Cast System in India

India has been wrecked by the Caste issue after post Independence era.

The decennial census of 2011 is underway. The big question, therein, is whether to include caste enumeration in the “Census Data Gathering Process” or not?

Let us take a brief look at this Caste issue, which has become the talk of India.

The last time caste was enumerated in the Census Data Gathering Process was 80 years ago, in 1931. After that the British Government and the subsequent Indian governments have desisted enumerating the caste. This is because of the noble vision of the freedom fighters and the subsequent leaders of India who wanted a casteless, equal society in India.

To this effect, they felt that branding each one by his/ her caste would only reinforce the caste divide, which is slowly dying.
In the first place, how did this caste divide occur? What is “caste”? Where did this term “caste” come from? When was the first time that the Indian society was segregated along the lines of “caste?”

The word “caste” is not Indian or even English in origin. It comes from the Portuguese word “Casta,” meaning, “race.” In the 1700’s, when the British started taking administrative control over India, for their then administrative convenience, they first combined all the 6 distinct religions of India, namely Vaishnavam, Shaivam, Shaktam, Ganapathyam, Kaumaram and Sauram, known as Shadmadam, into a single religion and called it “Hinduism.”

It was an administrative necessity for the British administrators to do so then. After the 1857 First War of Independence, the British administrators thought of ways to keep India under check and therein looked for various means and measures to this end.

One of the policies that they followed in India, since the beginning of the 1800’s was the “Divide and Rule” policy of India. Under this policy of “Divide and Rule,” the British administrators brought caste enumeration to the census starting in 1871, as one of the steps to create a divide.

This caste enumeration in the 6 censuses between 1871 and 1931 brought untold havoc and wrecked the societal fabric of India, creating an indelible scar and a deep divide in our minds, for generations to come. You may wonder, if the 4-caste system of Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, was not a native Indian concept? Why blame the British for it?

India has over thousands of years followed a multi dimensional societal organization system in the name of the Jathi -Varna system.

The word Jathi etymologically refers to birth. Jananam means, to take birth and Jathi denotes the family lineage into which one is born. Each Jathi denotes the primary work, service or occupation that the family that one is born into, is involved in. It is akin to the Trade Guilds of Europe. There are many a Jathi in India, as there are vocations. By some counts there are close to 2600 Jathi. Let us now come to the contentious term Varna. Varna are primarily only 4 in number - Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra.

Varna, at a common level, is understood as colour and in this understanding, was used by the British Indologists, to summarily state that the 4 divisions in society called Varna had arrived to be based on the colour of the people. This was an erroneous interpretation right from the beginning.

The word Varna primarily means, “to choose.” Here is something that can help relate to this meaning of Varna. In the Indian society, where marriages are more the arranged norm, even today, while searching for a bride or groom, the term used for a prospective bride or groom, is Var. Var means choice and the term Varna, denotes choice. From this, we can draw the right conclusion that the 4 Varnas were based on the choice of an individual, on his/ her aptitude into that Varna.

Hence, in this Jathi-Varna system, Jathi stands for a person’s family and birth in that family and is hence fixed for life. Varna is the flexibility to choose an alternate when desirous. That was how the whole society was designed and that was how it functioned over the last 5,000 years.

A person, who thus was born into one of the many specific Jathi, by default, took on the Varna of his parents and their Jathi. The option to migrate to another Varna was available by choice.

Thus a vocation-based society ensured continuity of the vocational skills needed for a society, based on Jathi but also had a choice based on flexibility built into it by the name of Varna, to accommodate exceptions in humanity.

Indian legends are replete with many cases of prominent people -kings, rishis, commoners etc. having moved from one Varna to another. Details of these and more on the Caste system can be found in the forthcoming book on Caste from Bharath Gyan. The stratification of the flexible Jathi-Varna into the watertight caste system is a legacy of the British administrators and their caste enumeration with the “Divide and Rule” policy in mind.

Today, we have an understanding of what Jathi and Varna are. The diabolical plan of the Caste enumeration of the British, should awaken us, at least now, so that the current crop of politicians do not take the regressive step of further stratifying the Indian society into various castes. In the 2011 census, after a long gap of 80 years, just when the modern society is slowly and surely unshackling itself of the divisive caste system, this should not recur. Best example is Bihar election

The age old, multi dimensional societal organization system where the society could be sliced and diced along various dimensions such as birth, profession, philosophy, religion, mother tongue etc., helped set guidelines for role play and conduct in society, along these dimensions.

The Jathi-Varna system emphasized “given birth lineage” and “chosen profession” factors.

It would be good if we could get back to the original import of the Jathi-Varna thought, wherein a society is comprised of people playing equally important roles based on one’s skills, aptitude and choice.

Only this will ensure that all are looked upon as equals. That every individual has equal rights to live as he or she chooses, within the framework of a progressive, enlightened society. To live in a civilization that accorded dignity to labour and all choices of life from time immemorial -in the true spirit of Indian society.