Markets and caste - 2

he universal franchise was also mooted at that time. These two things were in direct contrast to thousands of years of tradition and culture of Hindu society. The third such thing was the free distribution of land to Shudra tillers due to land reforms. These three reforms can be said to be three great achievements of India after independence. However the landless Shudras were left out of this process. These three reforms encroached upon the traditional rights and privileges of upper castes Hindus. There must have been some reasons for being so generous, which runs mighty contrary to their history of not sharing even the village water well! One of the reasons was that the threat of untouchables leaving the Hindu society was looming large, which could have affected the larger interests of Hindus. The perspective of 20 percent of Hindus joining either Islam or Christianity was not very enticing. A straight forward reduction of 20 percent Hindus might have affected their political representation and hence the chances of power. They were not willing give up the power they got after nearly 800 years courtesy British. This might have also paved the way to third partition. In this regard it may also be seen that the untouchable converts to other religions stood to forfeit their right to reservation. Thus this might also be seen as a plug to stop the outward flow of Hindus. This prevented the conversion. However the actual threat did not materialize. The reason for the land reforms which distributed land to tillers for free, might be that those people who stood to lose their land (after due compensation) had actually sided with the British thus losing the sympathy of freedom fighters. Again it was a safety valve to give vent to aspirations of tillers whose dissatisfaction with the rulers might have created a lot of problems. Why these safety valves were necessary? For this we have to see the world after French revolution, Russian revolution and Chinese revolution where the elites were wiped out. The ferocity and terror engulfing these events terrorized the would be rulers of India. This pushed up the possible cost of survival for the elites, which forced them to cede some place to lower strata. They could maximize their superiority only at a certain and proven cost. These people being in minority had got modern education and had a very high level of intelligence. They remembered the modern history and knew the rule that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. It was a real politic. However some people consider it as a matter of charity and compassion of unknown proportions towards the very weak. But their history until now shows that they never possessed all these attributes. They needed to find some ways to pacify the radicals and would be radicals in lower two permanently exploited strata forming the majority. They needed to find a way to contain the sleeping anger of sleeping majority. This they did.

Markets and caste - 1

Well, the civil society maintains caste. The mainstream maintains caste. The communists maintain caste. All of them are very vocal about equality; a farce it is. Their voices keep on echoing and echoing but equality actually never reach to untouchables. The discrimination plays a paramount role in their lives despite all the sophisticated charade put on by others. Is it going to be different in case of markets? The free market system on which the capitalism the dominant economic system of the world rests. Is it going to be fare to the fifth stratum? Before we seek the answer to this trivial question let us see how the limited affirmative action has worked in India. This is an interference of the state in its own sector on behalf of the fifth stratum. This intervention underlines the point that the state has been the biggest ally of untouchables despite all its limitations. The implication of state policies in favor of untouchables has been somewhat defective but it has provided relief even if to a limited number of people.


The Constitution of India provides for 15 percent reservations of seats in Parliament and state legislative assemblies for people belonging to scheduled caste category or the fifth stratum for a period of 10 years, which is eventually extended at the end of every tenth year. These reservations have been extended in education and government jobs also which are also renewed every tenth year. These reservations are a matter of rightfully growing resentments in a righteous way among the righteous upper castes. They act nothing but in righteous way always. We know that such resentments are always justified in a dharmic way with a little bit of arguments thrown about meritocracy. The main aim is to maintain dharma. The traditional monopolists who talk about open competition and try to maintain their hegemony; suddenly they remember the virtue of open competition. These reservations were given for the wrongs done in the past. These facilities were actually provided as a compensation for the thousands of years of social, economic and educational deprivation of these people. These deprivations actually crippled these people social, politically, religiously, economically and mentally. The society actually goes on to deprive these people actively. These reservations were, initially, provided for ten years in the hope that within this time span the untouchables would catch up with the mainstream and become independent. However such grossly unrealistic hopes were belied because even one man cannot come up in ten years and it was a question of millions of people. Thus there was need to extend them ever since. This may not last forever but political compulsions and a need to show liberal face of India to international community contribute in their continuation. One additional factor for their continuation is that they provide a kind of safety valve to satisfy the aspirations of educated untouchables, which avoids a possible social tension and a resultant violence. This threat to peace has been perceived in the scriptures also. The development of a community having millions of members is a long drawn out affair and cannot be done in a small time frame of ten years.

Caste - Mainstream and Communists - 8

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.



This kind of non-importance of caste is a straight inheritance from Varna dharma. Whatever benefits higher Varnas is normal or depends upon their merit or their supposed superiority. The communist party being a supporter of deprived section of the society should have developed a strong support among the lowest stratum of Hindus but it did not. These 20 percent people could have made them major players in Indian politics but they are still minor players. The lowest caste cadres in communist set up are seen as the last men in the hierarchy; again they are first from the bottom; nothing changes for them; it is a kind of Varna system without any overt display of untouchability. The sole use of untouchables there is to carry the red flag and take part in protests rallies. That is where their role ends.


The idea of communists is to unite everybody in the name of class struggle. The workers in India come from different castes and thus have different social status and separate bloodlines. How they are going to identify with each other is anybody’s guess. Nobody is going to give up the chance to assert the social superiority over others. Maximization of status superiority is a normal thing. The social difference creates the difference between workers. This is a clear-cut case of superstructure (or society) creating fissures in the economic base. After a long spell of being treated unequally the untouchables leave them. By no stretch of imagination the Materialistic interpretation of history can explain the notion of purity and impurity and practice of untouchability in a precise manner. Marx also did not bring the mode of production in India within his theory. He classified it as Asiatic mode of production frozen in time and Indian Marxists have not gone beyond that. It was a caste mode of production where unpropertied Shudras and untouchables worked on the lands of higher three Varnas and Brahmans; and temples that had gotten land grants from kings, did not provide them with any army to fight in case of need. The Varna dharma clearly separates the exploiter from the exploited and the haves from haves not.
However the Communitst should have read Engles and Gramsci also. The caste is a part of super structure as well as part of false conscious. According to Engles it is the false conscious that prevents unity among working class.

The caste's presence as a big part of "false conscious" that creates fissures in the base, is due to cultural hegemony of Brahmans. This cultural hagemony is responsible for a divide between poor and poor. This cultural hegemony needed to be attacked by Communists. But that did not happen.

Had the communists gone according to Gramsci they would definitely tackled the caste actively instead of passively waiting for it to fall down. The communists of India totally ignore Gramsci whose emphasis on cultural hegemony would point towards cultural hegemony of Brahmans. And provide the communists a better target and idea to launch a direct attack on caste. Then who wants to harm himself? Nobody. Or is the ignoring of Engles and Gramsci is deliberate? They treat caste as a social phenomenon to be solved through a change in economic base. Caste is much more then that, it decides who shall wear sleepers and who shall not. It also decides who shall own property and who shall live by his labor alone. A better exposition of permanent division of economic means on the basis of heredity is not possible. The lower two groups, Shudras and untouchables, have no right to property, they have to live by labor alone. This condition should make the lower two strata as exploited and the rest as exploiters. The Indian communist do not think so. They never got the caste system right; doing so would have made holes in their fragile, soft and compassionate consciousness. After all their hearts collectively beat for the haves not. What they produce is actually Varna dharma in a communist bottle. Both are group oriented. Both are power structure. Both are economic system. And above all, both of them have the upper castes at the top and the untouchables at the bottom. A smooth transition it is. No guilt, no responsibility, it is all the fault of economic base. The use of Marxist theory is the same as that of Karma theory. Both of them are used to absolve the higher castes of their acts.

Caste - Mainstream and Communists - 7

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.