Quote:January l, 1948

B. R. AMBEDKAR

1, Hardinge Avenue, New Delhi

The Hindu Civilization has produced three social classes whose existence has not received the attention it deserves. The three classes are:

(i) The Criminal Tribes who number about 20 millions or so; (ii) The Aboriginal Tribes who number about 15 millions; and (iii) The Untouchables who number about 50 millions.

Quote:India’s caste system descended from two tribes ‘not colonialism’

Mark Henderson Science Editor



Genetic profiling shows that the structure of Indian society today reflects early social groupings, not just colonialism India’s caste system is not a relic of colonialism but has existed in some form for thousands of years, the most comprehensive study yet of the genetic diversity of the sub-continent has suggested.



The genetic profiles typical of modern castes are indistinguishable from those of much older tribal groups, Indian and American scientists have found. This suggests that they emerged from populations of shared ancestry who have married among themselves for many generations.



The researchers wrote in the journal Nature: “Some historians have argued that caste in modern India is an ‘invention’ of colonialism, in the sense that it became more rigid under colonial rule. However, our results indicate that many current distinctions among groups are ancient and that strong endogamy [marriage within a group] must have shaped marriage patterns in India for thousands of years.”



Kumarasamy Thangaraj, of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad, and a leader of the study, said: “It is impossible to distinguish castes from tribes using the data. The genetics proves that they are not systematically different. This supports the view that castes grew directly out of tribal-like organisations during the formation of Indian society.”



Researchers analysed more than 500,000 genetic markers from 132 people from 25 different groups.



The research established that modern Indians of all castes are descended from two ancestral groups.



Indians can trace between 39 per cent and 71 per cent of their ancestry to a population known as the Ancestral Northern Indians (ANI), who are quite closely related to Europeans and Asians. Those with a higher ancestral contribution from the ANI group are more likely to belong to higher castes, and to speak Indo-European languages such as Hindi and Bengali.



The other ancient population are the Ancestral Southern Indians (ASI), who are not genetically close to any group outside the sub-continent. People with a higher ASI ancestry are more likely to belong to lower castes, and to speak non Indo-European languages such as Tamil.



The research, by scientists from CCMB in India and Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, has also established that Indians are much more genetically diverse than Europeans.



This result indicates that many modern Indian groups are descended from a small number of “founding individuals”, whose descendants interbred among themselves to create genetically isolated populations.



Lalji Singh, director of CCMB, said: “India is genetically not a single large population, but instead is best described as many smaller isolated populations.”



This insight has important medical implications for people of Indian origin, because groups that are descended from small founding populations often have a high incidence of inherited diseases. Ashkenazi Jews, for example, have a high risk of Tay-Sachs disease.



This may explain why several genetic conditions are more common in India than elsewhere: a mutation in a gene called MYBPC3, which raises the risk of heart failure sevenfold, is found in 4 per cent of Indians but is exceptionally rare elsewhere.



The only ethnic group who do not have this shared ancestry is the indigenous population of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean, who appear to be of exclusively ASI descent.



Nick Patterson, of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, said: “The Andamanese are unique. Understanding their origins provides a window on to the history of the Ancestral South Indians, and the period tens of thousands of years ago when they diverged from other Eurasians.”



Mr Singh added: “Our project to sample the disappearing tribes of the Andaman Islands has been more successful than we could have hoped, as the Andamanese are the only surviving remnant of the ancient colonisers of South Asia.”



Aravinda Chakravarti, of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, wrote in a commentary for Nature: “Greater ANI ancestry is significantly associated with Indo-European speakers and with traditionally ‘higher’ caste membership. This provides a model of how diversity within India came about. As such, its details are imperfect and will surely be contested, revised and improved.



“Caste and custom may be strong barriers between groups, perhaps even today. But the common shared ancestry and rampant ANI/ASI mixture may be the strong, invisible thread that binds all Indians.”

Quote:T he explanation of caste can take many forms. T o some it can be explained

as sui generis – a thing unto itself – unlike anything at other times or in other

cultures – and therefore it can be explained by Hinduism in its own terms. For

others, it has to be explained comparatively, that it is the Indian realisation of a

form that can occur in other guises elsewhere – and sometimes the black–white

divide in the USA is quoted as a parallel. Historically we need look no further

than to Japan in the early 19th century before the Meiji R estoration to recognise

another rigid caste society – which is still not completely erased from the cultural

record.



In Japan the ‘problem’ of untouchability still adheres to the descendants

of the untouchable (cleaners and sweepers) caste – although it is something which

receives little publicity. Go back further in time and in Europe in the Middle Ages

there were hereditary crafts and guilds, and much further back in time unequal

citizens and slaves in Greece, and another caste system in Egypt.



Within Hinduism there is a theoretical or theological explanation of what caste

is – although this theory is a simple and high level abstraction which often bears

little relation to caste in its practical form. T herefore, in saying the following, be

warned that I am generalising and simplifying perhaps excessively.

Quote:Indian Caste System – Some real truths…

http://psenthilraja.wordpress.com/2007/09/22/indian-caste-system-some-real-truths/



Just narrating my experience in my village that make re-think on many of the established dogmas of indian caste system…



————————————————



Recently in my village, kumbabishekam was done in a newly built temple by one of the community classified as SC. When i went to my home, there was full of temple activities, with many local political persons sponsoring for the temple. Spiritual songs were played in the loudspeaker and when the actual kumbabisham began, the brahmins continuously chanted mantras for long time. (Again, it was a thing to ponder, on how the brahmins, accused for all evils, can do kumbabishekam in the temple of a dalit community)



I enquired at some of the old people there, about the temple, and who conducts the event. I was told, that this temple was built by that particular community people for over a year, by collecting funds from all those who are working in far-off places.



I asked them, if its for all the dalit people. He told, that its only for that particular community, and other communities (classified as SC) are not allowed.



Then I asked the reason, why all dalit people could not have a common temple.



He told, that every community has their own laws, and normally, one community people do not even drink water from another community people’s house.



Again I asked, why?



He told, if they did so, they would be isolated from their own community (i mean caste).



I was surprised..



I again asked.. This type of practices occur only among higher castes, and how could the dalit communities practice this among themselves?



“This type of practice exists in almost all communities (castes). And infact, the Dalit communities have more stricter rules than the other BC communities.



I left the topic, and went to my home.. Later, i had the chance to interact with my neighbour, who belongs to a different dalit community. I asked her, why dont she attend the kumbabishekam. She told, its only for the particular community, and their people wont go there. And many of the above said things, she confirmed.



This is more of a new revelation to me, after i started observing various aspects of our society.



The first question that came to my mind was, why does only a particular community (Mostly the brahmins) were victimised, while actually, the same practice exists in almost all of the communities (ie castes).



And i felt there should be some reason (whether good or bad) on why all the communities chose to remain isoloated, without freely mixing with others.



If possible, I will do another post after some analysis on this.



Typically, when i remember my earlier days, i never came across any of the words like upper caste, lower caste, SC or dalit, till i first encountered these in the text books (i think from 4th or 5th std).



One thing is clear to me.. There was no factual & accurate analysis of our society right from the independance by any of the authors. Otherwise, there could not be so much contradictions i could see from what i read from the text books, and what i am observe from the current society, that has almost chaged a lot.



Its true, that there were lot of drawbacks in our society. At the same time there is most probablity that many of the ills of our society that we read from text books, and other published books, are extrapolated, and quoted out of context.



It became more clear to me, that all the controversaries so far is aimed at dividing the indian society based on caste lines, and push it in to permanent turmoil. First started by the britishers, unfortunately continued by the politicians even after independance. (I dont want to elaborate more on this now.. leaving it to the readers to search for more details themselves.)



When we take periyar’s concepts, its true that he fought against the social evils. But, how far did he try to eliminate the more serious impact of untouchability practiced by his own community people?



Before concluding, i would like to quote the following article on Dharampal by Gurumurthy.



http://www.newindpress.com/Column.asp?ID=IE620061115230938&P=old



“What is it that keeps the country down”, asked the speaker. A young man in the audience replied unhesitatingly: “Undoubtedly the institution of caste that kept the majority low castes and the society backward” and added “it continues”.



The speaker replied, “May be”. But, pausing for a moment, he added, “May not be”. Shocked, the young man angrily asked him to explain his “may-not-be” theory.



The speaker calmly mentioned just one fact that clinched the debate. He said, “Before the British rule in India, over two-thirds – yes, two-thirds – of the Indian kings belonged to what is today known as the Other Backward Castes (OBCs).



“It is the British,” he said, “who robbed the OBCs – the ruling class running all socio-economic institutions – of their power, wealth and status.” So it was not the upper caste which usurped the OBCs of their due position in the society?



The speaker’s assertion that it was not so was founded on his study – unbelievably painstaking study for years and decades in the archives in India, England and Germany. He could not be maligned as a ‘saffron’ ideologue and what he said could not be dismissed thus. He was Dharampal, a Gandhian in ceaseless search of truth like his preceptor Gandhi himself was, but a Gandhian with a difference. He ran no ashram on state aid to do ‘Gandhigiri’.



Admitting that “he and those like him do not know much about our own society”, the young man who questioned Dharampal – Banwari is his name – became his student. By meticulous research of the British sources over decades, Dharampal demolished the myth that India was backward educationally or economically when the British entered.



……..



(More about dharampal on www.dharampal.net)

Quote:Indian Thoughts and the Western Mind





Mayank Shekhar talks about the caste system and its origins in modern Indian history



Around 1960, Dharampal was traveling in train from Gwaliar to Delhi. He came across a group of people from two villages on teertha, pilgrimage, who had gone from near Luckhnow to Ramehswaram. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> Dharampal narrates in his works an experience he had through this interaction in the train.

Quote:“I said they must all be from one jati, from a single caste group. They said, ‘No, no! We are not from one jati—we are from several jatis.’ I said, how could that be? They said that there was no jati on a yatra—not on a pilgrimage. I didn’t know that.”

The so called caste lines that we all were told and believe as facts were not so. Dharampal, a 38 year old Gandhian then, admits he didn’t know. The small interaction threw the Gandhian into introspection. Where did we acquire this idea of caste based society? The ways of the society certainly was not the perspective of those who spoke for and about the Indian society. It was not even in the perspective of those who took the mantle to govern India after transfer of power from the British. During the interaction in train that lasted over 6 to 7 hours, Dharampal also enquired if they would go to see Delhi, the capital of the free India. Their negative response left Dharampal wondering.



“Those people on their pilgrimage were not interested in any of this. And they were representative of India. More representative of India than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ever was. Or I and most of us could ever be.”



Dharampal describes this experience of his as



“I think in a way that meeting gave me a view of India, the larger India.”



The characteristics of a caste system, in its origin in the West, do not reflect in the ways of people of India or the Hindu society. The caste system in the West is a social stratification based on inheritance, endogamy, economic and political power. These were of the clergy, the rulers, and the commoner. Inheritance and endogamy were important elements of the caste system. In practice this lead to segregation and access to rights (consumption, occupational and ceremonial). In John Locke’s words, West was barbarian. What we know of India, its society and systems today, is what Westerners described of it. Their description was not a factual account of India. In Prof. Balagangadhar’s words, “Indians took to this way of talking about themselves the way ducks take to water.”



It is a little known fact that until the seventeenth century European traveler’s records from India reported a highly educated and productive Indian society. Together with China, India produced 73% of the world’s industrial production in 1750. While education was accessible only to the privileged in the eighteenth century England, India had an elaborate system of education. Drawing attention to civility amongst Indians and Indian education, John Locke attributed this barbarianism (in the West) to lack of education. These facts are not found in the textbooks.



The acquired knowledge of caste system is invariably accompanied with the stories around water wells, physical beatings, denial of access to temples and untouchability. One can certainly leave the emotional pitch found in these stories aside. The Christian missionaries and travelers who landed in India saw the so-called caste system and described their observations as such, but, there is no mention of any of the horror stories.



[...]

Quote:Caste is likely 30k years old and well predates Hinduism.

It has been genetically found that the Irula tribe of snake catchers in Chennai is 30K years separated from the local tamil population.

Quote:yet for me i believe that the "dark skinned aboriginals" were basically outside the caste system in the beginning, they dwell or dwelled in forests and mountains. the caste system was originally made up of the same stock or indo-aryans. the castes with time more or less mixed with the aboriginal population and result in some looking like they do (you can find "black aboriginal upper castes and a good deal of indid/lower castes). i believe also there have been indo-aryans who were outside the caste system, or expelled from their caste (there are many examples in ancient hindu texts). if europeans can do "unclean work" (many did for centuries) so can indo-aryans, or do you think indo-aryans are superior to europeans? the early indo-aryans have been nomadic as well, so gypsies if descendant from india could be a population of indo-aryan nomads who were outside caste restrictions.



--- as for ASI/ANI thats the work of ONE man originally, and the date of intermixture of ANI/ASI is not certain. so it has nothing to do with an Aryan Invasion Theory.