......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....
refractor,
ReplyDeletecan't thank you enough for putting it all down in such simple terms..i hope this gets through some very thick heads filled to overcapacity with prejudice..
Kuffir
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments.
The caste immobility is a matter of concern to us all. As above I have tried to show that the caste mobility is not that easy as intelligentsia of upper castes try to show. If individual/groups claims could have changed once caste then the problem could have been solved long ago. It has not been solved means that these claims or acquisition of assets by lower castes is not a way out. Whole of the society has to agree with it and specially those who are above the lower once. All these talk of guna makes once Varna or caste, is rubbish. The caste is a system where privileges and disabilities are one of the crucial elements of the system. The claims to rise in the caste system are useless if the concerned individual does not get the privileges of higher caste.
These privileges are getting respect, controlling resources and marrying with the higher caste. Not only that his children should also be able to get these benefits and privileges. Anyway such a reasoning does not get in to sharp brains of upper castes. The just go on saying – “There is no caste. There is no caste.” A parrot can do better than this.
The sociologist and civil society thinks along the same lines. But nobody is bothered about the attachments that come along any given caste. When the caste is changed the attachments (privileges and disabilities) should change accordingly. Nobody deals with this aspect in caste of theoretical upward movement of an individual through the caste system.
The castes/sub-castes are separate bloodlines which should not mix and do not mix. As a result the supporters of communist party do not intermix with each other. The higher caste worker is more interested in maintaining ties with his caste people than his lower caste comrades. The caste fraternity trumps over workers fraternity. As a result the communists are not able to develop support among the lowest stratum of the society barring two states. The caste remains an immutable factor of Hindu society.