Caste - Mainstream and Communists - 6

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.

Caste - Mainstream and Communists - 5

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.