The Village -2

...It was quite a merciful system where lower castes lived at the mercy of upper castes. They were born with it and accepted it as their true living condition, which was not far away from reality. It was a fait accompli. Lower caste people lived a life resigned to their dasterdly fate. The powerful towered above the wretched ones. And absolutely it produced no upward bounce. Allowing it would have been totally adharmic. Everybody knew his place in the society and behaved accordingly. The lower caste people showed deference to higher case people who showed it to still higher caste people. The contempt moved piously in opposite direction. The untouchables prostrated on the ground on which upper caste people moved. They walked with their eyes downcast, head bowed down, shoulder stooped, meek gait and torn out clothes so that the dharma was maintained. The time stood still for generations altogether. It was a time of eternal exploitation for permanent dharmic exploiters. It was Varna exploitation. At the bottom of the society were untouchables who lived at the inauspicious southern end of the village or outside the southern end of the village.

People lived like masters and servants. The slavery was avoided because impure Shudras and polluted untouchables were not supposed to live in the houses of upper castes. The purity had to be maintained. They were like eternal masters and their servile servants. The servants were generally kept at a safe distance. The consideration of purity kept them separate from each other. The castes were closely knit but not the society. The higher ones lorded over others. There was little violence in the village. The land owning castes usually maintained a private army of musclemen who were tillers on their land. The violence anyway was unnecessary because the Shudras and untouchables were not allowed to carry the arms; it was a demilitarized society. Only Kshatriyas, soldiers and land owning castes were allowed to carry the arms. Any conflict between land owning castes and lower castes would have been one-sided show of arms. The demilitarized population contributed significantly to a stable society. Actually the three ancient, stable and still existing civilizations India, China and Japan have one thing in common. The population in all three civilizations was demilitarized. This by and large prevented successful rebellion by the general population. The lack of arms and land or any kind of any other assets hardly provided the Shudras and untouchables with any force or motivation to rebel. They had to face the enemy with bare hands, empty bellies without any support from anywhere. In absence of weapons how did the Shudras enter into a serious argument with each other? Both the weak parties used agriculture equipments and bamboo sticks for such purposes. Entering into a serious argument with the Kshatriyas was beyond their capabilities. The God created bravery and rulership of Kshatriyas needed a disarmed population to lord over. The population had to be weakened to affirm the strength of the Kshatriyas. A strange kind of bravery it was. The lower castes willingly acknowledged their servility because of handicaps imposed on them by the Vedic dharma. They did not have much alternative. Bare handedly it was difficult to rebel against the armed people on whom they depended for their sustenance. The lower castes did not dare to show any violence because they knew the horrible consequences of such an act. The retaliation would have been swift, cruel and murderous. It was a self-defeating proposition for the dependent people living in mud huts and wearing torn clothes. Thus they avoided violence...