Caste in India and its Annihilation

 

"You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality." --- Babasaheb Dr. BR Ambedkar

 

India is going to witness the festival of democracy i.e. Elections in seven Indian states, the very upcoming year. In my opinion, the elections in state of Uttar Pradesh holds a place of paramount importance in Indian Democracy, not only because it is India's most populous state but also because it has the highest number of seats in Parliament of India along with highest number of seats in the Vidhan Sabha. It is a well-known saying that, “If UP goes, so goes India." Uttar Pradesh, like any other Indian state, is well diverse in terms of its population. The evil lies in the fact that it is not free from the various types of inequalities that are prevalent generally in India, rather it is one of the state with most number of caste and religion based violent incidents. Uttar Pradesh alone accounts for over 25 per cent of the total cases by recording the highest number of atrocities against SC community in the country.

The same trend of caste-based segregation and bloc formation is visible in Uttar Pradesh prior to the 2022 elections. On one hand, some parties are trying to organize all the castes and bind them into a single entity 'Hindu', whilst other parties are trying to divide the population into thousands of castes and form a separate caste based vote-bank. In my opinion none of the two groups are doing the right job, neither constitutionally nor morally. As we have seen in the example of UP, caste plays a pivotal role. So, let us now understand 'What is the concept of Caste'?

CASTE- Origin and Dissemination

Stating Dr. Ambedkar, "Caste in India means an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite units, each one prevented from fusing into another through the custom of endogamy."

The caste system in India is historically one of the main dimensions where people in India are socially differentiated through class, religion, tribe, gender and language. Although the similar forms of system exist in all other human societies, it becomes a problem when this system becomes the sole basis of systematic or hierarchical ranking and unequal access to property, wealth, power and prestige.

In India, the caste system is not merely a division of labour. It is also a division of labourers. Every civilized society needs division of labour, but, in no civilized society division of labour is accompanied by this type of massive gradation of labourers, as it is in India. Another important thing go be noted is that it is not merely notional concept, it is legal and penal as stated in the ancient Indian text 'Manusmriti'.

 

For centuries, caste has dictated almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life, with each group occupying a specific place in this complex hierarchy. This terrible and awful system was spread across the subcontinent when Brahmanas evolved three main strategies for enforcing these norms. One, was to assert that it was of divine origin. Second,  the kings were advised to ensure that these norms are strictly followed and thirdly, they attempted to persuade people that their status was determined by birth. This system, according to Purusha Sukta, was supposed to have emanated from Brahma: "The Brahmana was his mouth, of his arms was made Kshatriya. His thighs became the Vaishya, of his feet the Shudra was born."

It would be wrong to consider that this unethical and evil system was only limited to Hindu society, it extended to non-hindus as well. But the fundamental difference lies in the fact that caste is only a practice and not a sacred institution among non-hindus, whereas it is an sanctimonious and integral part of Hindus. This unscientific and immoral division still has a large group of people following it irrationally just because of the reason that the ancient legal texts gives it the status of being 'sacred'.

                                    

          Source: BBC

EPISODES OF CASTE BASED INEQUALITY IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL INDIA

The most important, rather most widely known incident of Indian mythology is of Ekalavya as mentioned in Adi Parvan of the Mahabharata. Ekalavya, a forest dwelling Nishada, approached Drona, a Brahmana, to learn archery to which he got response in negative. he went back to forest and started practising archery on his own. One day, a dog of Kurus princes wandering in the woods came upon Ekalavya, smelling the odour of Nishada, and it began to bark at him. Annoyed by this, Ekalavya shot seven arrows into its mouth. When the dog returned to Kuru princes, they were amazed at this extraordinary display of archery. They tracked down Ekalavya and Arjuna reminded drona about this incident. Drona approached Ekalavya and demanded his right thumb as his fee to learn archery, Ekalavya cut it of and offered it. According to Drona, Arjuna is unrivalled amongst his pupils, and he successfully kept his word by taking away the thumb of Ekalavya. This incident is, no doubt, mythological in nature but still this can be linked to what Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalized groups of today's India experience. Caste system has put an embargo on Dalits and Adivasis which is still being felt.

The Manusmriti laid down the duties of 'Untouchables'. They couldn't walk about in villages and cities at night. They had to live outside the village and use discarded utensils and wear ornaments of iron. According to Fa Xian, a Chinese Buddhist monk, the untouchables had to sound a clapper in the streets so that people could avoid seeing them.

Under the rule of Peshawas in the Maratha state, the Untouchable was not allowed to use the public streets if a Hindu was coming along, lest he should pollute the Hindu by his shadow. The Untouchable was required to have a black thread either on his wrist or around his neck, as a sign or a mark to prevent the Hindus from getting themselves polluted by his touch by mistake.

HOW DOES CASTE STILL MATTERS?

“Atrocities against members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are not a thing of the past. They continue to be a reality in our society even today. Hence, the statutory provisions which have been enacted by Parliament as a measure of protecting the constitutional rights of persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes must be complied with and enforced conscientiously,” the Supreme Court bench said in its verdict.

As seen in the example of Uttar Pradesh, the caste still matters and will definitely continue to matter unless a massive revolution is launched to annihilate it. There are numerous evidences to prove how caste still matters.

Bahujans are struggling to overcome the practices of social exclusion that are being imposed by upper-caste people on them to maintain their superiority. Dalits are forced to do the menial work of manual scavenging. Everyday they are being killed while  performing this act . Lynching and honour-killings(Samaj me izzat) of Dalits are increasing in India. Dalit women are yet to receive justice for the heinous crime of rape committed on them . Dalits students are forced to believe their meritlessness. All because of their caste!

In September 2020, a dalit girl in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh was allegedly murdered by 4 men from Thakur caste. According to victim's family, the girl was gang raped by Thakurs of the village and in order to eliminate the evidences her backbone was broken and the tongue was cut by the perpetrators. The girl has confessed the same on a video shot inside the Hospital. The Police secretly burned her dead body at midnight without conducting any Post Mortem Test.

                                     

                 Source: LiveLaw

On night of 14 October 2021, a dalit Sikh labourer, Lakhbir Singh from Cheema Khurd village of Tarn Taran district was lynched by Nihang Sikhs present at farmers' protest site on the allegations of blasphemy by him touching and picking up the copy of a Sarbloh Granth.

On cases of crimes against Scheduled Tribes (STs), the cases rose from 7,570 in 2019 to 8,272 -- an increase of 9.3%. In 2018, the number of such cases was 6,528.  The NCRB report showed that the conviction rate rose from 26.4% to 30.1%.

This oppression on the basis of caste is not merely limited to the poor households within Dalit society, it also extends to the rich and high profile personalities such as Indian olympics hockey player Vandana Kataria whose family faced casteist remarks when Indian women hockey team lost to United Kingdom in bronze play-off match.

All these incidents, along with many other atrocities, are still committed against Bahujans. This is how caste still matters in India. To know more about how caste matters in India, I'd like to suggest you all to read a book 'CASTE MATTERS' by Suraj Yengde.

ANNIHILATION OF CASTE

Now, we know what is caste and how it still matters and how immoral it is. There remains no doubt in saying that its annihilation is of utmost importance for us- Indians. Various attempts have been made by various social reformers which include Gautam Buddha, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Guru Ravidas, Kabirdas, Guru Nanak and many others to annihilate it. Caste is a notion. It is a state of mind. Its destruction doesn't mean the destruction of any physical barrier. It means a notional change. The people will not change unless the same beliefs in their minds cease to exist. Firstly, to bring about change in the mind of the oppressing population, we must deny the authority of any such text, either religious or secular, which strengthens the caste system in India. We need to inculcate in ourselves the ideologies of the eminent spiritual scholars-Buddha, Ambedkar, Phule, Ravidas, Kabir and Nanak. Secondly, the priesthood must cease to be hereditary. Since, every profession in India is regulated, priesthood should also become a part of it. Thirdly, we need to give a new doctrine to our minds and the beliefs mentioned in various texts. The basis should be in consonance with Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

Fourthly, we need to destroy our caste-consciousness. When we will be able to achieve all these targets, the caste will be automatically annihilated and our India will see a different start and will be transformed into a new and an ideal India.

I would like to conclude by referring to what Dr. Ambedkar, in his book 'Annihilation of Caste' said, " In the fight for swaraj you fight with the whole nation on your side. In this (annihilating the caste), you have to fight against the whole nation-- and that too, your own. It is more important than swaraj. There is no use having swaraj, if you cannot defend it. In my opinion, it is only when Hindu society becomes a casteless society that it can hope to have strength enough to defend itself. Without such internal strength, swaraj for Hindus may turn out to be only a step towards slavery."

Thus, we need  to recognize the caste and work for its annihilation to truly achieve the aim of political, social and economical democracy.

                                

                          Source: beownlight.org

 

 By Deeptish Thapa (the author is a student of 12th class)