This thread is a collection of points on how caste was never a system of oppression or backwardness in India, until the time of the British rule, and how the system has secured and sustained the Hindu religious, traditional and cultural roots.
Members may add their points that subscribe to the positive aspects of the institution of caste.
Dharampal in his 'Rediscovering India'
Rediscovering India By Dharampal:
harampal` Writings
• Yet, according to their traditions, especially traditions which particular castes or tribes subscribe to, each such caste had a uniquely divine origin. According to anthropological theory, castes have largely grown out of earlier tribal groups and in course of time though not fully integrated in the larger body politic have yet accepted its norms and belief structure.
• In recent centuries to these castes and tribes have been added yet other newly formed groups by the religious conversion of some of the Indian people to the religions of Islam and Christianity.
• Besides there has been a sprinkling of people from other areas who at one time or another have migrated into India, and while keeping to their own customs have made India their home.
• But while castes and tribes have always existed in India and continue to exist today, never before in history do they seem to have posed a major problem. Historically they have existed side by side, they have interacted amongst themselves, groups of them have even had ritual or real fights with each other as the Right-hand and Left-hand caste groupings had in southern India till the beginning of the nineteenth century.
• Contrary to accepted assumptions, and perhaps to Manusmritic law, at least when the British began to conquer India, the majority of the rajas in different parts of India had also been from amongst such castes which have been placed in the sudra varna.
• Incidentally, it may be worth noting that those included amongst the Brahmin, kshtriya, and vaisya varnas, at least in recent times, have together constituted only a small minority (12 per cent to 15 per cent) of the Hindus.
• It is possible that the existence of separate castes and tribes have historically been responsible for the relative weakness of Indian polity. Yet it can, perhaps also be argued that the existence of caste has added to the tenacity of Indian society, to its capacity to survive and after lying low to be able to stand up again.
• Under what circumstances and what arrangements castes (and for that matter tribes) are divisive of Indian society or a factor leading to its cohesion are questions which still have no conclusive answer.
• In fact, the questions perhaps have not even been posed. For the British, as perhaps for some others before them, caste has been a great obstacle, in fact, an unmitigated evil not because the British believed in castelessness or subscribed to non-hierarchical system but because it stood in the way of their breaking Indian society, hindered the process of atomization, and made the task of conquest and governance more difficult.
• The present fury and the theoretical formulations against the organization of Indian society into castes, whatever the justification or otherwise of caste today, thus begins with British rule.
• Simultaneous to the stigmatizing of caste as an evil, the requirements of conquest, and perhaps also a similarity in classification, attracted the British to the Manusmriti and gave scholarly and legal support to some of its provisions, including those relating to the varnas.
• A major result of it was to provide validity and traditional sanction to the virtual dispossession of an overwhelming proportion of the Indian people from property or occupancy rights in hand and taking away their rights in the management of innumerable cultural and religious institutions which they had hitherto managed.
• Further, it also led to the erosion of the flexibility of customs which existed amongst most of the castes, and made them feel degraded to the extent they deviated from brahamanical practice.
• The listing of the castes in a rigid hierarchical order was another result of this latter approach. The earlier relationship and balance amongst the castes was thus wholly disrupted.
• Backwardness like the term "barbarians" is an imagery which one applies to others, to aliens who prove weaker and who do not subscribe to one’s own cultural norms. To morally justify the conquest, or subjection, or annihilation of others, recourse is then taken to terms like "backwardness", and when the people so termed, themselves begin mentally to subscribe to such imagery it implies that the process of subjugation of such people has been completed and that they have lost dignity in their own eyes.
• While there can be some controversy about the prosperity or poverty of the Indian people, or any segments of them during the sixteen, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the term backwardness does not in any sense apply to them then.
• Rather, it was the newly arrived Europeans in India who felt that the Indians applied such an appellation to them (the Europeans) for their manners and greed which were considered barbaric and uncouth, about the color of their skin which was thought to be diseased, or even the system of dowry which is said to have originated in eighteenth century England, but to have been looked askance in eighteenth century India.
• By the end of the eighteenth century when large parts of India had effectively been conquered and subdued the tide obviously changed and instead the term "backwardness" or images of similar nature began to be deliberately and extensively applied to Indian society.
• A detailed survey was carried out in 1822-25 in the Madras Presidency (i.e. the present Tamil Nadu, the major part of the present Andhra Pradesh, and some districts of the present Karnataka, Kerala and Orissa). The survey indicated that 11,575 schools and 1,094 colleges were still then in existence in the Presidency and that the number of students in them were 1,57,195 and 5,431 respectively. The more surprising information, which this survey provided, is with regard to the broader caste composition of the students in the schools.
• According to it, those belonging to the sudras and castes below formed 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the total students in the Tamil speaking areas, 62 per cent in the Oriya areas, 54 per cent in the Malayalam speaking areas, and 35 per cent to 40 per cent in the Telugu speaking areas.
• If one looks deep enough, corresponding images of other aspects of Indian life and society emerge from similar British records of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. Those indicate not only a complex structure of science and technology (according to tests carried out by the British, the best steel in the world during this period was produced by relatively portable steel furnaces in India, and inoculation against small-pox was a widely-extended Indian practice) but also the sophisticated organizational structure of Indian society.
• According to Mr. Alexander Read, later the originator of the Madras land revenue system, the only thing which seemed to distinguish the nobility from their servants in Hyderabad around 1780 was that the clothes of the former were more clean.
*****
Aurobindo in his 'India's Rebirth':
http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-chapters/India`s-Rebirth-by-Sri-Aurobindo-1.aspx
• There is no doubt that the institution of caste degenerated. It ceased to be determined by spiritual qualifications, which, once essential, have now come to be subordinate and even immaterial and is determined by the purely material tests of occupation and birth.
• By this change it has set itself against the fundamental tendency of Hinduism which is to insist on the spiritual and subordinate the material and thus lost most of its meaning. The spirit of caste arrogance, exclusiveness and superiority came to dominate it instead of the spirit of duty, and the change weakened the nation and helped to reduce us to our present conditions.
*****
From 'Life And Thoughts Of Swami Vivekananda':
Life And Thoughts Of Swami Vivekananda::Great Indian Leaders
• Solution to caste problems:
The other caste must remember that if they remain backward, it is only because they sat down lazily and let the Brahmanas win the race. Instead of wasting their energies in quarrels, let them absorb the culture of the Brahmanas by taking to Sanskrit education because Sanskrit and prestige go together in India.
• Benefits of caste system
It is owing to caste that 300 million people can find a peace of bread to eat. It is an imperfect institution no doubt. But if it had not been for caste, you would have had no Sanskrit books to study. This caste made walls, around which all sorts of invasions rolled and surged but found it impossible to breakthrough.
*****
When Caste Was Not A Bad Word
When Caste Was Not A Bad Word::What Hindus Need To Know
Were caste equations always as bad as they are today? Not quite. There were always castes but they were not backward.
• The interest in caste peaked around 1891 when the census came out with what were termed as Index of Castes. The word ‘caste’ is of Spanish origin and fails to capture the meaning of the Indian term, "jati," which more properly translated as "community."
• Jati in traditional India promoted and preserved diversity and multiculturalism by allotting every jati a particular space and role in society so that no jati would be appropriated or dominated by another.
• America, which has long glorified the ideal of a "melting pot" of one assimilated culture, is now coming to see the value of the "salad bowl" model, in which different cultures co-exist in harmony. The epitome of this model was the Indian jati system, revealing that our ancient practices are relevant to the modern world.
• Moreover, the jati system was integral to the survival of the Indian nation: in Swami Vivekananda’s words: "Caste is an imperfect institution no doubt. But if it had not been for caste, you would have had no Sanskrit books to study. This caste made walls, around which all sorts of invasions rolled and surged but found it impossible to breakthrough."
*****
Members may add their points that subscribe to the positive aspects of the institution of caste.
Dharampal in his 'Rediscovering India'
Rediscovering India By Dharampal:
harampal` Writings• Yet, according to their traditions, especially traditions which particular castes or tribes subscribe to, each such caste had a uniquely divine origin. According to anthropological theory, castes have largely grown out of earlier tribal groups and in course of time though not fully integrated in the larger body politic have yet accepted its norms and belief structure.
• In recent centuries to these castes and tribes have been added yet other newly formed groups by the religious conversion of some of the Indian people to the religions of Islam and Christianity.
• Besides there has been a sprinkling of people from other areas who at one time or another have migrated into India, and while keeping to their own customs have made India their home.
• But while castes and tribes have always existed in India and continue to exist today, never before in history do they seem to have posed a major problem. Historically they have existed side by side, they have interacted amongst themselves, groups of them have even had ritual or real fights with each other as the Right-hand and Left-hand caste groupings had in southern India till the beginning of the nineteenth century.
• Contrary to accepted assumptions, and perhaps to Manusmritic law, at least when the British began to conquer India, the majority of the rajas in different parts of India had also been from amongst such castes which have been placed in the sudra varna.
• Incidentally, it may be worth noting that those included amongst the Brahmin, kshtriya, and vaisya varnas, at least in recent times, have together constituted only a small minority (12 per cent to 15 per cent) of the Hindus.
• It is possible that the existence of separate castes and tribes have historically been responsible for the relative weakness of Indian polity. Yet it can, perhaps also be argued that the existence of caste has added to the tenacity of Indian society, to its capacity to survive and after lying low to be able to stand up again.
• Under what circumstances and what arrangements castes (and for that matter tribes) are divisive of Indian society or a factor leading to its cohesion are questions which still have no conclusive answer.
• In fact, the questions perhaps have not even been posed. For the British, as perhaps for some others before them, caste has been a great obstacle, in fact, an unmitigated evil not because the British believed in castelessness or subscribed to non-hierarchical system but because it stood in the way of their breaking Indian society, hindered the process of atomization, and made the task of conquest and governance more difficult.
• The present fury and the theoretical formulations against the organization of Indian society into castes, whatever the justification or otherwise of caste today, thus begins with British rule.
• Simultaneous to the stigmatizing of caste as an evil, the requirements of conquest, and perhaps also a similarity in classification, attracted the British to the Manusmriti and gave scholarly and legal support to some of its provisions, including those relating to the varnas.
• A major result of it was to provide validity and traditional sanction to the virtual dispossession of an overwhelming proportion of the Indian people from property or occupancy rights in hand and taking away their rights in the management of innumerable cultural and religious institutions which they had hitherto managed.
• Further, it also led to the erosion of the flexibility of customs which existed amongst most of the castes, and made them feel degraded to the extent they deviated from brahamanical practice.
• The listing of the castes in a rigid hierarchical order was another result of this latter approach. The earlier relationship and balance amongst the castes was thus wholly disrupted.
• Backwardness like the term "barbarians" is an imagery which one applies to others, to aliens who prove weaker and who do not subscribe to one’s own cultural norms. To morally justify the conquest, or subjection, or annihilation of others, recourse is then taken to terms like "backwardness", and when the people so termed, themselves begin mentally to subscribe to such imagery it implies that the process of subjugation of such people has been completed and that they have lost dignity in their own eyes.
• While there can be some controversy about the prosperity or poverty of the Indian people, or any segments of them during the sixteen, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the term backwardness does not in any sense apply to them then.
• Rather, it was the newly arrived Europeans in India who felt that the Indians applied such an appellation to them (the Europeans) for their manners and greed which were considered barbaric and uncouth, about the color of their skin which was thought to be diseased, or even the system of dowry which is said to have originated in eighteenth century England, but to have been looked askance in eighteenth century India.
• By the end of the eighteenth century when large parts of India had effectively been conquered and subdued the tide obviously changed and instead the term "backwardness" or images of similar nature began to be deliberately and extensively applied to Indian society.
• A detailed survey was carried out in 1822-25 in the Madras Presidency (i.e. the present Tamil Nadu, the major part of the present Andhra Pradesh, and some districts of the present Karnataka, Kerala and Orissa). The survey indicated that 11,575 schools and 1,094 colleges were still then in existence in the Presidency and that the number of students in them were 1,57,195 and 5,431 respectively. The more surprising information, which this survey provided, is with regard to the broader caste composition of the students in the schools.
• According to it, those belonging to the sudras and castes below formed 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the total students in the Tamil speaking areas, 62 per cent in the Oriya areas, 54 per cent in the Malayalam speaking areas, and 35 per cent to 40 per cent in the Telugu speaking areas.
• If one looks deep enough, corresponding images of other aspects of Indian life and society emerge from similar British records of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. Those indicate not only a complex structure of science and technology (according to tests carried out by the British, the best steel in the world during this period was produced by relatively portable steel furnaces in India, and inoculation against small-pox was a widely-extended Indian practice) but also the sophisticated organizational structure of Indian society.
• According to Mr. Alexander Read, later the originator of the Madras land revenue system, the only thing which seemed to distinguish the nobility from their servants in Hyderabad around 1780 was that the clothes of the former were more clean.
*****
Aurobindo in his 'India's Rebirth':
http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-chapters/India`s-Rebirth-by-Sri-Aurobindo-1.aspx
• There is no doubt that the institution of caste degenerated. It ceased to be determined by spiritual qualifications, which, once essential, have now come to be subordinate and even immaterial and is determined by the purely material tests of occupation and birth.
• By this change it has set itself against the fundamental tendency of Hinduism which is to insist on the spiritual and subordinate the material and thus lost most of its meaning. The spirit of caste arrogance, exclusiveness and superiority came to dominate it instead of the spirit of duty, and the change weakened the nation and helped to reduce us to our present conditions.
*****
From 'Life And Thoughts Of Swami Vivekananda':
Life And Thoughts Of Swami Vivekananda::Great Indian Leaders
• Solution to caste problems:
The other caste must remember that if they remain backward, it is only because they sat down lazily and let the Brahmanas win the race. Instead of wasting their energies in quarrels, let them absorb the culture of the Brahmanas by taking to Sanskrit education because Sanskrit and prestige go together in India.
• Benefits of caste system
It is owing to caste that 300 million people can find a peace of bread to eat. It is an imperfect institution no doubt. But if it had not been for caste, you would have had no Sanskrit books to study. This caste made walls, around which all sorts of invasions rolled and surged but found it impossible to breakthrough.
*****
When Caste Was Not A Bad Word
When Caste Was Not A Bad Word::What Hindus Need To Know
Were caste equations always as bad as they are today? Not quite. There were always castes but they were not backward.
• The interest in caste peaked around 1891 when the census came out with what were termed as Index of Castes. The word ‘caste’ is of Spanish origin and fails to capture the meaning of the Indian term, "jati," which more properly translated as "community."
• Jati in traditional India promoted and preserved diversity and multiculturalism by allotting every jati a particular space and role in society so that no jati would be appropriated or dominated by another.
• America, which has long glorified the ideal of a "melting pot" of one assimilated culture, is now coming to see the value of the "salad bowl" model, in which different cultures co-exist in harmony. The epitome of this model was the Indian jati system, revealing that our ancient practices are relevant to the modern world.
• Moreover, the jati system was integral to the survival of the Indian nation: in Swami Vivekananda’s words: "Caste is an imperfect institution no doubt. But if it had not been for caste, you would have had no Sanskrit books to study. This caste made walls, around which all sorts of invasions rolled and surged but found it impossible to breakthrough."
*****
