10-06-2006, 02:24 AM
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheHeathenIn...ss/message/2865
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Re: semantically speaking
Every now and then, discussions on this board puzzle me. This entire
thread `semantically speaking' is one such instance. While it is
evident that people obviously disagree with each other, what is not
evident is (a) what they are disagreeing about (b) why and © what
the next step should be. In the recent exchanges about caste, religion
and culture, it is very unclear (to me) just what issues are being
contested and why. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, I would like to
make some statements and formulate some questions.
1. Are there Jati's in India? Yes, there are. What kind of units or
entities are they? I do not know; neither does anybody for that
matter. It is a matter of fact that (a) they are not occupational
groups; (b) they are not social classes (that is, there is no
correlation between Jati's and the `means of production'); © appear
hereditary (though one could obtain certificates that `change' one's
Jati legally). Some Jati's are organized as some kind of legal or
semi-legal associations, some Jati's are not.
2. Are there conflicts between groups of people in India? Yes, there
are. But they do not follow any strict lines: sometimes members of
some Jati's fight members from other Jati's; sometimes, there are
fights between Muslims and `non-Muslims'; sometimes it is the trades
unions that struggle and so on.
3. Are the Jati's immutable? No, they are not. Over the last two
thousand years, some Jati's have disappeared, some new ones have come
into existence.
4. Is it possible to classify all the Jati's that exist in India
hierarchically using some or another set of criteria? This question
does not allow an unambiguous answer: may be it is possible, may be it
is not. The British tried to develop such a classificatory system,
which they called `the caste system', and gave up on this attempt
after about 30 years.
5. Is the English word `caste' used to translate the Indian word
`Jati'? Yes, many use it as a synonym. Increasingly, however, some
find this translation inadequate because the word `caste' cannot
distinguish between `Varna' and `Jati'. Besides, using the word
`sub-caste' suggests the existence of a super-ordinate and a
subordinate `caste', whereas `Jati' does not suggest this.
6. What is a `Varna' and what is its relationship to `Jati'? No one
knows. Some claim that `Jati' is a sub-division within the `Varnas',
some claim that there is no relationship between the two, yet others
suggest that Jati's exist only in some Varna's and so on.
7. Is Varna a hierarchical social system in India with `Brahmins'
occupying the top of this hierarchy with Sudra's at the bottom and a
social group that finds itself outside this `hierarchy'? There is no
correlation between the `Varnas' and occupation; there is no
correlation between `Varna' and political power. Therefore, it is not
possible to suggest that `Varna' is a social system, hierarchical or
otherwise. Furthermore, it is not clear what `Varnas' are or what
criteria have to be used to classify people into Varnas. If one uses
`birth' as a criterion (that is, one says that one's parents have to
belong to one of the Varnas in order to `qualify' as a member of that
Varna), then the vast majority of Indians fall outside this
classificatory framework. (This group would include Jains, Buddhists,
Christians, Muslims, Lingayats, many Saivites, some Viashnavites, and
so on.) From this it follows that whatever `Varnas' are, such a
classificatory system cannot be a social system because it fails to
classify the majority of the people in a society. Therefore, no one
specific social group falls outside this `system' but many, many groups.
If any on this board disagree with the answers to the above questions,
I would like to know what their answers are. I presuppose their truth
for the time being. None of the above claims is the result of my
research; this is something that everyone on this board (who has more
than merely a passing acquaintance with India) knows. (I presume the
truth of the last statement as well.)
Let me now spell out the results of my research. People can (and have)
disagreed with my research or its results. For the sake of carrying
the discussion forward, it would be good if people tell me (a) what
their disagreements are; (b) specify the alternatives, which they
think is true; © why these alternatives are better than my hypotheses.
1. There are no `native' religions in India. That is, words like
`Hinduism', `Buddhism', `Jainism' etc. do not have any reference to
any such phenomena, where the claim is that such words name some or
another `native' religion. (I am using the word `native' and the scare
quotes because I want to say that Islam and Christianity exist in
India and that groups that profess these religions are part of the
Indian society and culture.)
2. There are cultures in the world that are constituted by the dynamic
of religions. When people from such cultures describe India in terms
of religions of India, they do so because of a conceptual compulsion.
This compulsion forces them to construct entities, which lend
stability and structure to their experiences of India. That is to say,
they take elements present in India, weave them into a pattern and
this, in its turn, lends intelligibility to their experience of India.
While each of the elements that go to weaving the pattern (normally
speaking) does exist in India, taken together, this pattern does not
describe the structure of the Indian society or culture.
3. The choice of elements that go into the weaving of pattern is not
random: only some elements are selected and some others discarded.
This suggests that their descriptions of India are guided by a
`theory' (whether it is implicit or explicit is not an issue now)
because of the elements they choose. This `theory' is their
`theology'. (I am using the word `theology' very broadly in this context.)
4. Indians have come to accept these descriptions as descriptions of
Indian culture and society. They are not. They are reports of the
structure of the experience of the people who come from cultures
constituted by the dynamic of their religions. For now, I call such
entities as `experiential entities' for such people.
5. Why have Indians accepted reports of experiences as descriptions of
the Indian society and culture? I answer this question by trying to
develop a hypothesis about the nature and structure of `colonial
consciousness'. Currently in the process of elaboration, this
hypothesis suggests that both the Islamic and the British rule of
India were variants of colonialism. I am trying to say what
`colonialism' is by talking about the kind of consciousness it creates
among its subjects.
6. One of the central elements in this hypothesis is the claim that
typical of colonial consciousness is its inability to access its own
experience. While this claim has to be elaborated upon and refined
further, it suggests that we have to look elsewhere than the Indian
society or her culture if we have to understand the current
controversies in India about `religion' or `caste'. This is the only
hypothesis I know which does not transform the Indian intellectuals
into imbeciles and cretins, when they take moral positions regarding
issues no one knows much about. (No one knows what `Hinduism' is or
why it is a `religion', but people want to fight `Hindu
Fundamentalism' and advocate `secularism' as a solution. No one knows
what the `caste system' is, but everyone has firm moral opinions on
the subject. When I say `knows', I mean there are no theories about
these `phenomena'.)
7. When I say, therefore, that the West created Hinduism etc. as
religions, or that it created the caste system in India, I say the
following: they are experiential entities for the West and their
construction made their experience of India intelligible to them.
Neither before such construction nor after their construction do they
constitute structures of the Indian society or culture. Because they
are imaginary entities (in the above sense), no amount of research has
provided us any answer to the question about either the nature of
`Hinduism' or the nature of `the Indian caste system'. Nor will there
be any answers forthcoming.
8. Arraigned against me are the absolute majority of social
scientists, to speak only of them. They continue to prattle on
endlessly about the `amorphous nature of Hinduism', `the evil that the
caste system' is, and so on. They have been doing the same for more
than 300 years, and they will continue to do it for some more time to
come. I consider such discussions an absolute waste of time.
My request to all of you is this: let us please not waste time on this
board as well chasing after the unicorns that only the virgins can
see. If Avinash believes that his experience assures him of the
existence of Hinduism and caste system, fine; he is not alone. He has
the majority behind him. Let us be glad that science is not
democratic: the scientificity of a theory, thankfully, does not depend
upon counting the number of votes.
Friendly greetings
Balu<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Re: semantically speaking
Every now and then, discussions on this board puzzle me. This entire
thread `semantically speaking' is one such instance. While it is
evident that people obviously disagree with each other, what is not
evident is (a) what they are disagreeing about (b) why and © what
the next step should be. In the recent exchanges about caste, religion
and culture, it is very unclear (to me) just what issues are being
contested and why. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, I would like to
make some statements and formulate some questions.
1. Are there Jati's in India? Yes, there are. What kind of units or
entities are they? I do not know; neither does anybody for that
matter. It is a matter of fact that (a) they are not occupational
groups; (b) they are not social classes (that is, there is no
correlation between Jati's and the `means of production'); © appear
hereditary (though one could obtain certificates that `change' one's
Jati legally). Some Jati's are organized as some kind of legal or
semi-legal associations, some Jati's are not.
2. Are there conflicts between groups of people in India? Yes, there
are. But they do not follow any strict lines: sometimes members of
some Jati's fight members from other Jati's; sometimes, there are
fights between Muslims and `non-Muslims'; sometimes it is the trades
unions that struggle and so on.
3. Are the Jati's immutable? No, they are not. Over the last two
thousand years, some Jati's have disappeared, some new ones have come
into existence.
4. Is it possible to classify all the Jati's that exist in India
hierarchically using some or another set of criteria? This question
does not allow an unambiguous answer: may be it is possible, may be it
is not. The British tried to develop such a classificatory system,
which they called `the caste system', and gave up on this attempt
after about 30 years.
5. Is the English word `caste' used to translate the Indian word
`Jati'? Yes, many use it as a synonym. Increasingly, however, some
find this translation inadequate because the word `caste' cannot
distinguish between `Varna' and `Jati'. Besides, using the word
`sub-caste' suggests the existence of a super-ordinate and a
subordinate `caste', whereas `Jati' does not suggest this.
6. What is a `Varna' and what is its relationship to `Jati'? No one
knows. Some claim that `Jati' is a sub-division within the `Varnas',
some claim that there is no relationship between the two, yet others
suggest that Jati's exist only in some Varna's and so on.
7. Is Varna a hierarchical social system in India with `Brahmins'
occupying the top of this hierarchy with Sudra's at the bottom and a
social group that finds itself outside this `hierarchy'? There is no
correlation between the `Varnas' and occupation; there is no
correlation between `Varna' and political power. Therefore, it is not
possible to suggest that `Varna' is a social system, hierarchical or
otherwise. Furthermore, it is not clear what `Varnas' are or what
criteria have to be used to classify people into Varnas. If one uses
`birth' as a criterion (that is, one says that one's parents have to
belong to one of the Varnas in order to `qualify' as a member of that
Varna), then the vast majority of Indians fall outside this
classificatory framework. (This group would include Jains, Buddhists,
Christians, Muslims, Lingayats, many Saivites, some Viashnavites, and
so on.) From this it follows that whatever `Varnas' are, such a
classificatory system cannot be a social system because it fails to
classify the majority of the people in a society. Therefore, no one
specific social group falls outside this `system' but many, many groups.
If any on this board disagree with the answers to the above questions,
I would like to know what their answers are. I presuppose their truth
for the time being. None of the above claims is the result of my
research; this is something that everyone on this board (who has more
than merely a passing acquaintance with India) knows. (I presume the
truth of the last statement as well.)
Let me now spell out the results of my research. People can (and have)
disagreed with my research or its results. For the sake of carrying
the discussion forward, it would be good if people tell me (a) what
their disagreements are; (b) specify the alternatives, which they
think is true; © why these alternatives are better than my hypotheses.
1. There are no `native' religions in India. That is, words like
`Hinduism', `Buddhism', `Jainism' etc. do not have any reference to
any such phenomena, where the claim is that such words name some or
another `native' religion. (I am using the word `native' and the scare
quotes because I want to say that Islam and Christianity exist in
India and that groups that profess these religions are part of the
Indian society and culture.)
2. There are cultures in the world that are constituted by the dynamic
of religions. When people from such cultures describe India in terms
of religions of India, they do so because of a conceptual compulsion.
This compulsion forces them to construct entities, which lend
stability and structure to their experiences of India. That is to say,
they take elements present in India, weave them into a pattern and
this, in its turn, lends intelligibility to their experience of India.
While each of the elements that go to weaving the pattern (normally
speaking) does exist in India, taken together, this pattern does not
describe the structure of the Indian society or culture.
3. The choice of elements that go into the weaving of pattern is not
random: only some elements are selected and some others discarded.
This suggests that their descriptions of India are guided by a
`theory' (whether it is implicit or explicit is not an issue now)
because of the elements they choose. This `theory' is their
`theology'. (I am using the word `theology' very broadly in this context.)
4. Indians have come to accept these descriptions as descriptions of
Indian culture and society. They are not. They are reports of the
structure of the experience of the people who come from cultures
constituted by the dynamic of their religions. For now, I call such
entities as `experiential entities' for such people.
5. Why have Indians accepted reports of experiences as descriptions of
the Indian society and culture? I answer this question by trying to
develop a hypothesis about the nature and structure of `colonial
consciousness'. Currently in the process of elaboration, this
hypothesis suggests that both the Islamic and the British rule of
India were variants of colonialism. I am trying to say what
`colonialism' is by talking about the kind of consciousness it creates
among its subjects.
6. One of the central elements in this hypothesis is the claim that
typical of colonial consciousness is its inability to access its own
experience. While this claim has to be elaborated upon and refined
further, it suggests that we have to look elsewhere than the Indian
society or her culture if we have to understand the current
controversies in India about `religion' or `caste'. This is the only
hypothesis I know which does not transform the Indian intellectuals
into imbeciles and cretins, when they take moral positions regarding
issues no one knows much about. (No one knows what `Hinduism' is or
why it is a `religion', but people want to fight `Hindu
Fundamentalism' and advocate `secularism' as a solution. No one knows
what the `caste system' is, but everyone has firm moral opinions on
the subject. When I say `knows', I mean there are no theories about
these `phenomena'.)
7. When I say, therefore, that the West created Hinduism etc. as
religions, or that it created the caste system in India, I say the
following: they are experiential entities for the West and their
construction made their experience of India intelligible to them.
Neither before such construction nor after their construction do they
constitute structures of the Indian society or culture. Because they
are imaginary entities (in the above sense), no amount of research has
provided us any answer to the question about either the nature of
`Hinduism' or the nature of `the Indian caste system'. Nor will there
be any answers forthcoming.
8. Arraigned against me are the absolute majority of social
scientists, to speak only of them. They continue to prattle on
endlessly about the `amorphous nature of Hinduism', `the evil that the
caste system' is, and so on. They have been doing the same for more
than 300 years, and they will continue to do it for some more time to
come. I consider such discussions an absolute waste of time.
My request to all of you is this: let us please not waste time on this
board as well chasing after the unicorns that only the virgins can
see. If Avinash believes that his experience assures him of the
existence of Hinduism and caste system, fine; he is not alone. He has
the majority behind him. Let us be glad that science is not
democratic: the scientificity of a theory, thankfully, does not depend
upon counting the number of votes.
Friendly greetings
Balu<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->