The issues of caste and reservations remain problematic in India today generating strife and division unfortunately. Maybe there is a problem with the present understanding and we need to explore alternative routes for peace and harmony. One of the biggest failures of social sciences and especially political theory in independent India is its dealing with both caste and reservations. India has a unique and extensive Constitutional programme of positive discrimination (seats reserved in assemblies, public jobs, and professional academic institutes; lower cut-off marks) in favour of groups of people. The original and admirable idea was to integrate deprived groups into mainstream socio-economic-political life and address centuries of neglect and oppression. The short-term nature of such a policy went for a toss however as it has now become a permanent policy with no political party daring to touch it.
Eminent political theorist Dr Bhikhu Parekh says that positive discrimination raises important questions about the nature of justice; the trade-off between justice and other equally desirable values as efficiency, social harmony, and collective welfare; and the propriety of making social groups bearers of rights and obligations. It also raises questions about the redistributive role of the state; the nature and extent of the present generation’s responsibility for the misdeeds of its predecessors; and the meaning of social oppression. Justice is generally an individualist concept- the due to an individual based on his qualifications and efforts. Justice needs redefinition obviously in non-individualist terms if social groups are subjects of rights and obligations. We should also demonstrate continuity between the past and present oppressors and oppressed. We must also analyse the nature of current deprivation and that it is a product of past oppression conferring moral claims on the oppressed. These questions are important in India where positive discrimination has no roots in the indigenous cultural tradition and is much resented, says Parekh.
Regarding the caste system itself, the Indian ‘caste system’ appears to have adapted itself to many challenges over the centuries- Buddhism, Bhakti movement, Islamic invasions, British colonialism, and the integration into a world capitalist system. The so-called caste system exhibits enormous complexity, manifests order, and touches every occupation. And yet, as Dr Balagangadhara says, no Indian could tell you much about the ‘principles’ of this system, leave alone the dynamics of its reproduction. Theories about this social organisation are not within the Indian tradition. However, Indologists and intellectuals during the last two centuries have authored treatises theorising the caste system which we have simply internalised without questioning.
The word ‘caste’ is a Portuguese import and has no equivalent in any of the Indian scriptures to begin with. The only reality of Indian society are the jatis and the four varnas. There is a huge conflation of the categories of caste, the thousands of jatis, and the four varnas. The few jatis initially have evolved into thousands based on various characteristics like endogamy practices (marriage rules), commensality (eating or food practices), rituals, gods believed in, occupation, place of stay, and even gender. Individual jatis have gone up and down on the social, political, or economic scale. The one-to-one correlation of jatis to one of the four varnas has been the most difficult, dubious, and irrational exercises starting from the colonial times to the present.
The Varnas are categories; and a hierarchical ordering of the categories by cherry picking of selective literature has been the great disruptive contribution of colonial and Indological narratives. There are equally valid scriptures, but conveniently ignored, in the corpus which show an equality of the varnas and even a reversal of hierarchy. The description of jatis was mainly ‘duty based’ in Indian thought. It turned into a ‘right based’ division in scholarly writings. Historically and in contemporary times too, jatis belonging to Sudra varna (or not from Brahmin, Kshatriya, or Vaisya varnas) have been the most powerful socially, politically, and economically in most parts of India. The negative connotation of being a Sudra (despite categories implying equality) has been a persistent narrative since the colonial times.
As Jakob De Roover says, Dalits or scheduled castes have been a political and legal creation since the beginning of the 20th century. 1200 jatis with varied practices and customs and 65 million people merge into a single group based on the single tenuous idea of ‘untouchability.’ Scholars, including Dr Ambedkar himself, could not define what exactly is untouchability. The definitions have been tenuous, circular, and vague; and scholars have included any practice as untouchability to fit the data into their preconceived notions. Many practices no longer exist and untouchability as a practice is illegal, yet a huge group exists where despite all positive discriminations (reservations, lower cut-off marks, legal privileges and so on), anger seems to be ever increasing.
Sufiya Pathan elegantly shows that the data for Dalit exploitation is methodologically faulty, has plenty of cherry-picking, and riddled with selective interpretations. Yet, the intellectual dishonesty regarding the figures and the generalisation of prominent anecdotal reports do manage to give a massive negative image of India in national and international platforms. Much money, many agendas, many careers, both national and international, perpetuate and thrive on the continuing Dalit exploitation story in India. The political creation of castes almost daily and classifying them as forward, backward (sub classifying as A, B, C, D), and scheduled is a sad understanding of our social systems which is continuing to divide the country. These creations have only encouraged false notions of superiority, inferiority, shame, anger, and helplessness.
As Dr Balagangadhara explains, there is never a denial of the elements which go in the construction of the system. But an overarching ‘system’ to explain all these evils needs more research and study as it may not even exist. Such discriminations and oppressions occur in all countries and cultures (slavery, colonialism, communist countries, religious imperialisms, capitalistic societies, European and Indian feudalisms). Seeing a caste system as an explanation of Indian evils but none whatsoever for other cultures is intellectual dishonesty, says the Balagangadhara group. Discriminations exist in all societies and India is no exception. But to conceive a ‘system’ where it becomes morally obligatory to become immoral and exploitative is an extremely poor understanding of India. Unfortunately, these narratives have now become dominant. and any attempt to resist or correct become examples of ‘Brahmanism’ by a host of intellectuals sitting in our universities.
The political, legal, and academic perpetuation of the caste-system narrative is destroying the country. We need fresher narratives. The ‘caste-system’ was only an experience of the colonials who put a meta-narrative to their experience of jatis in India. Three colonial ideas (the word ‘casta’; the racial Aryan- Dravidian theory; and the Protestant criticism of the priesthood of the Catholics and Jews) gave a structure to their experience of Indian social systems. This narrative superimposed on India to make the Brahmins as villains in the oppressive caste system. Sadly, the academia in the post -independence period with strong Marxist hold, instead of questioning older narratives, continued this story of Aryans, of evil Brahmins, of exploitation, in tune with their exploiter-explored paradigms. In recent times, insurgent scholarship at some well-known institutions go further in blaming Brahmins for everything wrong in colonial and post-colonial India by theorizing terms like ‘Brahminical’, ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’, and ‘Brahminism’. Even the so-called ‘rape culture’ and ‘fees hike’ in institutions reflect Brahminical attitudes according to the students at these universities as Saumya Dey explains in his book Narrativizing Bharatvarsha.
Today, most Indian citizens are victims of ‘colonial consciousness’ (an attitude which believes that whatever the colonial said about us has to be true) and would even refuse to believe that there can be an alternative story about ourselves. We need fresh narratives on Varna and Jatis to create unity and truly break the vicious anger-generating ‘caste-system’. Despite all reservations and political attempts, the caste consciousness and deep fissures have only increased. Can our social and political theorists devise better social understandings and solutions which result in unity of the country and not disintegration?
RANDOM MUSINGS 