The question of casteism still remains

Jaipur Literature Festival is an inclusive platform, a festival of ideas where several dimensions of issues are debated, discussed and a lot of intellectual churning and brainstorming happens. It is not a political platform. In such an atmosphere, every argument has a context and that should be appreciated. At the very outset, it is important to understand that Mr. Nandy’s assertion is no way related to the ethical or unethical aspect of corruption. Given the fact that corruption is all pervasive in our society and corruption has become the order of the day, it seems to be only an attempt out of academic interest on the part of Mr. Nandy to objectively examine if corruption can be an equalising force in our society.
The thrust of his argument is that corruption (stripped of its moral dimension) provides an avenue for the upward mobility of the marginalised sections, who have seen and lived for generations in a ‘maa baap’ culture of corruption by upper castes. They are now trying to grab their share at the spoils of the system. This in a sense echoes the idea of “sanskritization of corruption” by the subaltern sections. Sanskritization is a reality in our Indian society where lower castes tend to imitate the culture of dominant castes. There are also certain observations made within the academic circles which point to the fact that the marginalised groups have for many years seen the upper castes in power, leading rich and lavish lifestyles, indulging in grand celebrations of their birthdays involving huge money, erecting their statues everywhere and so on and so forth. So, later when it was the turn of the ‘lower’ caste groups to exercise power, they have resorted to similar symbolic imitation of the lifestyle of upper castes.
When it’s said “majority of the corrupt” comes from OBCs, SC/STs, it’s about the involvement and not the moral standards of the community. Majority of the marginalised sections may not have access to legitimate means of upward mobility due