Pre-British India
The Myth of Caste Tyranny
The Indian Express, 26th
September, 1990
The Mandal Commission report
is based on a stereotype image of the caste system and Hindu society that our
colonial masters popularised with devastating effect in the 19th century.
It is not generally known that the India of rigid social stratification and hierarchical ranking was largely a
British creation and that in their attempt to comprehend, and control the
Indian social order; the British set in motion forces that transformed the
older system in a fundamental way.
As late as the 18th
century, the hierarchical ordering of Hindu society was not an established fact
over large parts of the subcontinent. As some eminent historians have pointed
out, till that time alternative ideologies and styles of life were strong,
indeed dominant, in much of India. Large bands of nomads, with their huge herds
of cattle, for instance, roamed the North Indian countryside plundering at will
(and at the same time trading with settled agriculture, carrying its goods to
distant markets and meeting its requirements of milk and other protein foods.
For details see ‘The New Cambridge History of India’ Vol. II by C. A. Bayly –
Cambridge University Press, 1988. This mutual compatibility was characteristic
of all relationships in the older set-up). Among the great nomadic groups were
Gujars, Bhattis, Rangar Rajputs, all of whom remained outside the framework of
Brahminical Hinduism. It seems ironic that groups which terrorised settled
agriculturists for centuries should now talk of the tyranny of the Hindu social
order.
The strength of the pastoral
communities can be further gauged from the fact that at no point before the
British arrival could settled agriculturists ever be said to have gained a
decisive victory over them. It was only the British determination to tame all
floating populations that finally led to their amalgamation with the agrarian
society. There were areas where Brahmins and Brahminical life-style remained
peripheral. Till the 18th century forests competed with arable land
in size and importance. The frontiers of settled agriculture were constantly
fluctuating, sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating, even in the same area.
Large sections of society survived on forest produce. Forests also served as
havens for those in search of escape from society. Here also it was British
rule that brought about far-reaching changes.
In their attempt to pacify the
countryside they engaged in large-scale destruction of forests to deny rebels
places of refuge. Arthur Wellesly in his campaigns against the Pyche Raja, for
example, cleared the Malabar forest to a mile on either side of the road. The
British, not the Brahmins, thus won the final battle against nomads, tribals,
soldiers and forests, all of whom constituted important alternate life-styles in the pre-British
period. Incidentally, it was this plurality of society that was a major reason
for the failure of Islam to make much headway in the subcontinent. There was no
one clearly identifiable enemy to defeat but several powerful, competing power
centres and ways of life to cope with.
Apart from ensuring the final
defeat of all alternate life-styles, the British introduced other changes that
facilitated the creation of a settled agrarian society, a society that would be
easier for them to control and manipulate to their purpose. Prominent among
these were the spread of irrigation facilities and an increase in the
cultivation of cash crops (especially cotton, indigo and sugar) for the market.
Peasant society was thereby extended and consolidated and the stage set or the
emergence of a more rigid and stratified system of castes.
Pastoral and tribal
communities were incorporated into the agrarian society at the same time as the
agriculturist castes themselves became more closed and endogamous, a process
that has been well documented in the case of important caste groups like the
Jats and the Rajputs. To increase their military might, many Rajput clans had,
for example, maintained matrimonial relationships with lower caste armed groups
like the Pasis of Awadh. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, they had all
become endogamous.
It bears repetition that it
was only in the 19th century with the “pacification” of large parts
of the countryside that the Brahminical principles of social organisation could
be said to have become operational on an all-India scale. Till then only
ancient centres like Benaras could be truly regarded as Brahmin strongholds.
In their search for a uniform
law code, the British turned to these centres of Brahmin learning and
consequently, for the first time, a unified, supposedly Brahminical legal
system began to be applied on an all-India scale. So another part of
traditional India fell before the British onslaught. Laws in India had so far
remained uncodified and the very process of codification destroyed the
flexibility and the capacity to adapt to local customs and situations they had
earlier displayed. The Manusmriti may have existed in the past but it had never
been sought to be uniformly applied to society.
Certain other features of
caste system, as it operated in the pre-British period, deserve to be commented
upon,. Despite the commonly-held belief that hierarchy in Hindu society was
clearly defined and operational, in actual practice only the position of the
Brahmins at the top of the ritual scale and Harijans at the bottom was
relatively stable. In between there was ambiguity about the status of several
castes, an ambiguity that was acceptable to all concerned. This itself produced
a large element of fluidity in the system.
The close association of caste
with occupation notwithstanding, members of a caste group ever exercised exclusive
monopoly over a profession. As leading sociologists have pointed out, in
addition to their hereditary occupation, all castes traditionally also engaged
in cultivation. There were certain other professions such as warfare which
regularly drew adherents from different castes. In fact, the leadership of most
armed bands was provided by non-Kshatriya peasant castes. Powerful castes with almost a monopoly over violence were
as much part of the Indian scene as the ritual dominance of Brahmins in the settled
areas of the country.
Many villages, in addition,
did not have a hierarchy corresponding to the all-India system. There were, for
instance, often only one or two families of certain artisan and service castes
such as nais (barbers), telis (oil pressers), sonars (goldsmiths) and even
banias (money lenders) residing within the village precincts. So there was
little question of actually ranking these one or two families in the village
hierarchy and then discriminating against them.
The usurious interest rates
that the village baniyas are supposed to have charged also became possible only
under British rule when for the first time land became a marketable commodity.
Generally it was the peasant castes that were numerically preponderant and
economically and politically powerful at the village level.
All castes living in a village
or a cluster of neighbouring villages were bound together by economic and
social ties. The Jajmani system tied the highest and lowest castes in a strong
bond of mutual dependence. M. N. Srinivas has pointed out that in the
pre-British period, land being more abundant than people, the paramount
consideration of most Jajmans was “to acquire and retain their local
followers”. This obliged them to be generous in matters of food, drinks and
even loans when required. He adds that the tropical climate made it difficult
to store foodstuffs for long and this combined with “ideas from the great
tradition” further encouraged distribution of surplus.
Moreover, all rituals required
the participation of several castes. This was also true of religious festivals
where even Harijans had important duties to perform. Srinivas has recorded that
Bhaksorin (Harijan) women helped Thakur families at the time of delivery,
bhangis (sweepers) beat drums in front of Thakur homes. Brahmins cast the
horoscope of new born Thakur children and the village barber spread the news
and served food during the celebrations that followed. He further record a
rural Mysore saying that 18 castes come together during a wedding.
Non-Brahmins and occasionally
Harijans served as priests of temples devoted to certain goddesses like Sitala,
Mari and Kali associated with smallpox, plague and cholera. All castes
including Brahmins sent offerings to these temples. Thus non-Brahmins too
fulfilled some of the religious needs of other castes.
Alongside close interaction
and co-operation at the village level, castes also enjoyed a large measure of
freedom in respect of their internal customs, rituals and life-styles. There
was usually no outside interference in the internal affairs of a caste, all
caste matters being the jurisdiction of the caste council. The village
panchayat deliberated on questions concerning the larger village society.
A striking feature of the
caste system in the pre-British period then, was its local character. There was
no all-India horizontal organisation of castes. This being so, there was hardly
any question of all-India tyranny of any caste group, especially so of the
Brahmins who usually also lacked the political and armed strength to enforce
their will.
British rule destroyed the
local character of the caste system. It broke up the homogeneity of small
groups over small areas and encouraged organisation of castes over vast
stretches of land. This became a major cause of the caste tensions and
rivalries India has witnessed in recent years.
Caste has become synonymous
with the theory of pollution. The issue is complex enough to merit separate
treatment. Here it is possible only to say that like in much else of the caste
system, in this regard too we have been victims of the British propaganda
machine.
Some idea of the issue
involved can be had from Mary Douglas, a distinguished anthropologist. She has written,
“I believe that ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing
transgressions have as their main function to impose system on an inherently
untidy experience. It is only by exaggerating the difference between within and
without, above and below, male and female, with and against that a semblance of
order is created.”
Based as the Mandal Commission
report is on a totally distorted view of the past, it deserves to be rejected
in toto. No amount of ‘improvement’ on its recommendations can correct its
distorted perspective.
(The author is a
historian and professor at Delhi university.)
© Meenakshi Jain