The history is largely made up of national freedom movement, British period, Muslim period, middle age, and ancient period with barely any mention of caste and its impact on society. It is left to be discussed in Sociology where it is not avoidable. If it was possible it would have been eliminated from there also.
There are some people, who like to consider the caste system as a gift from British and Muslim periods. Or in other words it was the result of foreign rule. The caste system before them was not supposed to be birth based in character. It seems that the foreigners came and provided endogamous basis of Hindu social structure with retrospective effect; not even the Absolute has this power in Hindu religious thought; the foreigners should be actually worshipped for possessing such a power. Blaming them is a fanciful thinking. Such an understanding of history and Hindu social structure is overwhelming. It overwhelms the logic. May be one would have to take the result to be axiomatic and presuppose the existence of proof. And then do not try to find it without any success. The higher level people are not supposed to be questioned. Their words are proof. The caste system has always unleashed powerful and controlling social, economical, political and religious forces to safeguard the heredity privileges of privileged people since ancient times.
The intelligentsia’s prominent silence is due to its predominantly upper caste character where intellectual honesty is a worthless attribute. It is inherent in its structure. The structure is not supposed to oppose itself. The caste is not important to them due to many reasons. One reason is their belief that they achieved their historical and current position due to their own past and current merit. In today’s context they have competed in an open system on the basis of their own undiluted merit. It is reflective of a civil society where anybody can achieve anything as an individual irrespective of his origin. Therefore they are not the product of their caste system. Secondly, the existence of caste does not affect them adversely. It is an unending source of never ending goodies. They reap it like forever green fields. These fields are full of impure manual workers who are to be kept at a safe distance but there is no problem with the yield. The yield of impure people is pure. Thirdly, any recognition of caste system and its importance means acknowledgement of injustice heaped on the society by their forefathers and their present kith and kin for which they refuse to take the responsibility. They cannot blame themselves and people like them for the ills of the society. It has to be the fault of victims. They discount the caste by disowning it and relegating it to a distant past but this past exists currently. It is a grandiose step which falters at the steps of history and intellectual honesty. They are moderns and separate from pre-modern things like caste and therefore it is none of their concern though they walk, talk and eat in environment, which is fully embedded with inherited casteism, however direct or indirect it may be. As a matter of their commitment to make caste irrelevant, the esteemed members of such a casteless civil society do not marry outside their castes and consider themselves innately superior to low castes. In addition, they do not like to hire the people of unlikable castes. And they create subtle and indirect vocal and behavioral ways to insult the people from lower strata. All of them are men of principles, of course. All their views run concurrently to the events of suppression and oppression in India. These are the people with unimpeachable credentials in their own circle. One such member with unimpeachable credentials forwards his objective and logical opposition to discuss any issue on caste, the second member forwards it, the third member writes an article on it and the fourth one publishes it; hardly any member form fifth stratum takes part in such an objective and impartial process. They cannot take part in it because their presence has been unofficially outlawed in their exalted circles. And of course I forgot about purity of this circle made up mainly of twice-born.
Then there is view that a secular and civil society will solve the problems of caste if any or will make it irrelevant. The civil society is thought to be non-discriminating in nature but it is not known that to what an extent the Hindu civil society has acquired this character.
As long as the upper castes benefit from caste system, the caste system does not exist. But the moment it starts affecting them adversely the presence of harmful, poisonous and divisive caste system is swiftly recognized. Nobody can accuse them to be short on self-interest. Then they change the tune like deft music wizards. They voice their well-orchestrated intelligent opinions regarding ugly casteism rearing its divisive head to the detriment of whole the society. What is meant by whole of the society is not made clear. Are the untouchables and other lower castes are included in it? Anyway, the casteism, which is nonexistent, becomes ugly harmful casteism, mercilessly tearing the social fabric of the society, which is required to be stopped at any cost. It is also branded as a dividing instrument of the society, which they want to bring to a grinding halt as a matter of great urgency and importance and for the welfare of the society. However, by society they mean their minority selves forming twenty percent of Hindu population. The measures of reservations are seen and analyzed in this light to enlighten the whole of society of the ills of casteism. Their analysis takes the form of dissection with clinical precision. The reservations are supposed to tear the social fabric and create social tensions. However, the tension overhanging the heads of untouchables, in the form of cultural and extorting sword of violence, is none of their concern. Further, an alliance between two lower castes for the purpose for fighting elections is considered as casteist in nature with all its ills.
Any rare discussion about caste includes people like them; it hardly includes any representative from fourth or fifth stratum. The untouchables are excluded because they are not supposed to possess any scientific perspective and temperament which are supposedly inheritedly acquired characeters according to traditions. They are also supposed to lack required intelligence and talent required to discuss such issues. Thus they are unfit to take part in discussions on the issues concerning them. Only the upper castes are supposed to possess the intelligence, talent, scientific temperament and perspective to pursue seriously anything of academic concern – superiority by birth. The lower category people are deemed to be fit only for cutting grass in the village fields; or for working as casual and unskilled labor on the construction sites; or working as doorkeepers for their exalted institutes; or for doing their traditional jobs. The higher-level things should be left to higher-level people. It is another thing that they have learned all the higher level things in modern world from the Westerners; and especially, courtesy British, with a special mention of Lord Macaulay. However, their scientific perspective and temperament has not been able to pinpoint the precise reasons for the persistence of untouchability in India. Their performance is miserable in this regard; may be they will have to take the help of Westerners. Or may be it is a useless issue for them, not a matter of prime concern. They are not going to fix the thing, which they are not going suffer from, the fixing of which gices them trouble. Any objection to their analysis of caste from fifth stratum is swiftly classified as useless and worthless. The people from the lowest stratum are supposed to produce lowest level things. The understanding of twice-born is always better without citing any reasons thereof. If they allow any place for untouchables’ point of view in the areas of crucial importance controlled by them then they run the risk of losing their traditional control over the society. All the matters relating to explaining the things are reserved for them. They cannot bear others interference except that of Westerners. Any objection by the fifth stratum is taken as a serious threat to stability to system and explained in terms of tearing the social fabric creating social unrest in a harmonic plural society. But they leave all the issues concerning the Shudras and untouchables unresolved. The sufferings of Shudras and untouchables are not their sufferings; may be it is pleasure for high castes. Any an objection to upper caste views threatens the stability of just society, on the top of which, they are nicely, dharmically, traditionally and righteously sitting. Have you not heard about divinely ordained order? Nobody has or will ever have the right to move them from there; especially not the impure people with low level of intelligence. They got to know their level. From the top, the twice-born look down smugly upon the lower strata of the Hindus and deny the existence of caste. It is a matter of grey matter. Only people with highly evolved grey matter can handle the positions they are holding. So all the Shudras and untouchables should keep quiet in the name of stability of the system and take all the crap and injustice heaped on them for the fault of having impure origin. The system is more important than the Shudras and untouchables and especially the system which maintains the dominance of twice-born. The mainstream denies any existence of caste but the dominance of upper castes and unofficial boycott of untouchables runs clearly in the clear and transparent stream of mainstream.
Apart from mainstream and civil society in India the communists have their own way of thinking but the end results have been almost the same; the active ignorance of caste. They ignore the caste on the basis of Marxian theory of class struggle where as this theory has been proven to be untenable in real world. The Russian failure and Chinese capitalism are two stark examples. But the Indian communists are in a constant state of denial over these failures. Their world is limited to economic base and social super structure and dependence of social structure or super structure on economic base and independence of economic base. In their world everything is decided by the structure of economic base or the ownership of means of production land, labor and capital. The individual in their scheme of things has no place. All the space is occupied by the two groups or classes, the exploited and exploiters. Any individual emerges as a member of any of above two classes. The Marxian analysis is group oriented analysis. Any individual has to belong to either of two classes. These groups are haves and haves not, the exploiters and the exploited, the capitalists and labor. An individual cannot stand separately as an independent entity. He has to think, act and behave like his class. It is somewhat similar to group oriented nature of Hindu Varna system, which also ignores individual as a separate entity.
The views of communists in ignoring caste are entirely in league with civil society. The civil society cannot see beyond a universal abstract citizen and the communists cannot see beyond their proletariat for whose welfare they wage this gigantic struggle; the end result of which is the dictatorship of politburo or in reality a kind of oligarchy or dictatorship of a man. Rest of the minnows stand in a line and nod their heads in agreement to their leaders’ opinions, statements and actions. If they do not nod it then state coercive power comes into play and makes them to change their minds and fall in line. The opposition from superior power creates great flexibility and tolerance as evident in the case of Hindus when they faced the Muslim rulers’ might. The actual ownership of the means of productions does not lie with the people collectively but with the politburo. Only the politburo has the right to take any decisions about means of production and distribution, which makes them de facto owners. The collective ownership is a fable, which is passed around to keep the cadres in a state of tranquil mental disposition. Earlier people were using their labor for the benefit of ruling classes and still they do it. Only the ruling classes have changed along with the philosophy.
The communists in Indian do not find it necessary to attack the caste separately which is the basic exploitative structure of the Hindu society.It decides the distribution of power and means of production and also the structure of power hierarchy within communist party. The solution to the problem of caste is supposed to be found within the framework of Marxist theory. The caste belongs to the superstructure (or society) and not to the economic base. The deciding factor is the structure of economic base which decides the structure of society. The people owning land and capital belong to ruling class and people owning labor belong to exploited class. However in Hindu society the caste structure is an encompassing concept, which unleashes powerful economic, political and social forces to decide the distribution of means of production. It is not a passive structure. Both the society structure and economic base (property ownership) reinforce each other. However according to communist thinking an equal redistribution of land would eliminate the caste and its problems. The ensuing economic equalization would lead to social equalization. However the caste has maintained itself strongly in the areas where the supposed caste eliminating land reforms have taken place. The supposed economic equalization has not led to intermixing of bloodlines and neither has it prevented the preferential treatment extended automatically to upper castes. The economic equality has not led to social equality, and by extension in power. One main reason for the non-importance of caste is the absence of lower caste people in the communist ideologues. The top echelon of communist power structure is firmly occupied by upper castes on an enduring basis like the helms of power in Varna dharma. They are also not interested in finding caste as culprit because they also do not like to find faults with their forefathers and present kith and kin. All these faults are covered behind the veil of economic base. They are not bothered about who made this base and who still maintains it. In defenders of Varna dharma, mainstream, civil society and communist there is the mention of vested interest in maintaining the caste system. But there is no attempt to identify these vested interests and the beneficiaries of the acts of such vested interests and the duration of maintenance of this system and the extent of exploitation. All the fingers would point to them, their forefathers and their kith and kin.
The Indian communists have constantly denied the relevance of caste in India. In their scheme of things the caste does not appear as a crucial thing. The Communists have always considered the caste to be a part of super structure different from the materialistic economic base. The super structure has no separate existence of itself. For its survival it depends on economic base. The economic base or distribution of land, labor and capital among different people is the real thing not the caste or estates as such. Thus if any given economic base collapses then its related superstructure must also collapse.
There was belief of Marx that caste being a part of superstructure will automatically fall down when mode of productions changes from Asiatic to industrial but that did not happen. The Indian Communists deliberately believed all this. Or may be they were happy as such a thought absolves them of their guilt feelings. All the front line Communists in India belonged to upper castes and hence not very keen on discussing shameful caste system of their forefathers and declared themselves as declassed. These declassed people were those from the privileged caste who had given up all material things and totally identified with the proletariat.
These declassed Communists completely ignored the caste and left the historical forces to eliminate it and in the process lost the reality of Indian society. They waited and waited for the Caste system to fall on its own as predicted by Mrax.They waited and waited....and waited...
The caste system did not fall in response to a change in economic base. A growing industry and development of urban areas should have seen the destruction of caste but it did not happen. The ignorance of caste resulted in a situation where the landless were not ready to support the party of proletariat. So in a land of poverty the supposed party of poor (Communist) was without the support of poor.
According to many the present caste system is distorted version of the original scientific system of division of labor where everybody could chose his occupation and lived his life; exploitation and untouchability is not a part of original Hindu religion and blah, blah, blah. All the distortions were said to be introduced by the unknown vested interests and everything would be fine when these distortions are removed. The sufferings of people find no place in their thinking and neither the responsibility for the exploitation under such a great system; it is the system which finds no problem in trampling over the lives of millions of muted and helpless people. As far as these people are concerned the caste did nothing and does nothing, and at most there were unidentifiable vested interests over which nobody had any control. All the upper castes are unanimous in voicing these kinds of esteemed, exalted and scientific opinions. And in the process, absolve them of everything. How such pious pure spiritual and egalitarian people could be accused of developing the heinous practice of untouchability? Fat chance! Only heinous cruel sinful inhuman lowly exploitative unidentifiable vested interests could do it. And only their unidentifiable coming generations could maintain it and extract the last drop of blood from it, the alternatives given to untouchables were splattered brains, dead bodies and thick red dirty water flowing on the earth. And only such lowly vested interests could eternally benefit from such a practice. And these vested interests had no control over them since the top was not under control of lower impure strata.
