half starved. Even now, in many places they could not at all enter the streets or lanes used by caste Hindus. In the southern regions of India besides touch pollution, distance pollution also was observed. Distances were prescribed for untouchables to keep away from the different levels of upper caste people. It was, however, the British Government’s programme of education and social reforms, much more than the work of missionaries that paved the way for the mitigation of the social misery of SCs. The British were not so much interested in the radical reform of Hindu society. But their educational system created a new generation of intellectuals and reformers who were imbibed with liberal ideas. The foundation of the Brahma Samaj and Arya Samaj and the teachings of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Kesav Chandra Sen, Sreeramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Vagbhadananda and Aagamananda and the social works of Thanthei Periyor, Sri Narayana Guru, and Ayyankali all had one common aim to purify Hinduism from the evils of caste and to raise the status of the lower caste communities. Moreover, Indian National Congress which crystallized the social thinking of the time officially took up the work of uplifting the depressed classes on a national scale.

The Scheduled Castes are backward, it is due to their preponderantly rural nature, illiteracy, dependence on agricultural labour, or other occupations with low earnings, and due to injustice, exploitation, and oppression they have been suffering from others for centuries. The Scheduled Castes have been suffering from three social disabilities: 1) untouchability; 2) atrocity, which is an act of extreme cruelty committed against them; and 3) bonded labour.

Benefits to Scheduled Caste in India

The Constitution of India has made special provisions for Scheduled Caste (SC) under Article 46 of the Constitution which states that ‘‘The State shall promote, with special care, the education and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of social exploitation’’. There are various other articles such as Articles 330, 332, 335, 338 to 342 and the entire Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution whcih deal with special provisions for implementation of the objectives set forth in Article 46. These provisions are fully utilized for the benefit of weaker sections in the society of India.

Scheduled Castes are privileged in various aspects and manner in the economy. Government provides education to the children belonging to this group free of cost. Students belonging to this group are provided special reservations in Higher education such as a fixed percentage of seats are reserved for the students belonging to this group. In various examination tests conducted at National level by the government, the qualifying marks are kept lower than those specified for the students belonging to general category. Reservations are also made while making provisions for employment in various sectors of Government such as education, health, administration, etc.

In the current scenario, Government of India takes up every possible initiative to support the people belonging to Scheduled Caste so as to bring them at par with the people belonging to General category and make them not to feel discriminated from the other people.