It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggression. ----------Sigmund Freud
"Kown jaat ho?" the amiable shopkeeper in Kanpur asked our acquaintance before allowing him to drink water from his tumbler. The permission was granted when the latter assured the former that he was a Brahmin. And all this in a wannabe post-modern India! Tiwariji, the shopkeeper was not inquiring caste out of any malice. A product of his social environment, his was a reflex response to a stranger's request for water. One often encounters such query in its various versions in almost all parts of India. UP and Bihar are often looked upon as bastions of casteism, but there is hardly any state where this affliction does not exist.
Ours is a stratified society. This stratification is so complex that we need a different terminology for it. Stratification conjures up layers upon layers of social distribution. In fact the divisions in our society are horizontal as well as vertical. You have castes that command equal social esteem, yet they wouldn't enter into social alliances with each other. Every caste is essentially a community in itself, albeit subdivided into sub-castes, with well defined pecking order along with attendant do’s and don’ts. Intermarriage is simply out of the question. For example a Saraswat Brahmin would not give his daughter in marriage to a Gaud Brahmin family, and vice versa; Punjab’s Khukhrain Khatris would accept brides from Khatris outside their clan, but wouldn't marry their daughters outside the prescribed social circle. The plethora of sects, subsects, castes and subcastes in our society indicates the extravagance of our pluralism... No wonder it has evolved into a bundle of curious contradictions, viz., assimilation and exclusivity.
The so-called postmodern Indian has refined the art of caste identification through more subtle means. He doesn't ask, like Tiwariji, one's caste directly, but alludes to certain specific practices peculiar to a caste denoted by one's surname.
Accordingly, groupings evolve in work places, professional organizations and business set-ups. Caste mindfulness is neither region-specific nor class specific. Nor does it undergo much change with passage of time. Caste-consciousness envelops our psyche like an ancient shroud, which we are unable to shed owing to centuries of mental conditioning.
Recently there has been an upsurge of interest in genesis of the caste system. If Dipankar Gupta has written an entire book on the whys and wherefores of caste system, then Madhuri Santanam Sondhi and John Keay have shown more than passing interest in the phenomenon in their respective works. And this list of authors is by no means complete. While a section of the intelligentsia looks askance at the process of 'going back to the roots', another school of thought feels that a lot of good can come out of it provided one tries to understand the original basis for the social stratification, which has its genesis as much in economic disparity as in the esoteric processes of history.
For some the system is an obnoxious reality, while for others it is a time-tested mechanism that helps the society cope with the dynamics of ever changing social and economic scenarios. Caste system was not an 'ism', but a scientific tool for division of labour, some claim.
Moreover, the very fact that it is the most enduring anachronism testifies to its utility even in the contemporary India. It provides one with an identity that is distinct and indelible. If its study helps us to broaden our outlook rather than narrow it down, it can serve a useful social purpose. For example, not all Brahmins were ethnic Aryans and not all Shudras were non-Aryans. In the latter category one can include those Brahmins who were ethnic Aryans but for some reason were condemned as Bhrasht Brahmins and downgraded to the caste of Chandalas. Let’s not forget that ‘low’ and ‘high’ castes reflected societal mores in a specific time frame. There was a time when along with suvarna caste rulers, Shudra kings too existed.
One would do well to remember that in the ancient texts the term 'Arya' was not used to denote ethnicity but a certain lifestyle. Erroneously or otherwise, it came to be associated with civilized people in the subcontinent. Thus any ethnic group or sub-group could be called Aryan if its lifestyle was identical to the one described in the Vedas and other relevant texts. Caste is thus the outcome of the Aryanization process of India. Observes John Keay, "An Aryanized society may be defined as one in which primacy is accorded to a particular language (Sanskrit), to an authoritative priesthood (Brahmans) and to a hierarchical social structure (caste)..."
It was not uncommon for a Brahmin, a Shudra and even a Vanik to indulge in warlike activities... something one always associates with the Kshatriya caste, which essentially was a club that admitted new members from time to time without ethnic considerations. In fact, anyone who could coerce, cajole or convince the priesthood about his claims to being a Kshatriya was duly legitimized as one. His family history would be concocted to link his lineage to either the sun (Suryvanshi) or the moon (Chandravanshi). So we have blue-blooded Kshatriyas from such diverse origins as the verdant Deccan, the sandy Thar and the distant Caucasus.
Later on, with the advent of alien religious groups that came and settled in the subcontinent, the system tried to come to terms with the new situation.
Sondhi observes, "Not for centuries but for millennia, Indian society has cohered and survived as a group society, where important decisions are taken by consensus or conformity. This social organization was able to accommodate the influx of waves of outsiders, not always into the religious system of the Hindus, though that also occurred, but into the group structure of the society. When the Muslims finally settled down, relatively speaking, after a period of invasion and conquest, they were able to adjust to the implicit rules of the caste system. Whole castes which converted to Islam retained many of their customs and position in society with perhaps marginal improvements, newcomers settled into castes of their own, and the basis of Hindu-Muslim coexistence was the received tradition of mutual recognition and differentiation arising out of separate ritual, dietary and marriage customs".
John Keay, the celebrated historian seconds Sondhi's thesis, "...Muslims adopted something approaching caste distinctions. Elements of ritual and popular devotion were also shared. Muslim shaikhs and pirs attracted Hindu followers; Hindu ascetics, dancers, musicians and craftsmen attracted Muslim patronage..."
It will not be out of place here to mention that according to Meyyaar –e – Sadaquat, a collection of scholarly essays in Urdu on India's social system, there are about seventy two denominations of Indian Muslims. Most of these denominations are a result of ethnic and caste considerations.
However, caste consciousness is not unique to the subcontinent's Hindus and Muslims. Christians and Sikhs, who claim their respective societies as monolithic and egalitarian, too are stratified on caste basis. Of course, this division is unofficial but as real as the one existing in the Hindu society. For example the Catholic Syrians from the Kottayam-Changanacherry belt in Kerala trace their ancestry to Namboodri Brahmins, and consider themselves as ethnically superior to other Christian denominations. The rivalry for supremacy among Sikhs is well documented. The traditional Khatri – Jat Sikh competition has been replaced with the Ramgarhia – Jat Sikh rivalry, with Lubanas, Sainis, Mazhabis and other castes staking their respective claims for supremacy in Sikh societal structure.
Presently, the post-Mandal scenario has introduced a new element – the crystallization of caste groups. So now we have upper castes, intermediate castes and scheduled castes or Dalits as three distinct groups. This has, on the one hand intensified inter-caste rivalry for political power, and on the other hand managed to confound the intra-group equations. If today the Brahmin-Bania combine is ruling the roost there is no guarantee that these two powerful castes – backed by other influential upper-caste groups – will remain united for long. Sooner or later the lure of power and pelf is going to have its effect – we are already seeing this in the social engineering wrought by Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh; the subtle but strong power struggle within the Sangh Parivar is another example.
Already the universally revered author of Ramayana Valmiki and the father of our Constitution BR Ambedkar are fast becoming exclusive icons of Dalits. On the other hand, Brahmins in the North are trying to reinvent Parsuram as the role model for their caste. Temples in the name of Parsuram, where only Brahmins will have the right to membership are being built.
If this trend catches on soon one will find that Laxmi has become exclusive deity of the Aggarwal community, Krishna of the Yadavas, Rama of the Kshatriyas and so on. Such caste-based fanaticism, on the lines of neo-fascism in Europe, might transform from being a fringe group lunacy into mainstream hysteria. Ditto for similar caste based alliances in other political groupings. Here one must recall what George Russel, the Irish writer had once said, "Any relations in a social order will endure, if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for immortality".
Have modernizers failed in breaking the caste system's hold on our society? It would appear so, if one goes by the atomization of our polity. In Sondhi's words, "The attack on the received social system, which it may be emphasized, was an intimate ingredient of the Indian Dharmic way of life, and underlay the life of all religions in India, has also not succeeded in its twin goals of eradicating caste identities or substituting a responsible humanist society.
“Rather, by turning the relatively stable group hierarchical order into an arena of competition for political and economic goods, the caste system has been re-legitimized through the back door. The attack on joint families and group identities again has not resulted in enlightened citizenship so much as deterioration into unrestrained individualism, familism and social irresponsibility. Thus instead of the modernizer's imagined brave new world, there is increasing confusion, anomie and disorder".
Consequently, the phrase 'Caste Wars' might gain increasing national currency. And that's not good news for the common man.
However, our past itself gives us reason for optimism. Caste based intolerance was not the salient feature of the society. The aberration set in much later on, thanks to the inexorable march of history.
Dipankar Gupta points out, "...The preeminent status attained by the Brahman and the debasement of the untouchable cannot be considered as pre-given outcomes of the Hindu state of mind but, rather, resulted from a long historical process. The most salient feature of this historical process was the constant rivalry between various communities for political and economic power which was reflected in their varying and conflicting perception of Brahmanism and of the Vedas".
Have things gone too far for the trend to reverse? Where does one go from here? Will the brave new world remain a utopia? Perhaps not.
Karl Marx had once remarked, "Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand". However imperceptibly, these interrelations are undergoing metamorphosis. One says this when one looks at trends in the upper and upper-middle classes. Commonality of interests and not caste affinity dictates social and economic relationships among these classes.
Moreover, caste is no more as influential in the choice of one's profession or specialization in any field of activity. Marriage alliances too are being forged on the basis of economic status and material self-interest.
This post-modernist trend, despite being ill defined at present, might yet break the traditional caste superstructure. Some might term such an eventuality as "Paradise regained".
Whether this projected reality will be as radiant remains in the realm of conjecture.
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