hinduwoman

I managed to ferret out another important bit. In the rural areas it is what the caste council decrees is what is accepted as law. Every village has its own headman and every caste/community in that region has its own elder council. In all conflicts among the caste members, it is this council that mediates. No member of other castes allowed to poke their nose in. Only if a member of another caste high or low becomes involved in a dispute, then does the elders of that other caste come in: but limited to that caste only.
I specifically asked about Brahmins, how much power they have in such matters. apparently, even Brahmins are not allowed to interefere in matters involving another caste, unless specifically asked to.
The castesystem therefore gives them a sense of power, a sense that they are in control. So while they want to have equal opportunities in every respect wih the higher castes, they do not want to give up the caste system totally.

hinduwoman

Random thought: tourism probably has a lot to do with relaxing of pollution rules. I travelled all over India even in the holiest places. None of the hoteliers, restaurants (even pure veg ones, or even in places where they have seprate seating arrangements for single men and families), guides etc. ever asked for my caste --- they cannot, if they want to earn money! So they must serve every tourist including beef-eating foreigners. so caste rules of pollution has to be given up.

Viewpoints

Check this out. From a spiritual perspective, on the Hindu assumption that the purpose of life was to find liberation from the endless cycles of cause-effect, if spirituality was the motive force for existence, then the caste system makes perfect sense. Egalitarianism superficially seeks to be the great equalizer. But, in reality, it does not work. There are as many differences as there are humans. So, it made perfect sense for the ancient Indian seers to formulate a system that took into account differences in proclivities, tendencies and predilections from a spiritual perspective. Which meant that they *did* observe a natural hierarchy in attitudes. Brahminism is cited as a reason for degradation of "varnashrama" into "jativaada", but this was not the Brahminism that was formulated by the sages. This was opportunistic Brahminism, very deserving of our strongest condemnation. However, from its original stand-point, mere birth into a Brahmin family was not reason enough to attain enlightenment. Hence, it makes perfect sense to go by another interpretation, that everyone is a born Sudra. His/her actions alone then, determine his position. Thus you have people from various castes, eventually attaining rishidom or sagehood. Which was a Brahminical existence in its truest spiritual sense.

Coming to modern times, if spirituality has been replaced by economic interests, then the caste system makes no sense other than as a cultural binder with its attending advantages /disadvantages. Egalitarianism, though a good idea, however is doomed to fail since it has not been shown to work at the grass-roots level anywhere. For a society to progress, we might as well make allowances for inherent differences and work up from there.

hinduwoman

Copernicus, blacks can naturally hate whites and so be prejudiced. But my uncle does not hate Brahmins, he has a vague kind of respect for a Brahmin as a Brahmin. but when it comes to marriage, it is a no no.

I agree that originally it was supposed to be that only action can make a Brahmin and it is said that on birth everyone is a shudra. But vested interested can easily turn everything to their advantages.

Before the 20th century, other countries did not bother much about caste system either; because each of them had their own version of it. Even now, they have racism and distinctions between rich and poor. But I think that they mean theoretically at least, today everyone is supposed to be equal. Caste on the other hand presumes that people are not born equal. That is why there is insistence today that earliest caste system was dependant on action.

Viewpoints

Dear Hinduwoman,

I agree. However, it was not just supposed to be that caste was action dependent, it was. The numerous sages who were accorded Brahminhood by virtue of their enlightnened natures, actually came from almost all the castes including the shudra. The Portugese said "casta" to record that they found similar discrimination in India as they were used to in their societies in Europe. Sivananda has a beautiful explanation for varnashrama. As such, a shudra was a person who ate anything, spoke anything, did anything and possibly represented a tamasik existence at its worst. Hence, spiritually, he was ranked lowest. The vaishya carried on trade, agriculture, handled money, paid his dues and heard the scriptures from the mounts of holy men. The Kshatriyas were the guardians, the protectors, kings and rulers, who learnt those skills of warfare, administration and *also* learnt the scriptures. The "sandhya-vandana" with the Gayatri mantra recitation was something all warriors had to do. Now comes the interesting part. The Brahmin was person of "vairagya" or detachment, he spent his time studying the scriptures and guiding those who came to him with existential queries. His role was to understand what enlightenment was and attain it. The best part of detachment was that the Brahmin had to *beg* (=bhiksha) for food, such was his level of poverty since he could not work and had to depend on alms. That was the original aspect of the caste system. Yet, as the motives shifted from spiritual centredness to economic benefits, the Brahmin stopped begging and started working, the Kshatriya stopped his ritualistic practices and instead became an aggrandizer and hoarder. Often, even martial duties were forgotten as pleasures were chased. The Vaishyas esploited the shudras who cared less if he begged, borrowed or stole since for all these castes, the First Principle had become money and not the mind. Down the years, it degraded into pathetic jaativada with grotesque ideas.

copernicus

Hinduwoman, how is your uncle substantively different from an African American who does not hate whites--even respects many of them--but just doesn't want his daughter to marry one? It is clear that there are many social differences between Western social strata and Hindu social strata, but the behavior of apartheid is universal. One should not be surprised to see individuals of all racial, ethnic, or caste backgrounds who seek to preserve the status quo, even when it doesn't seem to be in their own interests.

Do you think that the caste system will ever disappear in India? If so, how many generations do you think it will take? It seems that Nepal is now taking first steps to ban it.

[ August 26, 2001: Message edited by: copernicus ]

HindooHeathen

Caste is a very complicated phenomenon. Isaac Asimov has written a short story called "Strike breaker" which was published in an anthology of science-fictions titled "Sociology through science fiction".(I have forgotten the publishers). Here he remarks that a caste system arises in a society with lesser mobility and scarce resources.
Most probably caste system arose in India when Indus-Sarawathy civilization started facing catrastrophes because of the drying of the river Indus. Further political campaigns usually created downward movement of castes of the then dominating castes.
Interestingly the Sudra castes throughut India have fared very well often becoming the land-owning castes and dominating castes. While Kshatriya castes are the ones that have faced the worst treatment. With British colonial machinery extending patronage to select castes, including select Brahmin sub-castes, and depriving land owner -ship of many Kshatriya castes even pushing them to the untouchable castes, caste is clearly not a problem arising out of Hindu religious doctrine(let me hasten to add there is no such thing as a body of doctrine for Hindu"ism").
Caste system is undoubtedly a blot on the face of Hindu society in particular and India in general. The quicker it dies the better for Indic spiritual traditions which are far akin to the secula humanist values. This has to be done in a war footing as expansionist Abrahamic creeds are utilizing the caste conflicts to convert the economically downtrodden Indians. In this connection Dr Ambedkar's attitude is the most positive.

hinduwoman

Copernicus, I think there is a slight difference between my uncle and the African-americans who respect whites. It is not that my uncle likes Brahmins individually, he respects them as a whole class, merely because they are a priestly class.
One of my older aunts too; she has a Brahmin cook, she would not eat anything not cooked by a Brahmin --- though she is a sudra too! But she just orders him like a servant, which he is and does not distinguish between him and other servants. Human psychology is just amazing.

Eventually, caste system would go away; but I think it is going to take longer, if even low castes are attached to it.

All these discussions have cleared one thing up. It is not my worry what other people are thinking or whether hindu society is going to collapse without it. All I have to do is to personally see I don't discriminate and fight against it wherever it occurs.

But I still don't think casteism and racism is the same thing. an article might interest you:
By HILDA RAJA
"CASTE DISCRIMINATION is racism'' - this is the contention of all the NGOs working for the dalit cause. Hence their coordinated effort for its inclusion in the Durban conference. One fails to understand how sociologists are silent on this argument, namely making the dalit discrimination a racist discrimination. There is no quarrel on the fact that dalits have been and are discriminated but simply because a global forum will give greater world focus one cannot intermix sociological facts. NGOs get enormous funds for both women and dalit causes. These are two perennial money drawing sources for the NGOs and hence they unite on this, to catch the world attention and boost the funding prospects.

What is race and what is caste? These are two different sociological constructs which cannot be one and the same no matter what the NGOs say or want. A simple question is to which race do the Vanniars belong? To which race do the Pallars belong? For that matter all the so called upper castes in Tamil Nadu, to be more specific, belong to the Dravidian race; so too are the SCs. Discrimination again is inflicted on the SCs not by the upper castes alone; within the SCs, the subsect the Pariyars is the most discriminated by the other subsects. Hence the former is doubly discriminated. Yet there is no special focus on this. By lumpening discrimination of the SCs, the discrimination within the SCs subsects has been largely overlooked. Similarly, the benefits and the concessions given to the SCs are mostly cornered by the upper subsects of the SCs. Discrimination, apart from being a violation of human rights, is also poignant when one realises that it is by the same race against the same race.

Cultural barriers

Historically citing occupation varna, mythology, conqueror/conquered, etc., whatever came handy was accepted to rationalise and justify the discrimination and exploitation system. Religious sanctions abetted and reinforced the perpetuation of this oppressive system. Society was thus hierarchically stratified with proscriptive and prescriptive norms. Fenced in by endogamy these segments of society became watertight compartments and suited the hierarchical upper segments of society. But this all happened within the same race of people. With the kind of occupation assigned to the SCs, and the denial of education, cultural barriers also arose. While the upper castes had the benefits of education and were quick to assimilate westernisation and modernisation those who were oppressed were forced to continue to live under the oppressive yoke. This is historically true.

Sanskritisation

A phenomenon which M. N. Srinivas termed as `Sanskritisation', a process by which the upward mobility was sought by the so called backward castes in the caste hierarchy. It has also led to they becoming the immediate oppressors of the dalits. Today one can see this process of Sanskritisation among the Pallars too. This was possible because of the gradual empowerment process - political power, land ownership and government jobs. It is not uncommon to discover a `puja' room in a Pallar's house. This upper sect of the SCs is adopting the brahminisation of rites and rituals and all religious functions. The point I want to make is that the process of Sanskritisation seems to be confined mostly among the Pallars - a definite sign of empowerment and mobility.

It seems to me that a whole range of historical facts and processes cannot be buried to suit the myopic perception and vested interests of NGOs and shuffle `caste discrimination' under race discrimination. True that dalit rights are human rights - all rights in the world are human rights and any denial of rights needs to be fought against and eliminated. This cannot be achieved by using wrong premises and constructs and by putting caste discrimination under an entirely different category. The historical and cultural background of discrimination, its evolution, the structures which upheld it, the methods of perpetuation, the religious sanctions, etc., are essential for working towards its effective elimination. The move to push it under `race' may serve the NGOs but will not serve the dalit cause. It may bring some global publicity and more funds. But I am afraid it will help the violators to get away with discrimination. This `spread' will also dilute the focus. Caste discrimination will continue because there are many vested interests enmeshed within the dalit issue - be they the politicians and/or the NGOs. It brings money and power. That the dalits are today a power to be reckoned with cannot be denied and I am confident that they will within the framework of the country's polity assert their constitutional rights as citizens of this country belonging to the same race.

copernicus

Hinduwoman, thanks for the article and helping to lay out some of these issues for me. I think that there are some honest misunderstandings that Westerners have about the caste system and some honest misunderstandings that Hindus have about the Western--especially American--concept of "racism". You are taking it in a narrow sense to be the doctrine that certain "racial groups" (usually based on skin pigmentation and other superficial features) can be inherently superior or inferior to each other. And you don't accept the view that castes represent racial groups in the same sense that they do for Westerners.

The problem for Westerners is that "race" is an elusive category that resists scientific definition. The term is often used to describe virtually any kind of discrimination that is based on group or imagined "tribal" characteristics--sometimes even just ethnic or linguistic background. Nobody talks about the "Irish race" or "German race" anymore, but they used to. Ethnic and gender discrimination are often lumped together with racial discrimination as essentially the same phenomenon.

When US journalists talk about the global conference on racism, they often talk about the hypocrisy of muslim countries that don't wish to include discrimination against women as a legitimate topic. But what does genderism have to do with racism? Women aren't a "race", are they? From an American perspective, the issue is less one of how to define the discriminatory categories than it is in the use of social categories to justify unequal treatment of individuals. So, when we look at the caste system, it seems as if people are just splitting hairs when they insist that racism and caste-ism are two different things.

Remember my reference to The Jeffersons? A running joke in the series was how the rich George Jefferson had a white British butler (Pat Kilbane) and some of the farcical situations that arose from that situation. Again, your use of your uncle to define a difference between Indian caste and US race strikes a resonance. I grant you that it is possible to make a technical distinction between race and caste, but that distinction is very hard to maintain as a substantive one. In the end, the important thing is not so much how one defines social categories but of the psychology that drives people to assign superior and inferior status to those categories. At least, that's how I see it.

hinduwoman

I agree with you. It was the term 'racism' that is confusing, since racism is defined on being based on skin colour.