07-01-2005, 10:27 PM
Castes here to stay
VG Rao
India's caste system is unique in itself. It has been associated with the Hindu society for almost 3,000 years. Such an arrangement was made to institute a social order in ancient India. Today, the system is prevalent more in rural than in urban India. Further, it is practised more in social matters like marriages than in impersonal day-to-day interactions. Being around for centuries, it is doubtful that the caste system will ever terminate.
The word 'caste' is derived from the Portuguese 'casta'. Broadly speaking, it is a rigid social system in which a social hierarchy is maintained generation after generation allowing little social manoeuverability beyond the position to which a person is born. It is perhaps as old as the Rig Veda itself. However, the hereditary basis of caste, as it prevailed in the last three hundred years - with a person born in a caste perpetuating his caste - appears a later-day improvisation.
In the Rig Veda, the oldest Hindu testament, caste represents profession. There is a hymn wherein the composer claims to be a poet despite his being born of a physician father and a corn-thrasher mother. The classification of caste into Brahmin, Kshratiya, Vaishya and Shudra, finds no mention in the Rig Veda.
According to Manu who codified Hindu laws in his magnum opus Manusrmiti, the caste of a person is determined by that of his father. That was undoubtedly a loaded proposition; for, a person born of a Brahmin or a king took on his father's caste irrespective of his mother's status in society.
But those born of wedlock between a Brahmin female and Shudra male, for example, was an outcast termed chandala. It is such discriminatory labelling that provides grist to the propaganda mill of our modern caste bailers. Manu especially comes in for a lot of flak. He is taken to be an authoritarian woman hater. Nothing could be farther from truth if things are taken in their proper perspective and context.
Castes have rightly or wrongly been blamed for the ills affecting our society. The evil practice of untouchability that segregated a man from another on the basis of his birth has been attributed to the caste system. However, at least, in the ancient period, castes served purely as functional groupings without rearing social discrimination. None of a stature less than that of Mahatma Gandhi had little reservation over the continuation of caste in the Hindu society. In fact, he warmly welcomed it.
The caste system of India has found mention in the writings of distinguished foreign travellers like Megasthenes, Lucius Flavius Arrianus, et al. The sociological problem of the origin of caste has not been resolved satisfactorily even now. Many differing viewpoints abound. The colonial scholar HH Risley confused castes with races.
Indian scholars like Mr Ramachandra Guha agreed with him to a certain extent. The current trend in sociology is to interpret caste on the basis of region and ethnicity with race taking a back seat. For instance, it is now recognised that the UP Brahmin is ethnically closer to the UP Kurmi than to a Tamil Brahmin.
Though casteist rules are observed more or less diligently by the orthodox in general, infraction of the same is no longer that uncommon. Inter-caste marriages are on the rise. Perhaps, Indian society is evolving. It is turning egalitarian and careless - at least, more sociable. But politically, caste is here to stay.
VG Rao
India's caste system is unique in itself. It has been associated with the Hindu society for almost 3,000 years. Such an arrangement was made to institute a social order in ancient India. Today, the system is prevalent more in rural than in urban India. Further, it is practised more in social matters like marriages than in impersonal day-to-day interactions. Being around for centuries, it is doubtful that the caste system will ever terminate.
The word 'caste' is derived from the Portuguese 'casta'. Broadly speaking, it is a rigid social system in which a social hierarchy is maintained generation after generation allowing little social manoeuverability beyond the position to which a person is born. It is perhaps as old as the Rig Veda itself. However, the hereditary basis of caste, as it prevailed in the last three hundred years - with a person born in a caste perpetuating his caste - appears a later-day improvisation.
In the Rig Veda, the oldest Hindu testament, caste represents profession. There is a hymn wherein the composer claims to be a poet despite his being born of a physician father and a corn-thrasher mother. The classification of caste into Brahmin, Kshratiya, Vaishya and Shudra, finds no mention in the Rig Veda.
According to Manu who codified Hindu laws in his magnum opus Manusrmiti, the caste of a person is determined by that of his father. That was undoubtedly a loaded proposition; for, a person born of a Brahmin or a king took on his father's caste irrespective of his mother's status in society.
But those born of wedlock between a Brahmin female and Shudra male, for example, was an outcast termed chandala. It is such discriminatory labelling that provides grist to the propaganda mill of our modern caste bailers. Manu especially comes in for a lot of flak. He is taken to be an authoritarian woman hater. Nothing could be farther from truth if things are taken in their proper perspective and context.
Castes have rightly or wrongly been blamed for the ills affecting our society. The evil practice of untouchability that segregated a man from another on the basis of his birth has been attributed to the caste system. However, at least, in the ancient period, castes served purely as functional groupings without rearing social discrimination. None of a stature less than that of Mahatma Gandhi had little reservation over the continuation of caste in the Hindu society. In fact, he warmly welcomed it.
The caste system of India has found mention in the writings of distinguished foreign travellers like Megasthenes, Lucius Flavius Arrianus, et al. The sociological problem of the origin of caste has not been resolved satisfactorily even now. Many differing viewpoints abound. The colonial scholar HH Risley confused castes with races.
Indian scholars like Mr Ramachandra Guha agreed with him to a certain extent. The current trend in sociology is to interpret caste on the basis of region and ethnicity with race taking a back seat. For instance, it is now recognised that the UP Brahmin is ethnically closer to the UP Kurmi than to a Tamil Brahmin.
Though casteist rules are observed more or less diligently by the orthodox in general, infraction of the same is no longer that uncommon. Inter-caste marriages are on the rise. Perhaps, Indian society is evolving. It is turning egalitarian and careless - at least, more sociable. But politically, caste is here to stay.