Caste System and Hinduism

Author(s): Gail Omvedt

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Mar. 13-19, 2004, Vol. 39, No. 11 (Mar. 13-19,
2004), pp. 1179-1180
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4414770

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 Discussion_____

Caste System and Hinduism

What he was opposing was 'panditry',
the rituals of brahmanism and the divi-
sions of caste hierarchy, as well as the
exploitation of the rulers of his day. Tuka
identified most with the sants from Mus-
GAIL OMVEDT with action - a person is what he or she lim, dalit, OBC background, women and
does. What Nadkami prefers to call 'clas- men, and could compare Ravidas with
V Nadkarni's rejoinder (EPW, sical Hinduism' clearly did uphold a 'devotionless brahman' in the most
January 10) to my response to his 'varnashrama dharma' as well as ferocious terms:
article has failed to deal with the objec- brahmanic authority; this was its
He's main
a devotionless brahman, let his face
tions I have raised. First, to say that Islam difference from the 'shramana' tradition. burn.
and Christianity in India also show signs Nadkami also distorts my position when From what concubine was he born?
of caste is not to say that these do in the he argues that I concede that "caste as a Blessed is the mother of the Vaishnava
same way as 'Hinduism'. These religionssystem has collapsed". In fact, I had only Chambhar;
outside of south Asia have no caste dif- expressed a basic principle of both Bud- both lineage and caste are pure.
ferentiations, and within India they are of dhism and Marxism - that social systems Tuka says, let this greatness burn up in fire,
I don't want to even see these evil ones
a different order and degree, less severe along with all other phenomena in the
(#1319)
than among those who do not follow such universe are impermanent. What had a
universal religions. It is not some magic beginning will have an end. This is not True, Eknath had a 'Hindu-Turk' dialogue.
of the soil of south Asia that has distorted the same as saying the system has col- But, like Kabir and Nanak, he seems to
their teachings here. Rather it is a con- lapsed today. In fact, any social scientist distinguish himself from both. Kabir used
the contrast for condemnation:
tinuing influence within them ofbrahmanic attempting to study caste on the larger
and hierarchical thinking; of disabilities scale runs across the great denial of it in Hindu kahee mohi Ram piyara, Turak
of birth which are still not overcome, and India today: no information about caste in kahee Rahimaanaa, Aapus mai dou lari
of the casteist behaviour that comes from the census, no encouragement to students lari muye, marm na kaahuu jaanaa
outside their circles. to do research on it (aside from those It would seem a great injustice to classify
Second, I had also once thought that students from dalit or OBC background Kabir among those who he felt never under-
perhaps the term 'sanatan dharma' would who may be encouraged to write a disser- stood the 'essence' but only engaged in
be fairer than that of 'brahmanism'. tation on their own caste). Only recently murderous fighting. Finally, Nadkami has
However, it appears that the earliest for
use instance has the NSS collected data avoided answering the three questions I
of sanatan dharma was Buddhist ended with. First, he has said nothing
classifying all 'OBCs' together and not
na hi verena veraani sammant' iidha about supporting affirmative action to end
simply SCs and STs. But all of these are
kudaacanam upper caste dominance in the major social
categories that cover a great deal of dif-
averena ca sammanti; esa dhammo ferentiation. Caste continues to define and economic institutions of society.
sanatano (Dhammapada verse 5) access to food, jobs, education and mar- Second, regarding temples, I was not
This identifies the 'ancient law' as one of referring simply to dalits. If brahmans
riage partners - and until this is studied
ethical behaviour, refusing to return en-and policies are taken up to eradicate continue
it, to control the building and to
mity with enmity. It seems that there isit will continue to hang on, holding the control the ways in which they hold the
no equivalent use in the Sanskritic litera-entire Indian society backward. door open to let in a few from other
ture (the Gita refers to 'kuladharma Nadkarni would collapse the great re- backgrounds, it is no great change. Rather
sanatana') and elsewhere the reference is bellion of the radical bhaktas (and I wouldI was suggesting that if Shiva or Vithoba,
to ancient custom. According to a recent distinguish Kabir, the Varkaris, Ravidas, it is unjustifiable for a single section deter-
study, it was rather Aurobindo in the 19th Mira, etc, that is all those who had no mined by birth to control theirtemples. This
century who popularised the term as one establishment or monastic support) into is aa matter of some of the most wealthy
encompassing a grand religious tradition simple spirit of 'spreading love'. Thisand is powerful institutions of society.
running from the Vedas onward [Heehs not what I find in Tukaram, who wrote Finally, regarding conversion: Nadkarni
2003:70-71]. Then what to call this San- among other things, remarks that "the spirit of the Gita is only
skritic teaching of the pandits which came to advise following one's aptitude and
We servants of Vishnu are softer than wax,
thousands of years before any use of the inclinations, and not to legislate". As-
but hard enough to shatter a thunderbolt.
term 'Hindu' to refer to a religion? Dead but alive, awake while asleep,suming this were true, it is precisely what
Regarding varna by merit, I have ques- whatever is asked of us we go on giving I was asking about conversion. I know
tioned the notion of 'guna' itself. Where (refrain). If we feel good we'll give the
his opinion: does he want not only to
does it come from and is there any reason loincloth from our ass, but we'll give express it but to make it a matter of law?
a blow to the head of knaves. We are more
to suppose there are only three or four Shouldn't a person have a right to follow
loving than mother and father
gunas which can appropriately be used to but more destructive than enemies.
his or her inclinations in regard to the most
classify human beings, and forbid those serious choices of life?
Amrut has no sweetness compared to us,
who primarily have the gunas of 'servants' It is a matter of fact that India saw the
and poison has no bitterness.
to study or bear arms? The Buddhist texts Tuka says, we are sweet all through, birth of the first great missionary religion
contrast jati by birth not with guna, but we give what everyone deserves (#987).of the world - Buddhism. It is also true

Economic and Political Weekly March 13, 2004 1179

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that the major 'inducements' offered by
Christianity to the rural low castes were
those of self-respect - and, while the estab-
lished churches today, which do show
reflections of caste, have mostly given up
conversion efforts, the evangelical Chris-
tians who are carrying these on show hardly
any sign of caste distinctions. In any case,
to argue that a person should stay on his
or her 'ancestral religion' is a denial of
human freedom; to put legal obstacles to
Heehs, Peter (2003): "The Centre of the Religious
this is an infringement of the Constitution
- which was presided over and presented
to the nation by an ex-untouchable who
himself felt the necessity of saying, "I was
born a Hindu but will not die a Hindu". writing about Palestinian lives, he
Time will submit to slavery criticised the western representation of
from illusion's bonds we'll be free the Palestinians:
everyone will be powerful and prosperous-Yet, for all the writing about them, Pale-
Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra andstinians remain virtually unknown. Espe-
Chandala all have rights cially in the west, particularly in the United
women, children, male and female and States, Palestinians are not so much a people
even prostitutes as a pretext for a call to arms... Since 1948,
-Tuka (Tukaram) n our existence has been a lesser one. We
have experienced a great deal that has not
Reference been recorded. Many of us have been killed,
many permanently scarred and silenced,
without a trace. And the images used to
Life of the World': Spiritual Universalism and
Cultural Nationalism in the Work of Sri represent us only diminish our reality
Aurobindo' in Antony Copley (ed), Hinduismfurther. To most people Palestinians are
in Public and Private, Oxford, New Delhi. visible principally as fighters, terrorists
and lawless pariahs [Said 1993:4].
Said was a great activist thinker of our
time. His works can be interpreted from

A Post-Colonial Reading multiple perspectives. But, we should not

forget postcolonial roots of his thinking
and political activism. BE

of Edward Said References

Said, Edward W (1994): Culture and Imperialism,
ARUP KUMAR SEN resources, humanly quashed by the west Vintage edition.
- (2001): Reflections on Exile and OtherLiterary
[Viswanathan 2002:26].
and Cultural Essays, Penguin Books, New
n his tribute to Edward Said (EPW, Said extended his arguments in Delhi.
December 27, 2003), Frederic F Orientalism in his next important study on -(1993): After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives,
Clairmont has mainly highlighted culture, his Culture and Imperialism. In this Vintage edition.
Viswanathan, Gauri (ed) (2002): Power, Politics
political activism. In my tribute to Said, work,
I Said studied the relationship be- and Culture: Interviews with Edward W Said,
tween culture and empire and offered a
would like to situate his writings and speeches Vintage Books, New York.
in a post-colonial perspective. In fact, critique
Said of Eurocentrism: Young, RobertJ C (2003): Postcolonialism: A Very
was a pioneer in post-colonial studies.The interrelationships between scholarship Short Introduction, Oxford University Press.
(or literature, for that matter) and the
Post-colonialism begins from its own institutions of nationalism have not been
knowledges, many of them more recently
as seriously studied as they should, but it
elaborated during the long course of the is nevertheless evident that when most
anti-colonial movements, and starts from
the premise that those in the west, both
within and outside the academy, should
European thinkers celebrated humanity or
culture they were principally celebrating Letters to editor
ideas and values they ascribed to their own
take such other knowledges, other per-
national culture, or to Europe as distinct
spectives, as seriously as those of the west.
from the Orient, Africa, and even the(Continued from p 1094)
Post-colonialism ... is a general name for Americas [Said 1994:51].
these insurgent knowledges that come from
Said had intellectual engagements withof NGOs have been manipulating the
the subaltern, the dispossessed, and seek
Marxist scholarship. But, he was not democratic
to change the terms and values under which a struggles of the adivasi
we all live [Young 2003:20]. Marxist. He criticised Marx for his 'Ro- movements. No doubt though, some
In his classic book Orientalism (1978), mantic Orientalist Vision' and found NGOs have been doing a lot of good
Marxism "more limiting than enabling work.
inWhile market reforms of the
Said challenged the western constructions
of the Orient and showed the connections Indian state have penetrated the
the current intellectual, cultural, political
between western knowledge and power.conjuncture" [Viswanathan 2002:158]. remotest corners of India, NGOs are
Before the publication of the book, Said Said had great admiration for Michel coming to those areas where the
categorically stated in an interview in 1976:Foucault's theoretical insights and consi- minimum welfare measures are
"The focus of interest in Orientalism for me dered him to be "the most radical in theo- non-existent. They have given birth to
has been the partnership between a discur- retical investigation". But, he criticised a parallel bureaucracy committed to the
sive and archival textuality and worldlyFoucault from a post-colonial perspective: donor agencies. D Sarangi (State,
power, one as an index and refraction of"He (Foucault) showed no real interest in NGOs and Tribals , January 4, 2003)
the other. As a systematic discourse the relationships his work had with femi- has clearly exposed the role of NGOs
Orientalism is written knowledge, butnist or post-colonial writers facing prob- in society. Bandyopadhyay should not
because it is in the world and directly aboutlems of exclusion, confinement, and domi- have ignored the questions raised by
the world, it is more than knowledge: it is nation. Indeed, his Eurocentrism was al- Sarangi. The romanticisation of the
power since, so far as the oriental is con-most total, as if 'history' itself took place NGO activities is no longer an
cerned, Orientalism is the operative andonly among a group of French and German answer to the problems faced by the
adivasis.
effective knowledge by which he was thinkers" [Said 2001:196].
delivered textually to the west, occupied Said's post-colonial thought was an C K VISHWANATH
Kannur
by the west, milked by the west for hisorganic part of his political activism. While

1180 Economic and Political Weekly March 13, 2004

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