The Indian Caste System………..

One thing is clear. The Indian caste system is an enigma to the geopolitically and demographically Balkanized west and Europe in particular. The western scholars find the caste system so very intriguing that they spend a lot of time in delayering its complexity and getting to its kernel.

In its current form or even in the form that it was practiced a century ago, the complexity of caste system and its protean nature has always befuddled the western mind. One reason for this is, the western scholar wants to be a universal commentator on all cultures which is humanly not possible. He tries crash courses in cultures with the endeavor to understand, dissect and dissert on them, tries to objectively categorize facts, sets and subsets, with an objectivity that any evolutionary phenomenon would clearly defy.

Imagine, if an Indian or Chinese would try and document the evolution of the various sects of christanity, and try and fit every sect and cult in some corner of a 2x2 matrix. Fitting sects like the Mormons or Scientologists, the various other sects of Christians or some other cults like the Cargo Cult would not be simple for anyone who has not experienced the society from within and analyzed it from without.

But since the Indians and Chinese have never undertaken this lofty task of meandering the maze of western civilizational evolution and analyzing the western world, particularly with the abandon typical of mediocre scholarship with which the western world has always attempted to dissect the eastern one, the tortuousness of the task will never be well understood.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the term used for the “exterior castes” was “depressed”. This is how the British described the nether of the nether castes of south, whose shadow on the twice born Brahmins warranted purification.

When the British were in India, they spent a huge amount of money and equal amount of resource in getting a parameter of caste incorporated in the censuses. Well, equipped with this, it was simple to follow the policy of divide and rule.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, if you would ask a Sikh who he was, he would veritably say - Hindu. The British in their conniving trademark smartness which they called statecraft and I would call Machiavellian Statecraft, introduced Sikhs as a new feed in the censuses and forms of employment, and with ease created an new identity, and they granted on it a martial status (though the Sikhs had in their fold non martial castes also), something that the British to the hilt exploited till the terminal part of the their rule in India.

Similarly, an extremely scientific methodology was used to drive a wedge between the Hindus and Muslims. And Morley wired to Minto “ what you tell me about mohommedans is full of interest …………….and it has prevented them from any longer being representing the Indian Government as the ordinary case of bureaucracy versus the people” and the situation would not be seen as the British Government and the people of India, but as “Hindus versus Muslims”.

As an Indian, I really don’t understand why the caste system is so enigmatic for the westerner. If the South German is a better mechanic than the north, and French a better perfume maker, and Italians better tailors, and in Ukraine the Kozaks better warriors than the rest, then why is the caste system, the origin of which was in the division of labor, so enigmatic. So one would argue that these were not hereditary. But then the guilds once upon a time were indeed hereditary.

Whenever I am traveling in Europe, lot of educated European professionals inquire about the “Indian Caste system” and “arranged marriages”. Existence of caste system or social stratification is not so obvious in Europe and needs a discerning scholar to draw evolutionary parallels, but arranged marriages in Europe were happening till not too long ago.

The British also found the caste system intriguing, and wanted to use it to their advantage. If the country could be divided on caste and religion, their task of perpetuating a exploitationist rule would be that much simpler. And for this reason, they introduced caste in the censuses. Sometime I feel, if the French has colonized the country, the governance may have been poorer, but the effect of colonization may not have been so long lasting. The British, be it Israel or India or wherever they have been, have left bacterial strains which are all antibiotic resistant.    

               To be continued……………