Caste mobility - 4

...Another example of upward caste mobility, are the Jats of upper northern India. The Jats are hardy farmers. At present they are landowning people in rural areas but they were not like this earlier. In 8^th and 9^th centuries they were treated as near untouchables. By 12^th century they came to acquire Shudra status. This was also the time of Delhi Sultanate, the Muslim rule in north India. With the advent of Muslim religion almost a third of Jats got converted to Muslim religion. It gave a real boost to Muslim religion and to Jats an occupation of soldiers with the Muslim rulers and also a tiller status with them. It looks like that they really disliked their Shudra status. Instead of improving their status by working with Muslims they chose a direct path of becoming Muslims outright. Now the Jats are dominating community in the Muslim state of Pakistan.

In 8^th century the Jats were ordered by Brahman king (the Brahmans could wield weapons and rule to save the dharma) of Sindh to go barefoot and do all other things applicable to untouchables. This would have reduced the nomadic Jats to the level of untouchables. We know that still in villages the untouchables are required to go barefoot this is an indication of their untouchable status. Had the situation prevailed for a long time say about 100 years or so; the now proud Jats would have become permanently untouchables – the lowest status people. As we know the lawmakers were the lawmakers. But fortunately for them the descent to fifth stratum was prevented by an event. The Muslim invaded the India for the first time. A young Muslim boy attacked the king of Sindh on the instruction of his king. And defeated and killed Brahman king. This was the king who gave the orders for Jats to go barefoot thus reducing them to untouchable level. However after the death of this Brahman king, the Sindh was ruled by Muslims and Jats were avoided the ignominy of going barefoot. They also joined the Kasim army and fought against Brahman king. Had this Brahman dynasty continued for 100 years the Jats would have become permanently untouchables. But the Muslim political interference stopped the logical course of action within a short period of time. The Jats were free again, back to their nomadic ways.....

Caste mobility - 3

...There is another way in which an endogamous jati can move up. This also includes a change to higher-level occupation along with a solution to problems of marriage and inter-dining. In this the whole jati moves up the social scale. The Kayasthas have moved a long way from being to near untouchables to be near to twice born. It has been a long difficult and arduous journey achieved with the help of Muslim invaders. The Kayasthas were the court musicians and dancers. The women and girls danced for the ruler and his courtiers. The men played musical instruments while their women danced. Not having their own means to survive they had to depend on the mercy of court and courtiers. It was an occupation of utmost subordination. Their women were more important as the skills of men were secondary to that of dancing. The men held secondary position. Their women danced to please. They were also the targets of exploitation. This exploitation passed from generation to generation. It was not one of the grandly respected occupations especially with the exploitation of women that went with it. In the ancient purity based society their social status was almost insulting. There was no purity to be maintained. Then came Muslim invaders and everything changed for them. At the same time dharma hid itself in unknown places under the onslaught of Muslim invaders. The Muslim rule was god-sent opportunity for them. The heaven changed its mood for the Kayasthas; it became benevolent in the form of Muslim rulers. After all, the Muslim rulers controlled the resources of the kingdom. The pillars, which crushed dharma, provided solid and strong support to Kayasthas. The Kayasthas progressed while dharma suffered under the rulership of idol breaker Muslims. Whose fault it was anyway? The lowly court musicians surviving on their dancing women were destined to become high-rise under the Muslim rule. As it happened, the rulers were predisposed to ruling the people only but somebody was required to do the administrative work. The Muslim rulers wanted all the record to be kept in Persian, the language was not known to people here. One had to know the Persian to gain employment with the rulers. High caste Hindus were generally averse to do the work for Muslim rulers because dharma was suffering. They were also not used to being subordinates. Thus by and large they avoided working for foreign rulers. Like earlier foreign rulers the Muslim were not interested in accepting cultural hegemony and superiority of Brahmans. They believed that worshipping idols was meant for heathen people since idols did not have any real powers. Thus they were disinclined to accept the superiority of heathen people. However they ran short of people to run the administrative. The Brahmans and other high castes were not coming forward to learn the Persian and take up the court work. The lowly Kayasthas grabbed the opportunity with both the hands. They learnt the Persian and took up the court work. The study of Persian spread in the community of Kayasthas and with that the employment with the rulers. They handled the court records first then land records. The land record work was very heavy; heavy enough to give a significant number of Kayasthas work with the court. Then slowly they were elevated to the ministerial jobs which was as good as being Brahmans in Varna dharma. This opportunity could have never been provided to them by the time tested ancient Varna dharma. When British came they got land Zamindari under their rule - it pays to be on the side of rulers. Then they acquired the modern education and got plum jobs with English rulers. Now they are as good as twice born. Some even claim Kshatriya status and get accepted as such...

Caste mobility - 2

...A man interested in raising his status in Hindu society raises a whole lot of problems. Where this man and his offspring would marry? With whom he would dine? With whom he would socialize? What should be his occupation? What should be his place in power structure? Such a man would thrteaten the existing social structure and its beneficiaries. This threat itself is a corrupting influence. It would be desirable to ostracize this man to avoid theses problems that transgress upon Varna dharma or cosmic order of the society. Such an ostracization would result in avoidance of an introduction of filthy impurities in the society. For example, for a Shudra to become Brahman it is essential to teach him Vedas; he should be eligible to teach Vedas to higher Varnas; he should be able to marry a Brahman girl; all the Kshatriyas should pay him respect by touching his feet or accept their secondary position to him; he should receive the same respectful treatment from Vaisyas and other section of the society without any questions. It is near impossible to find even one person from any of the Varna who agrees to treat him as such. The impossibility keeps on increasing as one adds more people and more Varnas. Thus in the total absence of extension of such facilities which are available to born Brahmans, the Shudra in question remains where he was. The insurmountable questions are raised in the process - the questions which do not have any solutions within the Varna dharma.

However, the downward mobility was automatically implied in the ostracization process which created the outcastes. Automatically, all the outcastes, who were without any ceremonial, social and property rights, became members of the fifth stratum.

The caste system does show some flexibility when it comes to movement of full jati because it automatically solves the main problems of marriage and inter dining. A group moving up can always marry within the same group. Thus the bloodlines and purity of other groups or jatis are not affected. This upward movement of a jati is an extremely slow process but it does happen. One way for this to happen is the learning of new higher-level occupational skills by some members of caste. Thus two occupational groups in the same caste are created. The number of such newly skilled people in a new occupation keeps on growing. After a considerable gap of about three or four generations the number of such people grows considerably. The people belonging to new group start intermarrying and leave out the people still following the old occupation. This process is carried forward in time till the new group becomes totally endogamous and separates. This causes a new endogamous occupational jati to emerge. For an example, some Chamars may learn a new occupation of weaving due to reasons beyond the control of anybody. The reason may be the wiping out of weaver community in that area due to any epidemic leaving nobody to weave. Or it may be due to foreign invasion that caused the weaving community to migrate totally to some other area. Or because the foreigners have created a new power structure which has created a new class of religious converts willing to employ the skinners as weavers. As long as new skinner-weavers are few in number they continue to align themselves with their skinner caste. As the time goes by these skinner-weavers grow large into numbers. They start intermarrying and a time comes when these skinner weavers become an endogamous jati in their own right. Then they cut off all the links with their previous skinner caste and separate. And a new weaving jati comes into existence. The weaving occupation becomes their heredity occupation. In due course of time the society also starts identifying them by their new endogamous occupational group at a relatively higher social status....

Caste mobility - 1

......The Hindu society is famous for its watertight five boxes of people, four Varnas and one Antyaja. These are five straight hierarchical strata with no overlapping in between. There are clear-cut four Varnas only and Varna-Sankars are outlawed. An individual is born in an endogamous jati with his inherited Varna, inherited occupation, an inherited social status, inherited disabilities and inherited priviliges. One is born in a jati; marries within jati and dies within jati. The caste or jati is social world in which one lives. The people from other castes are outsider to him; with them he interacts only on the basis of unequal social status and economic needs; no permanent relationship bonds them and no possibility thereof. His all relatives and father and forefathers are from within the same jati only. It is only a dharmic way of living or righteous way of living.

An individual in his lifetime has no chances of upward mobility in group based caste system that does not really recognize any individual. Any individual is recognizable only through his heredity group or caste. Without knowing the caste of a person one cannot really place him in Hindu social, economic and power structure. The knowledge about his caste helps others in showing appropriate behavior toward him. An individual has to behave according to his caste and the castes of others; he has no really individual behavior or personality; his behavior is always relative. A person becomes mentally meek or aggressive depending upon his caste in relation to others’ castes. The caste of a man molds his life. The caste enforces social, economic and power structure around him.

To be effective the claims of an individual for upward mobility in the caste system has to be approved (ratified?) by the collective might of traditional social system. In the vertically stratified society of five strata an individual is higher than some and lower than some. Some individual may not accept their heredity social ranking in the caste system and may claim that he is superior to those above him. A Vaisya may claim that he is superior to Brahmans. However, this claim is without effect until ratified by the people belonging to other Varnas. And for their own welfare, people would not recognize such a claim. It is necessary for moving up on social scale that all the other people agree to it. The higher Varnas would not appreciate it; the lower Varnas would not recognize his new status. If they were do so their own social ranking would be adversely affected. So he remains where he was. Even the almighty God with his unlimited power cannot raise and change the born scavenger into a Brahman and make the society to accept him as such. The lawmakers have disabled the almighty God through Karma theory. A disabled God is contradiction of terms. However it is a reality in Hindu framework. The God cannot help people from lower castes in raising themselves. And there is no ritual prescribed in scriptures to raise the Varna of a man; it was not the intention of the lawmakers also; any such provision would have undermined their monopoly on the society and religion and would have adversely affected the benefits attached to such a position. No Ghure (garbage dump) Lal or Kachara (garbage) Mall was supposed to make laws; one needed the purity of blood for such sacred purpose....

The Village -18

....In the not so old Hindu Peshawa raj of Marathas, the untouchables were not allowed to walk on the streets of Pune city in morning and evening. This avoided the falling of polluting shadows on caste Hindus of the city. In evening and morning the shadows become larger and their chances of falling on Brahmans increased manifold that would have polluted them and their sacrosanct self. There are people who still yearn for those times when everything was in its proper place; when the movement of polluting shadows was under control. These are the people who think that India is going to dogs because of not following such traditions. In some places the untouchables were required to carry a small earthen pot around their necks so that they could spit in it to avoid contaminating the streets on which the uppity nosed high castes walked. However, the spitting of high caste did not pollute the streets; their spiting was unhygienic but not polluting. There is a difference between pure and clean, one can be clean and still impure and unclean but still pure. Some spiritual aspects of Hindu religion are fathomless. The logic stands on it head. There is rationality in irrationality. Somebody still has to isolate any polluting substance in the saliva of untouchables and which is not found in the saliva of high caste people. And still somebody has to find out the reasons for which the saliva of upper caste could not pollute the streets of Pune while that of untouchables’ could. In some places they had to tie a broom around their waists to automatically sweep the streets that became polluted by their walking. For the untouchables the veritable hell was in this world only; others had to die to see it. For them the arrangements to live in hell are made here itself - the eternally privileged untouchables! Otherwise who would go to such an extent to do this for them? Is it the law of Karma or something else? It was courtesy the pure, pious and powerful lawmakers. In some places they had to wear a black thread around their necks or wrists for quick identification by the upper caste people who then could keep safe distance from them. They could only talk to Brahmans from a distance so that their polluting breath did not touch them...

The Village -17

....The high caste people are always ready to shed the blood if their Varna dharma is destroyed. The only condition is that it should not be their blood. This blood should belong to weak and poor untouchables who are not in a position to retaliate. If it is somebody stronger then they rapidly develop the tolerance with electrifying speed. However, when it comes to fifth stratum, they are effectively able to show them their place in the society and make them to behave. They maintain the eternal ways of their grand cultural heritage.

The police are deeply disinterested in filing their report and taking any action. A self induced paralysis develops in the police force when it comes to taking any action in any case of atrocities on the weak and isolated people. After all it amounts to taking action against their kith and kin and people of their own status. A whole farce is carried out which starts from filing of report and lasts till completing the investigation. The final report generally is that the atrocity actually did not take place or the criminal could not be identified because of want of witness. After this charade which may last up to court hearing, the culprits are usually honorably discharged. However, a feigned seriousness runs throughout the course. The Varna dharma runs deep down in Hindus society. It is deeply embedded in the psyche of the society.

In any conflict between higher caste people and untouchables, all the people belonging to the particular untouchable jati in the area are collectively punished for the supposed fault of a single man. This fault may be like raising the voice against the injustice. This group oriented punishment helps in preserving the purity of caste system by teaching the weakest group a solid lesson. Their economic boycott follows any violence against them. Only the physical violence is not deemed to be sufficient against them. The threat of starvation must hang on their heads. The untouchables are generally landless laborers who have to work on the fields of land owning high castes to make a living. In any boycott no farmer would give them any work on his fields. No shopkeeper would sell them any grocery item or anything else. They are also not allowed to cross the high caste fields to go to work. So they cannot earn and cannot buy anything to eat. The alternative is to go hungry or temporarily migrate to some other areas where their relatives live. Or capitulate before high castes. Physical subjugation is not enough; they have to be broken down mentally. And the famed Panchayats play a critical, pure and pious role in it. They decide and regulate this boycott. Any high caste person defying the boycott is fined by the Panchayats and threat of his ostracization looms large. The Panchayats are the upholder of grand inhuman tradition of suppressing the untouchables; they keep them in their prideless place. All this happens for the cause of maintaining the order in the society. The social harmony has to be maintained.....