Reification cannot replace politics of change and justice

(MainsGS1:Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India.)

Context:

In the film 'Kathal', a young woman police officer opposes a high caste man who is prejudiced against a lower caste person.
This film depicts the stereotypes and prejudices prevalent in the Hindu caste system.
This reality of caste can be seen even in the present times.’

Self-consciousness:

The most influential work on reification was done by Marxist thinker Georg Lukács, who explained that in the twentieth century the legal system was made technical, bureaucratic and capitalist by the use of social structures.
He also explained that the worker becomes an automaton working aimlessly for capitalist society. The working class can only break out of this framework through 'self-consciousness'.

While Andrew Feenberg explained in 2015 that class consciousness occurs when the person with reification accepts the conflict between labor and life. This allows the worker to accept his existence and build the revolutionary capacity to change society.
Marx equates it with the theory of alienation. Reification is a distinct type of alienation by which the individual is separated from the spirit of the human mind.
Axel Honneth, in his 2008 work Reification – A New Look at an Old Idea, in contrast to Lukács’ argument, argued that reification cannot be understood only through economic totality.
It is driven by the horrors brought about by sexism, racism, fascism and the caste system, with or without the capitalist social reality.
It creates a condition that affects the individual’s ‘self’ due to the lack of recognition from other individuals.
However, this view of Axel Honneth has been sharply criticized by Judith Butler.

The basis of social relations in India is caste. Which is strictly followed in Indian society, it can be seen clearly especially on the occasion of marriages.
There is a hierarchy within the caste system in India.
In which the higher caste groups get special privileges, and while the lower castes do not get any privileges.
This caste system in India is pre-determined by birth.

In India, due to the caste system, people of lower castes unite and fight against the dominance of upper castes in the struggle against the exploitation of lower castes by upper castes.
This struggle forms the basis of lower caste politics.
The politicization of caste in India strengthens the caste system, which weakens the efforts to eradicate the caste system from India.