Having lived most of my life in a society fragmented by hindu caste system.
I have tried to understand what it really means, to strip it down to its skeleton to try and understand the real structure.
Why did we develop the system in the first place?
The caste system was initially formulated based on one’s profession and not religion.
Documented in Manu-smriti the “memorised text” it is believed to have been finally written during the Vedic period. Ascribed to Manu, who is, according to the Hindu mythology, the forefather of all humans, it becomes tagged to our mythology.
It has never been regarded by Hindus as “the supreme law-book”; till colonial rulers, like Robert Clive and Lord Macaulay, found it a useful tool to ridicule the Hindu religion.
The caste system was initially meant as a guidance with regard to behaviour and spiritual practice, to be undertaken in accordance with one’s qualifications and profession.
Brahmins – the priests; Kshatriyas – the warriors;
Vaishyas -traders; Shudras – service providers.
It was never meant to be a hierarchial system nor a hereditary caste system, as this verse from the same text says:
“As the son of Shudra can attain the rank of a Brahmin, the son of Brahmin can attain rank of a shudra. Even so with him who is born of a Vaishya or a Kshatriya” (X: 65)
Parjanya (other people) – was a group outside the the main society.
They lived separately within a subculture of their own, usually outside the inhabited limits of villages and townships. They were the people who worked in what was seen as ‘unhealthy, and / or polluting jobs i.e. tannery, disposing dead bodies, humans and animals.
One has to understand this was a long, long time before the advent of medical sciences. And to appreciate that as early as in the 2nd Millennium BC, they had recognised the communicable form of diseases, when there was no known scientific therapeutics, and the best chance of survival was avoidance.
This group were made ‘untouchable’ in the sense of being ‘quarantined’, as because of their profession they dealt with infected remains of bodies, and not because they were born inferior. The parjanyas themselves may have had developed immunity to the diseases.
This practice is no different to isolation of patients with communicable fatal diseases, who also are deemed “untouchables” but only for the reasons of safety of vulnerable individuals.
With time methods of “isolation” evolved and were enforced such like maintaining a certain distance or using separate water sources; the modern day equivalent of ‘no touch’ isolations, the practice of “barrier” nursing.
They had an obvious place in society, they served a role no other was capable of, a service no one else could deliver. They were segregated for what they did, but were never harmed or killed enmasse. (The names dalits and harijans and the accompanying politics of the “untouchables” were coined only in the last century.)
I firmly believe initially our caste system was a brilliant concept, a system based on knowledge far ahead of its time. It was introduction of a code of ‘appropriate’ conduct, and the way to live within a structure of certain rules of the society. It also devised a system of reducing incidence of communicable diseases.
The most effectively way to enforce it was through religion. In the process it got closely intertwined with it. Rituals and customs were devised and enforced which got woven into the very fabric of the society. With time it became more complex than originally intended. It is a system that has been so deeply imprinted in our psyche, that most of us hindus would not even think of questioning the system, let alone getting rid of it.
It is a system that has served its purpose for a few thousand years and now has definitely outlived its uses. To continue with it can only hold us back from being truly democratic.
The world as our fore-fathers who devised the system knew, has changed, it is for all Indians to change with time and leave this system back in history.
If today we resent any legislation the provides reservation for backward classes, we first have to learn to treat every one as equal, with equal dignity.
If we resent forced conversion of our lowcaste hindus into other religion, we should first denounce the system that condemns them to a demeaned status for eternity.
If we are to declare proudly of being a democracy, we have to first believe in our hearts that all men and women are indeed equal.
All men and women are born equal.
When we die, without the touch of an untouchable we will rot in our flesh.
And as ashes and dust, we shall all come together, all become indistinguishable.
Photograph by Terje Oestigaard
What caste am I?
I was born to Bramhin parents.
I am in a serving profession, so I should be classed a Shudra.
I have touched cadavers in the course of my training, that makes me a Parjanya,
an untouchable.
Bramhin by birth, Shudra by profession, or even a Parjanya.
But I am still the same me, same genes, on the same chromosomes.
We blame the British for cutting us into pieces at the time of our independance,
we have only us to blame for cutting ourselves from within.
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