Caste 102

Bharat was unique among all the ancient pagan cultures in that we had perfected that delicate dance between the particular and the universal. Our traditions are particular – limited to each jaati and geography but our philosophies are universal, limited not by geography or jaati.

"Caste is worse that Jihad!" via Twitter

All you ground-warriorsof Hinduism, the work you do is essential and difficult. I have the greatest ofrespect for it.

I also understand thatyou are in the thick of "battle" and like the Indian Army, the way you see theworld is unique to your situation.

So take this not as acriticism but as a more nuanced take on the relationship between Bharatiyasociety and the phenomenon of "caste". As the Bharatiya awakening continues,it's important that we at least look at ourselves with some nuance and complexity.After all Viveka, or the ability for discernment, has been the civilizationalhallmark that has distinguished us from the Western Abrahamics and theirtendency towards black and white judgementalism.

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The enemies of Bharat follow a two step process. First, theyreduce all of Hinduism to "Caste" and then they reduce the complex and yetundefined phenomenon of "Caste" to Oppression. By repeating these faulty axiomsover two centuries they have built a hate-Bharat consensus in the wider worldand simultaneously injected our colonized minds with the poison of self-hate.We are a long way down that road today. Self-Hate is a widespread phenomenon inour society and many of us offer ourselves up for conversion – to Islam,Christianity, Communism, Globalism and all the other "isms" that have world-dominationas their goal.

As an indigenous civilization which does not believe in world-domination, we mustcontinue to fight these forces. In today's world, when their strategy has madedeep inroads into our self-perception, the first step is to recover from theill-effects of self-hate by de-colonizing our minds through personal research fromprimary sources. The second is to speak our truth to the world unapologetically.We must stop using the language of our enemies against ourselves. Hinduism is not "caste" and "caste" is not oppression. Oppression is auniversal phenomenon built into allpower structures. Our fight is against oppression, period, not against "caste".

Today, every major Hindu organization wants to "strivetowards a caste-less society". Implicit in this stance is the unquestionedbelief that caste is a bad thing. Where does that belief come from? Why do weso easily equate caste with oppression? I know, I know, these questions thatmust not be asked, the white man has told us that caste is bad.

Lets wind the clock back a little and ask the primaryquestion – "What is caste?". Only when we have a satisfactory answer to thatquestion can we decide if it is a bad thing or not.

Let me start by laying out an intellectual roadmap that, ifwe are lucky, will lead us to, if not a definition, at least an understandingof the phenomenon that goes by the name of "caste".

"Tradition is bad. Tradition has weakened us. We have tolook beyond rituals to the essence of what the rituals represent. Ultimately,to beat them, we have to become like them." This is a common point of view of anumber of people who are fighting for Hinduism's cultural renaissance.

We can now ask, if, to beat them, we have to become likethem, then why fight them in the first place?

I find myself forced to respond to a reading of our history thathas led a segment of patriotic Bharatiya people to believe that in order tobeat the enemy we need to abandon our traditions as weakness and each of usneeds to become some version of an Advaitin Kshatriya. This is a reductivistview of our culture…the view of a soldier on the battlefield. But we know thatnot everyone is a soldier. When the wars are won don't the soldiers all have tocome home?

Visualize home then – from every corner of Bharatvarsh, everyvillage, every forest, every hill, innumerable little unique streams of ritualand tradition emerge from the earth and flow across the land. As these streamsflow and water our inner gardens, they manifest our Bhakti, simultaneouslyconnecting us to each other and our land, thus forming the grand river of ourcivilization. These little streams are asimportant as Gnyana, Yoga and Shaurya. When we disregard tradition, we are notonly bringing down the specialized orthodoxy, we are also looking down upon thedaily lives of hundreds of millions of common rural and urban folk for whomthese traditions are the metaphorical spiritual palace that their ancestorshave built and that they live in and maintain every single day of their lives. It'simportant that we do not reduce the awesome umbrella of the cultures of Bharatto simplistic labels such as backward, weakness and oppression like our enemiesdo. Some of our practices may or may not need reform, but that is beside thepoint. Reform, only when essential, willhappen bottom up only when we discard top-down narratives of negativity.

If self-hate is not apart of the Muslim and Christian self-perception, then why is it only the Hinduwho carries this cross of self-hate, knowing full well that our history ofoppression is minimal compared to the centuries of inter-continental Christianand Islamiccruelty? Is it because we have internalized the idea that we lost? And we lostbecause we are weak? And that we are weak because there is something wrong withus? And that thing can only be "caste"…because the white man told us so?

Step 1, it is essential that we stop believing this lie thatthe muslim armies kicked our ass. A battle by battle analysis shows us thatBharatiya people won more battles that the muslim armies. Start with SitaramGoel's "HeroicHindu Resistance" and take your research all the way to the retakingof Delhi by theMarathas and the retaking of the Khyber Pass by theSikhs. We are a brave and strong people who safeguarded our cultureover the longest assault in history. It doesn't get better than this. We needto celebrate this. Barring small pockets, every single other land on the planethas been conquered by Christianity, Islam or Communism. We’re still standing…andgrowing.

It's also true that the Turks and the British ruled vastparts of this land for long periods of time and we’ve lost a significant chunkof our civilizational territory. We allowed this to happen to us because wemade one single but fatal mistake. And we made it repeatedly- we failed tounderstand that people who only fightdefensive battles are destined to lose area. For 1000 years, until Shivaji, wedidn't fight a single offensive battle. I understand…that is our ethos. Itstill is. "I leave you alone, you leave me alone". I get it, that's beautiful,but unfortunately our enemies never subscribed to this worldview and we had tofight and fight and fight, all the time protecting ourselves and our ways of living.But we never took the fight to the enemy's camp with the intention to end themenace once and for all. This one thing we need to rectify. And I do think ourground-warriors have a clear-eyed recognition of this.

And Step 2, we need to come to a proper understanding of "caste"from an anthropological perspective. The Bharatiya people are essentially acoalition of tribes. In modern times, the word tribe has come to exclusivelymean hunter-gatherer forest dwellers but in fact it refers to any group ofpeople who follow the same rules and taboos and define their identity via theserules and taboos. Generally speaking, tribal people are those whose communalidentity is stronger than their individual identity. Every jaati, sect andsub-sect in India functions as a tribe. If the Yanomami and Guarani in Braziland Paraguay, the Navajo and Sioux in the USA, the Masai and Zulu in Kenya andSouth Africa, the Jarawa and Sentinelese in India do not inter-dine orinter-marry that is considered normal but if the Bharatiya jaatis do the same,they are deemed as evil. Why? This international take-down of Bharat needs tobe addressed honestly both externally and internally within our minds. Ourjaatis are just as old as these tribes and deserve to be looked at using the correctanthropological lens. Unlike these other tribes though, our civilizational wisdomdeveloped philosophies and stories to bridge our divides, communicate acrossdifferences and build socio-cultural mechanisms to help us work together andlive as good neighbours. This is what makes us a coalition of tribes and notjust a set of isolated groups. This is also what helped us, the world's largestcivilizational group of people, make the smooth transition from the Neolithicto the Agricultural Age as one people.

The words tribe and tribal are not bad words. The wordscommunity and communal are also not bad words. These words have been given abad name by western modernists who are adherents of the cult of individualism.This cult of individualism is a brand new mutation in human history and is madepossible by the invention of extreme technologies that feed people the illusionthat they can survive all by themselves. Such individuals tend to believe thatrelationships are choices to be madeand that one should control how much influence family and friends have on ourlives- "If we have our microwave, our fridge, our shopping malls, ATM cards andinternet, we don't need anybody else!" is the thinking of the individualists.Take a breath and look at where this way of being has led America, the foremostpractitioner of this lifestyle- Depression, schoolshootings, the world'shighest rates of incarceration, spring-break culture,pornography,drug abuse,broken families,loneliness,and warswithout end, all pointing to a society, all of 300 years young, onits last legs. Run-away individualism and the wealth and technology to make ithappen are not the right answers to life's questions. With all of its "technologicalenlightenment" the USA needs a virtual army of doctors and policemento simply manage the emotional ill effects of its chosen mode of being!

Humans are a communal species. For four million years, it istribalism that has protected homonidsand enabled us to thrive in virtually every ecological niche on the planet. We need community and strong wholesomerelationships with other people, ideally family and extended family…This hasbeen and continues to be the quintessential human experience. It is this andonly this that allows us to feel connected in a horizontal and a verticalmatrix that lends us our "place in the world". Horizontally we connect us toour brothers and sisters via commonly held traditions and vertically we connectwith our parents and our children via traditions that we receive and pass on.

Tribalism and tradition are intimately linked. Withouttribalism there would be no tradition and without tradition, we would not knowwho our brothers and sisters are and we would not know what to say to ourchildren about who we are and where we come from (a deeply unsettling conditionthat many of us in the modern world are facing today).

This is not to say that tradition is a straight-jacket thatlimits us. Tradition does change after deliberations within the communityespecially in Bharat. The people who will never change regardless of thecontext are called orthodox in general parlance. Perhaps, our modern daykshatriyas are speaking of "orthodoxy" when they are being critical of"tradition". Lets start by using the right words.

"Traditionalists weakened Hinduismby putting obstacles in the way of Buddha, Shankara, Shivaji, Baji Rao"via Twitter

It is important to note that if after fighting for 1300 years we are still Bharatiya, it isbecause there were traditionalists who didnot compromise. If we had compromised with our traditions just in order towin or escape, then who would we be when we did win? Meenakshi Jain recounts inher book, "Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples", "(Aurangzeb's) decree (in Mathura, 1669)led to a mass migration of deities. Govindadeva's long journey from Vrindavanhas been reconstructed by historians. Altogether eight temples were built astemporary abodes for the deity in flight, till it finally reached Jaipur and wasinstated in the ninth temple, where it remains under worship today." Imaginethat.

Our traditions, and the rituals that manifest thosetraditions, are an essential part of redefining who we are with everygeneration. Without these, we do not know who we are as a people; we do nothave anything valuable to pass on to our children. Above and beyond this, ourtraditions are the continuation of our peoples’ commitment to all that is beautifulin life- that celebration of life, living, fertility and the cycles in Naturethat we are all part of. All Bharatiya traditions celebrate the cyclic nature oflife. Some communities have exuberant celebrations, some are understated andsome are philosophical, but we, along with all the ancient cultures on theplanet, are a cyclic and life-affirming culture, unlike the linear,death-centric Abrahamic religions or the linear, future-centric, technology-driven"Western culture".

In Bharat, sinceancient times, it has been the tribal system of jaatis that has been thatvehicle for the protection and propagation of our traditions. By calling for adestruction of this vehicle (by wrongly defining it as "caste"), we are also callingfor the destruction of all that it carries. Are we thinking deeply enough aboutthis problem?

Even assuming that it is ok "in this day and age", as the "West"has constantly been telling us, to discard "caste", we would be doing ourselvesa great disservice if we do not in all honesty recognize the jaati system forwhat it was and what it enabled for our civilization. I am looking objectivelyat the great system of division of labour/culture developed by our ancestors. Hereis the the Rev. Joseph Roberts speaking in 1844CE, Madras. In an address to 33Missionary Groups, he says "Caste is the great barrier in India betwixt thepagans and Christ…We think however that this wonderful institution of India, maybe traced to a more probablesource…we are not convinced that allthe tyrannical notions ascribed to this classification of men can be receivedas correct…and the constant provisionfor all kinds of artisans and labourers so that in every emergency there mightbe a supply of the required workmen to meet the various wants and needs of the realm. By fixing each person in aprofession, there would be a greaterperfection secured in the several works of art. The children not beingallowed to adopt any other calling would naturally from the first dawning ofthought associate themselves with their father's pursuit and try to emulateeach other in gaining the greatestreward".

Let that sink in. Let us acknowledge then that it was oursystem of jaatis that stood between us and conversion to alien death-centricfaiths. We are all still Bharatiya today becauseof the jaati system. If, paradoxically, this system today is seen as the rootcause for conversion that is because of two things. One, the coming of theindustrial age, the closing down of our traditional schools and the take-overof the commons by the British and then the Indian government over the past 175years has brought poverty and loss of pride to a number of our communities whoused to work with their hands and the land – agriculturalists, artisans, nomadsetc. And Two, the constant demonization of our civilization by the West that wehave internalized has installed permanently in us the feeling that we need tobe "reformed". We have been told to hate this thing called "caste". We do notknow what the definition of that word is but all of us who have had a moderneducation automatically hate it, whatever it is.

Here is the British Superintendent, L. Middleton, in the 1921 Census– "Wepigeon-holed everyone by caste and if we had no true caste for them, labelledthem with the hereditary occupation. We deplore the caste system and its effecton social and economic problems but we are largely responsible for the systemwe deplore…Government's passion for labels and pigeon-holes has led to acrystallization of the caste system, which except among the aristocratic casteswas really very fluid under indigenous rule."

Here is Vivekananda speaking in Sri Lanka in 1897 he says- "The older I grow, the better I seem to think ofthese castes and other such institutions. There was time when I used to thinkthat many of them were useless and worthless. But the older I grow the more Iseem to feel a diffidence in cursing them because many of them are embodimentsof experience over centuries and they facilitate in terms of development ofthese communities."

The tribal jaati system was not a system designed for oppression but rather an organicsystem of economic and cultural arrangement that evolved to bind amultitude of tribal groupings together who would otherwise have remainedisolated and materially weak like other tribes all over the world have been.Instead, from Neolithic times till the 18th Century, oursocio-economic coming together made us the richest and longest-livedcivilization in human history! It is quite possible that in today's high-tech industrialworld our tribal system of jaatis will automatically become obsolete. High-Technologyallows us to multi-task in ways that were not possible in the earlier low-tech agriculturalworld, thereby rendering obsolete the need for strict divisions of labour. Butwe need to stop telling ourselves that the ancient system that kept our ancestorsalive in agricultural and pre-agricultural times was evil. Petty politics andjockeying for power between groups are human traits. At times our inter-tribalskirmishes were ugly and groups did behave obnoxiously…but evil? I mean let's atleast use the right adjective.

In Bharat, our quarrels never led to genocide, slavery,ethnic cleansing, mass rapes and wars without end, all of that really evil stuff that Abrahamicreligions and Western ideology suffer from and perpetrate upon the rest of us.Of all the civilizations that have existed, and despite its ugly warts, Bharatalone stands tall for its commitment to humanity and its recurrent acceptanceof reform from wise men and women within.

We are a shining light.

We need to remind ourselves that division of labour has beena fact of anthropological evolution in everysingle agricultural civilization in the world – in Europe,in China,in Japan,in Egypt,everywhere. To simply keep referring to this as a Bharatiya phenomenon isdubious. Anyone who has ever lived in a low-tech agricultural situation willinstinctively understand the nature and need for division of labour. A lot oftime-consuming physical work has to be done everydayin order to ensure the very survival of everyone in the community!

We can loosely assume that a feudal order existed in Bharattoo with a strict division of labour and birth-based allotment ofresponsibility, but unlike the terrible conditions that feudal systems createdin Europe, we have known since the time of the composition of the Purusha Suktathat we are all ultimately one Purusha. It takes all parts for the whole tofunction and the whole has always been held in high spiritual regard. I am notdenying the presence of perversions but by and large the Bharatiya view hasalways been more unifying and subtle that the European view. This led to a verydifferent kind of society. Here in Bharat, power was always recognized as beingin the service of a greater end. The people held in highest regard (in a ritualsense) were people whose temporal freedoms were severely curtailed and led themost austere lives. On the other hand, the people who were held in low regard(in a ritual sense) were people who were allowed the most temporal freedoms interms of flexibility of work (apart from certain restrictions), marriage, foodand personal habits. It is important to recognize that hierarchy in a ritual sense did notcorrespond with power in the temporalsense thereby turning today's social justice arguments on their head. Over vastperiods of our history, from the time of Chandragupta Maurya himself, kings roseup from the "lower castes". Because renunciation was held in high regard, ourmorality has always tended towards honesty and sharing not deceit and accumulation.It was in Bharat that the great monarch Chandragupta gave up his kingdom anddied as a wandering Jain monk in the jungles 2000 km away from his capitalcity. It was also in Bharat that Marco Polo observed – "Theseare the best and most honourable merchants that can be found. No considerationwhatsoever can induce them to speak an untruth, even though their lives shoulddepend on it…this Brahmin (Bania?) undertakes the management of it (the foreigner'sgoods), disposes of the goods and renders a faithful account of the proceeds,attending scrupulously to the affairs of the stranger, and not demanding anyrecompense for his trouble." It is also in Bharat, till today(especially among the remarkably generous "lower castes"), that no stranger isleft standing at the door, who is not offered water and who is not invited infor a meal regardless of what time of day it is.

Unfortunately, the psychology of victimhood that the socialjustice machinery has injected like a virus into our minds hides from us theentirety of our complex intertwined histories, our high ideals, our proud communitiesand our long history of collaborative effort. In fact, it can be argued that thesecular, western rights-based discourse is directly opposed to our nativeduty-based discourse, and has prepared the ground for conversion to Abrahamicreligions. This is more obvious if we look at the numbers of people convertingto Christianity in modern India as opposed to earlier when non-modern ideasheld sway over our minds. The more modern we get, the less Bharatiya we becomeand the more likely we are to become some form of Muslim, Christian, Communistor Western lackey. We have to ask ourselves the question why, if they were sooppressed, the so-called "lower castes" didn't convert to Christianity in the 1700years they were in touch with Christianity and the 1300 years they were intouch with Islam? There can only be one real reason – Pride. Pride in who theywere, pride in how they contributed and pride in their culture and theirimagination of the world. They were not a broken people. AravindanNeelakandan's articlein Swarajya lays it all out while looking at one particular example– that of the Devendra Kula Vellalars.

A community becomes "SC" when its traditional role becomesobsolete. A traditional people who have lost their purpose and whose membersare yet to modernize themselves as individuals are a lost people open to allsorts of predatory advances. The British did a great job destroying traditionalcommunity roles by taking over the commons and shutting down our native schools(see Dharampal's "The BeautifulTree"). The secular Indian state does an even better job.

A hundred years before 1857, before the Criminal Tribes Actand before Sir Herbert Risley and his race-based caste census here is Edmund Burkein the mid 1700s with a deep insight into our societal organization – "For sometimesour (English) laws of religion differ from our laws of land, sometimes our lawsof land differ from our laws of honour; but in that country(Bharat) the laws ofreligion, laws of land and laws of honour are all united and consolidated intoone, and bind a man eternally to what is called his "caste". Thoughhe uses the wrong word "caste" and does not define what he means by it andthough he exaggerates with the use of the word eternal with respect to "caste",his intellect still locks into the real key to our society – the consolidationof religion, law and honour. That's not "caste", but that does sound a lot likeDharma.

"Israel, not India, is the mostDharmic nation because it emphasizes courage."via Twitter

If tradition is connected to identity and our rituals are acelebration of life via the offering of beauty, then there is also a counterpoint needed to protect it all ­- Strength. To all reformists, who fightorthodoxy and believe tradition to be a weakness, I have to point out thatwhile I agree that context is important and victory is important, Beauty too isimportant. To all orthodox people who fight reform, I have to point out that,though I admire your commitment to keeping the fire burning, context isimportant and especially in Bharat, evolution in traditions is accepted and is sometimesessential. There can be no doubt that without strength, beauty will die. Butthere is also no doubt that without beauty, strength loses its purpose forbeing, thereby dying a metaphorical death. Both beauty and strength aresymbiotic and essential for our continued survival as ourselves.

Israel, who our modern day kshatriyas say is more "Dharmic"than Bharat actually exhibits this split personality very well. Do ourground-warriors know that there is a substantial chunk of Israel's populationthat is considered "orthodox" and isfree to pursue tradition? They are not required to join the army or pay taxes.In fact they are funded by all other parts of Israel's society in theirtraditional religious pursuits. Sounds familiar?

Here is Al-Beruni in 1030CE – "Thereis always a Brahman in the houses of people who administers the affairs ofreligion and the works of piety…he lives from what he gathers on the earth orfrom the trees…it is preferable that he does not trade himself. The Brahmansare not, like the other castes, bound to pay taxes and perform services to theking…He must always beat the drum before the fire and recite for it theprescribed holy texts."

Why did Bharat survive when all the other pagan cultures slidinto extinction? Bharat was unique among all the ancient pagan cultures in thatwe had perfected that delicate dance between the particular and the universal.Our traditions are particular – limited to each jaati and geography but ourphilosophies are universal, limited not by geography or jaati. To solveticklish tribal problems, we count on our universalizing philosophies to uniteus and to solve totalitarian problems, we count on our innumerable tribalgroups to raise the flag of freedom. We have avoided both genocide (extremeparticularism) and dictatorships (extreme universalism), for god knows how manymillennia that we’ve been around. We are not this or that. We are this andthat.

Our particularism (the tribalism inherent in our system ofjaatis) was the unconquerable bulwark against the muslim armies. Put down onerebellion and another one starts, there was no end to the constant centripetalforce among the infinite unique groups. There was never one power centre thatcould be crushed ensuring a final victory over Bharat and the Abrahamics couldnever get their heads around that. Paradoxically, it is today, when we are a"free" country that the Abrahamics sense the possibility of victory more thanat any other time in history. We have created a single monolithic politicalstructure that has a clear path for control. Simultaneously, the Westerntechnologies of the internet, telephone, vehicles, railways etc. are alluniversalizing technologies, they aid in bringing people closer and making theworld smaller. The fewer the political centres, the more universalizing thetechnologies, the easier it is for the Abrahamics to take control. That's theirspeciality. From this point of view, it can be argued that "development" and"parliamentary democracy" are suicidal for Bharatiya civilization as we knowit.

To counter the rising tide of Abrahamism in Bharat, we havetwo options before us,

Option1 : Break Apart. Assert our tribalness in a massivedefensive maneuver. I don't think this option will have any takers at thispoint in history. But this is something we need to keep in mind. Jagganathan atSwarajya has alluded to something akin to this in this article but was immediatelysilenced by the comments section.Or, Option 2 : Come Together. Assert our civilizational unity in a massiveoffensive maneuver. This is something that our activists working on the groundsense instinctively. We need to push back against the enemies using their culturalweapons. Do what no Bharatiya had done for 1000 years until Raghunathrao stoodon the walls of Attock on 28th April 1758 and contemplated takingback Kabul – take the fight to the enemy camp (politically of course). We will win, even our enemies know that. It's only we who don't.

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"Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples" – Meenakshi Jain,2019

"CasteOpposed to Christianity" – Rev. Joseph Roberts, 1847

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"Will breaking up Hinduism into its parts preserve it better than trying to keep it as one", R.Jagannathan, 2017

This essay is anattempt at creating a foundation of ideas from which to view our culturalhistory afresh. Given the long history of outsiders reducing our identities to anundefined entity called "caste" and then further linking "caste" with oppression,I am forced to start by issuing a disclaimer- Support for oppression andsupremacy of any sort, whether it is casteist, religious, racist or economic isunacceptable. Forcing people to do what they don't want to do, and thinking offellow human beings as intrinsically high or low are unacceptable moralpositions. No doubt anyone can learn the Veda regardless of his jaati. No doubtanyone can enter the gates of heaven, if such a thing exists, regardless of hisreligion. No doubt anyone can learn to design a cryogenic engine regardless ofthe colour of his skin. No doubt anyone can be rich, if they so choose,regardless of how poor he is today.

Featured Image: Down to Earth