In this
putatively postMarxist (postmodernist) epoch, where history has ended decisively
in favour of capitalist liberal democracy, class has been given up as an
analytical category and socialism as the historical destiny of the oppressed.
Multiculturalism is the dominant political theme in the metropolitan academies
where volumes are written on the hardening cultural boundaries and the
carnivalesque play of identity. Therefore the ‘subaltern’ and ‘postcolonial’
political subject’s consciousness has nothing to do with the totalizing the
Soviet era mode of production narrative. Caste has become a very important
subject, both for the metropolitan and Indian universities; book-shelves are
packed with latest publications on caste.
In Indian
politics, caste has emerged as one of the most important issues after the
Mandal/Kamandal controversies. All the ruling class political parties carefully
cultivate vote banks based on caste. In the postMandal Indian political reality
where social justice has replaced social revolution, even the parliamentary left
both the neo-revisionist and social democratic type have fallen into the trap of
identity politics, whereas the gruesome massacres and atrocities on Dalits is a
daily affair. Not a single day passes without newspapers not reporting various
outrageous acts of atrocities on Dalits in India. On the other hand, contineous
‘deconstruction’ and ‘fragmentation’ of social reality, constant ‘decentering’
of the ‘self’ and creation of the ‘other’ , micro-narratives replacing
meta-narratives is the fashion, where any kind of talk about ‘liberation’ and
‘emancipation’ are quickly reduced to linguistic mysticism. In the academic
jargon, caste as a cultural identity has resurfaced with renewed vigour.
However, for some of us who still call ourselves an old-fashioned fossilized
tribe, who still believe in revolutionary left praxis and the grand narrative of
emancipation and ultimate transcendence of capitalism, caste and caste
oppression is a serious issue because as Ambedkar has said, caste system is not
only a division of labour, but also a division of labourers. Hence,
understanding caste and working a strategy is extremely essential for the
politics of social transformation. Marxists and revolutionary left forces have
been derided for not understanding the caste question in India. On the contrary,
Marxist authors like D.D. Kosambi, R.S. Sharma and Suvira Jaiswal have produced
outstanding works on developing a theoretical understanding of caste system in
India.
It is here
that the writings on caste question in India by late Comrades Anuradha Ghandy
and Com. Y. Naveen Babu assume extreme importance because they developed a
framework for revolutionaries for dealing with the caste system for the
achievement of democratic revolution in India. It is important to highlight that
both Comrades Anuradha Ghandy and Naveen Babu were no armchair theoreticians,
but active participants in the revolutionary left politics in India. Com. Naveen
Babu was martyred in the year 2000 at Visakhapatnam. For anyone who is serious
about radical social transformation, caste is an important issue because the
caste system, apart from structuring exploitative relations of production,
essentially forms a social hierarchy. Caste status is acquired by birth and
castes are maintained as endogamous groups. There are more than 2000 such castes
in contemporary Indian society. Modern 21stcentury India still
embraces caste and it forms the basis or is part of the cultural, political and
social events across India.
In fact,
caste has reinvented itself and is very much part of the consciousness of all
the Indian classes. It will not be an exaggeration to say that no conversation
or discussion in everyday life of an average Indian goes beyond the second
sentence without the phrase ‘which caste is she/he from?’ In a sense,
perpetuation of the caste system is promoted by the upper echelons of the Indian
society to bring order and to directly or indirectly control it. (Reinterpreting
Caste and Social Change: A Review In: From
Varna to Jati Political Economy of Caste in Indian Social Formation; Y. Naveen
Babu. Daanish Books, Delhi.) The abolition of the caste system has to be a
fundamental goal of the Indian democratic revolution. Any mass movement to
abolish classes, which does not engage in a direct fight against the caste
system, will not achieve its objective. The reverse is also true. Only
identity-based caste struggle without challenging the exploitative relations of
production cannot create a social system without exploitation.
Com.
Anuradha Ghandy’s writing on caste question is an extremely valuable
contribution in dealing with the caste question in India and its relation with
the politics of radical social transformation. Com. Anuradha’s “Caste Question
In India” is a seminal text in understanding the origin of caste/class,
relations of production in agriculture, state, social hierarchy and formulating
a political programme for the abolition of caste system and its relation with
the democratic revolution in India. She wades through history explaining the
origin of the caste system, tribal class society rise of the state in India and
scripting a specific set of demands for struggle to abolish caste system and its
relation with the democratic revolution in India. Explaining the theoretical
framework, she writes, “The caste system has been one of the specific problems
of the Indian democratic revolution. It is linked to the specific nature of the
evolution of Indian society and has been one of the most important means for the
exploitation of the labouring masses. Sanction by the Brahminical Hindu
religion, Varnashra-Dharma legitimized the oppression of the
working people, and the enslavement and degradation of one section of the
masses, reducing them to near animal existence. For the ruling classes in India,
from the ancient to the modern period, the caste system served both as an
ideology as well as a social system that enabled them to repress and exploit the
majority of toilers.
Invaders
from other lands who came to rule over India, adjusted with this system, as it
suited their class interest; religions like Islam and Christianity, which
profess the equality of all men, adjusted with it, allowing its believers to be
divided on the basis of caste, because they did not interfere with this system
of exploitation. Today, caste ideology is still an important part of the
reactionary ruling class ideological package, and it serves to divide the
working masses, hampering the development of class consciousness and a unified
revolutionary struggle. At the same time, caste based occupations and relations
of production, caste based inequalities and discrimination, the practice of
untouchability and the belief in Brahminical superiority, are still as much part
of the socio-economic life of the country. Caste is being used in the corrupt
electoral politics of the ruling classes. To root out the caste system we must
first understand its origin and development and evaluate the successes and
failures of the various struggles against the caste system and Brahminical
ideology (see “Caste Question In India”; Anuradha
Ghandy In: Scripting The Change: Selected Writings of
Anuradha Ghandy, edited by Anand Teltumbde and Shoma Sen. Daanish Books, Delhi,
2011).
As I have
explained earlier, Com. Anuradha was no ivory tower intellectual detached from
the vagaries of everyday struggles of the oppressed, so she wrote with lucidity
and without any academic jargon for grassroots activists involved in the
day-to-day struggles of the underdog. She explains the origin of the caste
system for people who are not formally trained in history or any other branch of
social science. Writing about the origin of the caste system, she traces its
history back to 3,000 years linking it up with the development of class society,
emergence of the state, the development of the feudal mode of production and the
continuous but often forcible assimilation of tribal groups, with their own
customs and practices, into the exploitative agrarian economy (Anuradha Ghandy:
“Caste Question In India”).
She
explains three distinct periods of the origin and development of the caste
system:
1. Vedic period: The period from 1500 BC, when
Aryan pastoral tribes and non-agricultural tribal communities took to
agriculture, the emergence of agriculture as the dominant production system, to
the rise of the state around 500 BC.
2. The period from 500 BC to the
4th century AD – the period of the expansion of
agriculture based on Shudra labour, the growth of trade and its decline; the
rise of small kingdoms to the emergence of feudalism.
3. The period from the
4th century AD onwards – when the development of
feudalism took place, and Brahminical Hinduism and
the jati system acquired their complex and
rigid form (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).
Explaining
the emergence of class society from the tribal society, she says class societies
emerged from the clashes of the various pastoral Aryan tribes and the indigenous
tribes and the development of agriculture with the widespread use of iron, which
took the shape of the Varnas, hence the four Varnas were the form of class
society which took place in the later Vedic and Upanishad period.
Giving the
details of the process, she writes, “As the Vedic Aryans entered from the Punjab
area and spread towards the Gangetic Plain from around 1500 BC, they were
already divided into an aristocracy (Rajanya) and priests (Brahmins) and
the ordinary clansmen (vis) In the incessant conflicts and wars that were
associated with their spread eastwards, conflicts among the various pastoral
Aryan tribes and with local tribes for cattle, water resources, land and then
also for slaves, sections of tribes that were defeated began to be enslaved,
known as dasas. The wars increased the importance of the chieftains. They
relied on ritualism to enhance their prestige and consolidate it, and to
appropriate the surplus through these rituals. Tributes of cattle and slaves
were given by the ordinary vis to the rajanyas. Major and
minor yagnas were increasingly performed by
the rajanyas, in alliance with the Brahmins. The ruling
elite and the priests live off the gifts (dand/bali) given to them by the
vis at these yagna. At this stage, the tribunal
organizations based on clan and kin were still dominant. The emergence of the
Brahmin and Kshatriya Varnas was a process of the breaking down of the kin-based
relations among these ruling elites and the creation of a broader class – the
Varna – which lived off the tributes and gifts from the vis and subjugated the
tribes. The pastoral tribes had adopted agriculture, and from the local tribes,
the chieftain clans and the priestly clans were being incorporated into the
Kshatriya and Brahmin Varnas, respectively.
The
subjugated tribals, both Aryan and non-Aryan, gradually came to form the Shudra
Varna. All of them were not slaves. While domestic slavery existed, it was
basically the Vaishya peasants (from the vis the broader Vaishya Varna emerged)
and the Shudras, who reared cattle, tilled the soil.
The
widespread use of iron not only for weapons but also for agricultural purposes,
from around 800 BC, marked a qualitative change in the production system of the
ancient tribal societies. Plough-based agriculture could generate considerable
surplus on a regular basis. Dense forests could be cut down and land cleared for
cultivation. Thus, iron enabled the agrarian economy to become the prominent
production system in this ancient period. The spread of agriculture was achieved
at the cost of the non-agricultural tribes. They were either subjugated or
displaced from the forests and their traditional means of livelihood. The
conquest of new territories and the possibility of regular settlements further
enhanced the importance of chieftains. Tribals’ oligarchies emerged. Many of the
chieftains turned into kings who needed
grander yagnas to consolidate their rule not
only over their own clans and tribes, but also over the territories they
commanded the janapada.
The Varnashrama-Dharma was already
being developed by the Brahmin priestly class. The rituals became more complex,
elaborate and wealth consuming. These rituals were the means by which the
surplus could be distributed. The surplus, appropriated in the form of gifts,
was shared by the ruling Kshatriyas and the Brahmin priests. Gifts were no
longer voluntary. They were forced. The Arya
dharma and Varna ideology legitimized the increasing power of
the kings and priests and the absorption of the subjugated tribals into the
lower Varnas. It became the ideological expression of the classes that had
emerged from the womb of the various tribes. Those groups that did not accept
the rituals and forced tributes were considered anarya
or mlechha.
Development
of agriculture, including paddy cultivation in the Gangetic Plains, was
accompanied by the increasing division of labour and growth of trade. Private
property in land emerged; towns developed; few classes came into existence - the
Vaishya traders and the gahapatis, the landowners.
The gahapatis did not themselves till the land,
but got slaves or Shudras to till it. Tensions between upper two Varnas and the
lower Varnas, and between those who owned and those who laboured, emerged. This
led to the emergence of the ancient state. The first states emerged in the
Gangetic Plains in Bihar (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In
India”).
She
explains the emergence of the state in India and its relations with the Varna
order and how Brahminical rituals were used to legitimize the rule of the kings.
The emergence of the Kosala and Magadha monarchies around the
6th century BC was the form in which the state developed
in ancient India. The ruling class in the proto states and these early states
relied on yagnas and rituals to buttress and legitimize
their rule. The early states had the explicit function of upholding the Varna
order and private property. Gifts were replaced by taxes. A standing army came
into existence. The Varnashrama ideology
reflected and buttressed this class situation in the interests of the ruling
Kshatriyas and Brahmins. The Brahmins and Kshatriyas enclose the Vaishyas and
Shudras, the servants of another, to be removed at will, to be slain at will. In
the context of the differences between the classes becoming sharp, the Varna
divisions had become rigid. Social distance and endogamy came to be
emphasized.
But the
newly emerged classes, the lower two Varnas and the non-subjugated tribal
communities did not accept this ideology and the Varna hierarchy with
Brahminical superiority. The rise of “Lokayata”, “Mahavir”, Buddha and other
opposing sects and philosophical systems was a challenge to this
Vedic yagna-based Brahminism and Varna-based hierarchy.
These sects gained the support of traders, and artisans organized into guilds
and semi-tribal kings and chieftains. Later, with the consolidation of the state
formation with Mauryan rule
(4th-3rd centuries BC), the reduction in the
importance of yagnas and borrowing certain
principles from Buddhism, Brahminism tried to reassert its ideological role.
Yet, it had to contend with Buddhism and Jainism for commercial and royal
patronage and for social domination. This reflects the struggles put up by the
various classes and peoples to the consolidation of the caste system based on
Brahmin-Kshatriya superiority. Yet Brahminism played a key role in the
development and consolidation on the state in ancient India and the development
and formalization of a class society in the form of Varnas.
The Mauryan
Empire, which rose in the Magadha region in the
3rd century BC, was the first major fully formed stake
in India after the Indus Valley civilization. It was an ancient communal and
state ownership type of state with Shudra-based production. The origins of the
Mauryas themselves are obscure, but the state was guided by the famous Brahmin
Kautilya, also known as
Chanakya. Chanakya Arthashastra was
the first and hence a frank account of how to rule. It laid down the principles
of state craft without any ideological and religious cover up. The Mauryan state
was a centralized state which took the responsibility for the extension of
agriculture and trade. This arthashastra state
settled groups of Shudras where lands could be cleared and brought under the
plough. The sita lands were farmed directly by
the state with the help of Shudras (serf) labour, under the autocratic regime,
while rashtra lands were farmed by the free
peasantry (Vaishyas). These rashtra lands were
taxed on various counts. The state took taxes from the Vaishyas and labour from
the Shudras, providing them with the necessities of cultivation.
While
slavery also existed, slaves were used primarily by landowners for domestic work
and by the state for processing the grain collected in the form of taxes and for
the production of some commodities. The state also monopolized the mining and
minerals. By this period, a class of dependent peasants and labourers (helots) –
Shudras by Varna, had been consolidated. But the Vaishyas who carried out trade
and settled in urban areas began to distinguish themselves from their peasant
brethren. In latter centuries, peasant cultivation became the hallmark of the
Shudras. The ordinary, free peasantry was pushed down into the Shudra Varna,
while the Vaishya Varna became the monopoly of the traders and merchants. At the
same time, the class of Kshetraswamis, those who got their lands cultivated by
sharecroppers and dependent labourers, came to become the norm.
In the
Mauryan period and upto the 3rd century AD, trade was an
important aspect of the economy. While trade along with
the dakshina pantha and to the north along
the uttar pantha grew in the Mauryan period, in later
centuries trade with the Roman Empire (1st and
2ndcenturies AD) also became important. In the south, trade links
with the South-East Asian societies, including China, also existed. Thus, the
class of artisans and merchants who were linked to the market were socially and
economically important. Artisans and merchant guilds were powerful. Also, during
this period artisan guilds were strictly not hereditary.
The
restrictions on the marriage part of the tribal endogamous practices were
adopted by Brahmins, though their social purpose became different. In the early
Vedic period, tribal endogamy was not strictly followed in the assimilation of
groups. But as class differences started to emerge and the need for a large
number of labourers grew, the two upper Varnas enforced strict rules regarding
the form of marriage, a method of distancing themselves from the lower two
Varnas, while at the same time sanctioning hypergamy. Hypergamy allowed
converted Brahmins and Kshatriyas to seek partners from among their own tribe’s
folk, absorbed as Vaishyas or Shudras. It allowed political alliances with
non-Kshatriya chieftains and kings. At the same time, marriage rules for the two
Varnas were not restrictive allowing for the rapid increase in population of the
labouring people.
In a
primitive economy, human labour is the main productive asset. Hence, even
marriage rules developed according to the interests of the ruling classes and
gained ideological legitimacy through the rigid Varna divisions (Anuradha
Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).
Explaining
the popularity of Buddhism and Jainism, she says the toiling people like Shudras
and traders like Vaishyas had to pay high taxes, but had to be content with
lower social status. Expensive rituals based on sacrifice of animals created
difficulties for agriculture. Explaining the process of creation
of jatis, she says with the decline
of yagnas, a transformation in the social role of the
Brahmins took place and with that Brahminism also underwent a transformation.
Brahmins, encouraged and protected by kings, brought the borders of the kingdom
under agriculture, in the process ‘aryanizing’ the tribals in the region.
From Ashoka’s time, the free peasants and the Brahmins migrated in search of
fresh lands to bring it under agriculture.
The ashrams set up by the Brahmins in the
forests were the pioneer settlements that developed contacts with the tribes in
the area, and brought them under the command of the plough and the Vedas. The
local tribals were incorporated almost wholly as jatis of
the Shudra Varna, and retained their tribal customs and became the labourers on
the land carrying out the various tasks necessary for agricultural
operations.
The tribal
elite were incorporated into the Brahmin Varna. The Brahmins changed the form of
their religion. Sacrificial yagnas became
symbolic. The principle of ahimsa was adopted
from Buddhism. The older Vedic codes, which were glorifications of pastoral life
and wars, gave way to newer Gods, like the cult of Krishna, and also Shiva and
later Vishnu. Tribal rituals were adopted, for instance
the agni rituals, performed only by the
Brahmins in South Indian temples, were non-Vedic in origin. Tribal worship of
Mother Goddesses was also incorporated into the Hindu religion. In fact, with
the development of feudalism, the feminine names of certain tribes,
etc., Matangi, Chandali,
Kaivarti and their tribal totems, were also incorporated into
the Hindu fold. Gods and Goddesses were incorporated into the Hindu pantheon
asavatars of the main God, Vishnu. This was the ideological
manifestation of the social process of the absorption of tribes and semi-tribes
into the spreading agrarian economy at the lower levels of social hierarchy. The
significance of the Varnashrama-Dharma in this
process, the importance and social base. In the king’s court, they provided the
genealogy that proved the Kshatriya/Brahmin status of the ruler’s family; hence
Brahminism was supported by the rulers. Yet, in the period upto the
6th century AD, at least, Brahminism and the caste
system could not gain hegemony in invasion of foreign groups like Kushans and
Shakas, which ruled over large territories, the strength of artisan and trade
guilds, as also the influence of Buddhism and Jainism (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste
Question In India”).
She
explains how this Aryan system of caste and social organisations spread with
iron to the south. And the patronage extended by the Satvanas, which were one of
the first state formations in the 2nd century AD,
consolidated the Brahminical caste system in South India.
The basic
difference of Marxism and left politics with identity politics and ruling class
politics vis-à-vis caste is that the Marxist approach sees caste oppression in
India in the dominant feudal social relations and the liberation of oppressed
castes including the Dalits intrinsically linked with the struggle against
feudalism. Com. Anuradha explains the rise and consolidation of feudalism in the
following lines:
“From
around 6th century AD in the early medieval period the
caste system, based on jatis, began to consolidate in most parts of India. It is
clearly linked to the rise of feudalism all over India, when a class of
intermediaries was created which expropriated the surplus in the form of revenue
or share of the produce from the labouring masses. This was accompanied by the
development of the self-sufficient village economy. The decline of trade and
artisan guilds, primarily due to the collapse of the Roman Empire after the
3rdcentury AD, the contraction of money circulation, the settling
down of artisans in the villages, created the conditions for the rise of
feudalism. Land grants began to be given to Brahmins, Buddhist monasteries and
to army officials. Though this process began in the Satvahana rule in the
2nd century AD, and with the Guptas in the
4th century AD, it became widespread from the
5thcentury onwards. From the 7th century
onwards appointing feudal intermediaries who collected revenue and food on
administrative tasks became common. The distribution of land grants to Brahmins,
in the period of rising feudalism, meant that from the beginning they
constituted a part of feudal class. This process essentially took place between
the 5th and 7thcenturies, especially in the
parts that were colonized by the migrating peasant settlers – in Bengal, Orissa,
Gujarat and central and western Madhya Pradesh, in the Deccan. It began under
the Pallava rule in the 6thcentury in the South, but reached its peak
during the Chola rule from the 9thcentury onwards in Tamil Nadu,
parts of Karnataka and the Kerala regions.
In this
period the proliferation of jatis also began. Jati, originally a term used for a
tribe with its own distinct customs, coming into a Varna, gradually replaced
Varna since it became the main organization in which people were bound together.
The original peasant settlers emerged as specific peasant jatis in particular
regions. In the South the dominant peasant land owning jatis were considered as
Satvik Shudras, ranked only next to the Brahmins. A number of jatis and upa
jatis, each with an occupational specialization necessary for agriculture, or
for social life in the village also developed. The carpenter, blacksmith,
potter, tanner, skinner of dead cattle were available in the bigger villages. As
also the barber, the washerman and the priest. They provided their skills to the
peasant and other families including the families of the feudal intermediaries.
In return they began to be given a share of village produce. Initially the share
was decided by nattar, the association of the dominant peasant community. In
later times the shares became more formal, they were also given the right to
till a part of the village lands. The jagmani system, the balutedari or ayagari
system emerged within the new arrangement of the village structure. Money was
not needed for daily exchange. This arrangement greatly aided the Brahmins and
the other upper castes from the land owning, feudal intermediaries to raise
their ritual status and social prestige, since the lower castes were available
in full complement to do all the various types of physical and menial labor. The
upper caste did not have to soil their hands. The jati system was suitable for
the feudal mode of production and it would not be wrong to call it jati
feudalism.
It is in
this period that the number of untouchable castes swelled greatly. From the
4th century BC itself, these are references to the
untouchables, in Patanjali, who mentions two types of Shudras, the Nirashrit
(excluded) and the Ashrit. But their numbers were restricted. Gradually newer
tribal groups began to be included. But it is in the feudal period that their
numbers went up greatly, the Chamars and Rajaks, for example, were reduced to
the untouchable status of an untouchable. Tribal groups, subjugated by force
after being dispossessed of their forests/lands, mans of livelihood and freedom
were relegated to an untouchable status. Some artisan groups too were pushed
down from Shudra to the ati Shudra ranks. They were in the main bonded
agricultural labourers who were denied by religious injunctions any right to own
wealth (gold, etc.) and land. Their only dharma was to labour for the entire
village at a distance, polluting even by their shadow. Maximum surplus could be
extracted from the untouchable labourers, forced into a low level of material
existence and perpetual servitude.
Brahmins,
both as individuals and as groups, were granted lands and a share of the revenue
from the villages. They lived off the surplus created by the villagers. The
Brahmadeva villages in South India became the centres for Brahminical culture
and learning. In these villages and the surrounding region, Brahmins were
allowed to keep the revenue of the villages, or the larger share (melavarm) of
the total produce, they got their own lands cultivated through tenants or
sharecroppers. The Dharma allowed them the right to own land, they could
supervise cultivation, but they could not cultivate it themselves. A section of
the Brahmin castes were closely associated with the rulers. Apart from providing
fictitious genealogies to prove Kshatriya status of the ruling groups, they were
the royal purohits and in many kingdoms they held administrative posts. These
Brahmins, who helped to generate the surplus, gained the highest social
era.
As land
owners and revenue collectors, closely associated with the rule of the kingdom,
the Brahmins held wide authority in the political, social and religious life.
They were active members of the feudal ruling class, and its ideologies as
well.” (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).
She
succinctly explains the impact of Muslim rule on the feudal mode of production
beginning with the Turkish rule. The establishment of Turkish power in North
India, through the slave dynasty in the 13th century,
marked an important phase in the feudal mode of production. They centralized the
administration and introduced a systematic system of revenue collection. The
composition of the ruling class underwent a change. Initially, it was the Turk
slave families and their relatives that ruled, they were successively replaced
by ex-slaves of Indian origin, Indianized Turks and foreign immigrants, to be
replaced by even foreigners. The most important changes related to the methods
in which the rights to revenue collection (iqta) were assigned.
Originally restricted only for life, on the decision of the king, by the end of
the 15thcentury they were made hereditary. The Turks were
urban-based, and favoured Islam. Thus, Turkish rulers displaced the original
feudatories and created new ones over a period of time.
The
administrative changes induced by the Turks, and adopted in the Deccan too,
introduced changes in the powers of revenue collection and administration,
affecting military service holders, administrators, village headmen and the
priestly clans, the office holders came to be
called inamdars, watandars, iqtadars, deshmukhs-desais,
and later as jagirdars, during the Mughal rule.
Although
some of the earlier intermediaries who had lost their posts regained them during
the later part of the Turk rule, yet in this period the composition of the
feudal classes in north India was not stable. However, this did not affect the
structure of the village economy. The Turks introduced new techniques in the
science of war. They also gave a fillip to trade, commerce and artisan
production in the urban areas. Hence, this period saw the development of the
productive forces in Indian society (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In
India”).
By the
17th and 18th centuries when
Moghuls consolidated their rule by associating with the Rajput chiefs and other
upper caste intermediaries and the ruling groups of kingdoms annexed in north
India and in the Deccan. This throughout the early period, though the Mughals
monetized the collection of revenue to some extent, and also increased the
exploitation of the peasantry, yet, they did not basically affect the social
structure of the agrarian village economy as it had evolved over the previous
centuries. It consisted of the intermediaries at the top of the rural structure,
who were also invariably large landlords themselves. Often they held a post from
the ruler, which gave administrative responsibilities and powers. These were
also village chiefs and village level officials like accountants. These office
holders and feudatories lived off the revenue collected from the peasants. They
also controlled lands which they got tilled by either tenants or
sharecroppers.
In some
areas, they used the bonded labourers from tribal or untouchable castes. Most of
these feudal intermediaries were from the uppermost castes – Brahmins, Rajputs
and even if they originally came from the Shudra cultivating castes, they had
elevated themselves to Kshatriya or to a high non-Brahmin status.
The control
of temples had given the Brahmins wide control over the resources of the
agrarian economy in the south. The appointment of Brahmins to high
administrative and military posts during the Vijaynagara rule further
concentrated power and resources under their control. In western Maharashtra
too, the Maratha rule concentrated economic and political power in the hands of
the Brahmins. The main cultivating castes were exploited for revenue and
innumerable taxes. Yet their rights to the land had evolved over the centuries,
even if they were under feudatories.
The jagmani/balutedari system institutionalized
the system of exchange between the services of the various castes – the peasants
and the landlord. On the one hand, it formalized the share of the various castes
to the produce, but on the other, it increased the power and prestige of
feudatories and Brahmins, and formalized the system
of beggar (forced free labour). Higher caste
landowning sections could withdraw from all manual work, especially work
connected with agriculture. The other castes served as
their jajmans. It involved free labour for a number of
artisans and service castes, who served various families at the same time, but
the untouchable castes, were in many areas attached to a particular family
(Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).
Writing
about the colonial period, she says that the British did not touch or tamper
with the Brahminical system. By passing local customary and caste practices,
they upheld the Dharamshastras, appointing Brahmin pundits to advise the British
judges in interpreting the shastras in disputes relating to family and marriage,
property and inheritance, and religious rights, including the status of specific
castes. Hence, the British legal system upheld the entry into the temples to the
untouchable castes in the name of protecting the established rights of other
castes. The British courts entertained caste claims regarding privileges and
precedence of exclusiveness in respect to religious rituals as well.
In the name
of respecting the autonomy of castes, they upheld the disciplinary power of
castes against violators of caste norms, even in inter-caste disputes. Thus,
they upheld caste although in a much more restricted sphere than in the feudal
period.
The
economic changes introduced by the colonial rulers in the
19th century in order to consolidate their rule and
intensify the exploitation of India, had an impact on the relations of
production in the rural areas and created new classes from among the various
castes, the various revenue settlements –
the zamindari, rayatwari, etc.,
the introduction of railways, defence works, the colonial education system, the
uniform criminal and civil law and colonial bureaucracy affected the caste
system and modified its role in society.
In the land
settlements, the British ignored the inalienable rights of the actual
cultivators, in many areas made the intermediaries, the non-cultivating sections
that only had a share in the produce traditionally, become the sole proprietors
of the land.
In
the zamindari settlement areas, the Shudra
peasants became tenants at the mercy of the landlords; in other areas a class of
peasant proprietors arose, but even in this the larger peasants gained while the
actual cultivators became tenants or sharecroppers. The Shudra peasantry was
divided into an upper section of the rich; intensified exploitation coupled with
famines and other crises, indebted peasants of all the cultivating castes who
were pushed into the ranks of the landless.
A section
of artisans became landless labourers. A class of rural poor, landless or poor
peasants, emerged from the ranks of most of the middle and lower castes in the
19th century (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In
India”). She gives a brilliant account of the Bhakti and non-Brahmin Movement in
the pre-British and colonial period. She gives an excellent account of the
dynamics of caste system after the transfer of power, including Dalit politics
and caste atrocities.
The most
significant changes have been in the countryside. The close correspondence
between caste and class no longer exists in most parts of the country. The old
upper castezamindars and other big feudal landlords have, to
some extent, been weakened and feudal authority is, to a large extent, asserted
by smaller landlords, the former big tenants of
thezamindars and the large peasant proprietors. While the
position of the upper castes has weakened the most, the new landlords are from
the middle castes. The middle castes are, today, significantly divided along
class lines. The landlords and the rich peasants are a small group from the
traditionally cultivating castes, and these castes are also found in large
numbers among middle and poor peasants and even among the landless.
The lower
section of the middle castes, i.e., the artisan castes are primarily middle,
poor or landless and some are continuing their traditional occupations.
Therefore, today, the main exploiting class in the rural areas consists of the
earlier upper caste elements, i.e., the Brahmins, the Rajputs, the Brahmins,
together with the upper stratum of the middle castes, such as the Patidars, the
Marathas, the Jats, the Yadavs, the Vellars, the Lingayats, the Reddys, the
Kammas, the Nairs, etc.
The middle
peasants, comprising about 25 percent of the rural households, largely come from
the major cultivating castes and from other lower castes, as well as a small
section of Dalits. This section has contradictions with upper sections of the
rural elite, but due to the caste relations and low class consciousness in areas
of low class struggle, they are trailing behind the elite landlord sections of
the other castes.
The poor
and the landless, who consist of 60% of the rural households, have the greatest
number of caste divisions, including a large number of small artisan and
service jatis, and even Muslims. This class consists also of
a large number of households from Dalits and Adivasis. Of the rural agricultural
labour families, 37% are Dalits and 10% Adivasis, while the remaining half are
drawn from the cultivating castes and other lower castes. Here, caste divisions
among the exploited is the greatest. The caste-class relationship in the present
period is indeed complex (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In
India”).
Marxism,
above all, is a philosophy of praxis and Com. Anuradha was a revolutionary who
dedicated her entire life for the emancipation of the underdog. Therefore, as a
mark of respect to her, underlining the seriousness of her praxis, I would
conclude by quoting her programmatic agenda for the Dalit liberation struggle,
which is intrinsically linked with the question of democratic revolution in
India.
The
following is the agenda she has systematically laid out for the
struggle:
1. The proletariat must direct the class struggle
against the caste system as an integral part of the struggle to accomplish the
New Democratic Revolution.
2. For this, mobilize all the exploited classes in
the struggle against caste oppression, exploitation and
discrimination.
3. Smash caste-linked feudal authority in the
villages and place political power in the hands of the oppressed classes, led by
the landless and poor peasants.
4. Struggle to implement land to the tiller,
keeping the interests of landless peasantry and poor peasantry at the
forefront.
5. Wage an ideological struggle against
Brahminical casteist ideology and all other forms of casteist thinking. Expose
the casteist ideology in the scriptures like Manusmriti, the Gita and the Vedas,
etc.
6. While upholding the right of the individual to
pursue his or her faith, conduct a relentless ideological struggle against all
forms of caste rituals and practices, like thread ceremony, etc.
7. Fight against propagation of vegetarianism,
based on its link with ‘purity’ and other forms of superstition regarding
‘pollution’. Oppose ‘gohatya
bandi’.
8. Fight social
stigma against certain occupations and customs of lower castes, like beef eating
or pork eating.
9. Fight
against symbols of caste identity and degradation, and the culture having a
caste slang.
10. Defend and
actively support the struggle of the Dalit masses for self-respect. Defend the
right of the Dalits to enter temples and convert.
11. Struggle for
the civic and social rights of the Dalits and other lower castes, and oppose
discrimination, e.g., use of common wells, hotels, toilets, hostels,
etc.
12. Struggle for
equal participation of lower castes in social functions. Try to establish social
intercourse between the people belonging to various castes participating in the
class struggle. Encourage inter-dining among different castes.
13. Oppose housing
schemes based on caste segregation.
14. Defend and
encourage inter-caste marriages. Demand incentives for all inter-caste
marriages. Children of inter-caste marriages should get facilities as accorded
to either parent.
15. End use of
caste names in official records.
16. Encourage trade
unions to take initiative in the implementation of reservation policy. Fight
reservations in private sector.
17. Fight
bureaucratic delays and corruption in loans and subsidies for Dalits and
OBCs.
18. Demand special
schemes to upgrade technology and the skills of lower castes and artisan
groups.
19. Demand increase
in scholarship amount and improved facilities in hostels for Dalits and
Adivasis.
20. Expose the
reactionary nature of caste associations, especially upper caste
associations.
21. Fight against
and expose the casteist leadership within the oppressed castes, who prevent the
class unity of the toiling masses. There is a false consciousness among the poor
people belonging to the upper castes that they are socially equal with the rich
people of their castes. We have to expose this myth and make them understand
that their real comrades-in-arms are the oppressed people of other castes. We
should never put caste before class.
22. Fight and
expose the opportunistic and reformist trends within the leadership of the
oppressed castes. Fight bourgeois democratic illusions among oppressed
castes.
23. Struggle
against caste prejudices and caste beliefs within the ranks of the proletariat
and other sections of the toiling masses, and build up a struggling unity among
the exploited classes.
24. The communists
should be one among the oppressed people of all castes and be with them in words
and deeds. At the same time we should expose the pseudo communists who are rank
casteists in practice.
25. Educate and struggle against casteist beliefs of
activists of mass organizations.
26. Form special platforms of democratic sections to
fight caste discrimination and programs against lower castes.
27. Form anti-riot squads in defence of lower castes in
areas of caste tensions.
28. Propagate materialist scientific ideology, promote
atheism.
29. Struggle to create a democratic culture, based on
equality of all irrespective of caste and gender.
- From .
1 comment:
She was the greatest contemporary author I have ran into in many years and, her study of western feminism and other writings are commandable.
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