THE CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF VIOLENCE AND ITS LATENT

MANIFESTATIONS IN THE INDIAN SOCIETY - AN OVERVIEW

P.D. Satya Pal
Department of Anthropology, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, A.P. India.
satyapalpd@gmail.com

Abstract:
A cybernetic model of Hindu society reveals that it is only by a constant and regular application
of force and coercion in several forms like in Weltanschauung, beliefs, practices and values that the artificial
social mechanism of ascending social values correlated with an exploitative economic order can be
maintained. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate how the culture of violence, both in overt and covert
forms, underscores and envelopes the Hindu Social order with the lower orders of the society providing the
sustenance system smoothly maintained by a culturally devised value system of conditioned exploitation.
The proof of this argument lies in the historical data as to where ever the premises and assumptions of this
order are radically challenged, brute and violent means are adopted as deterrence so that the unnatural
and undemocratic order is constantly skewed in favour of some and disadvantageous to the rest. In
addition the focus is on how the violence in several forms like the denial of identity and cultural space to
Dalits is the out-come of such a social order and why whenever this strata questions the rationale of this
particular set-up the rest of the groups in society combine to unleash violence and keep them in a state of
servility. Even though violence against Dalits has become legally illegitimate, the cultural acceptance of
violence against the group keeps it in vulnerable position. The recent spurt of atrocities committed against
Dalits is not an accidental and sporadic phenomena but a desperate attempt to sustain the in-built cultural
and economic advantages built on the ethic of violence. The contemporary anthropological explanations of
violence are brought lo bear on the study of violence against Dalit groups as to how it acquired the stamp
of cultural acceptance and opacity.

Even a casual study of the assumptions, structure and practices of Hindu society reveals
that it is a closed society, hierarchically arranged and Dalits being excluded out of this total
structure. The first and prominent feature of Hindu society is the codes of respectability and social
visibility arranged in a gradient order. To sustain it, violence is in built into the social practices it
self In other words, violence, in its broad definition of not recognising certain individuals or
groups as basic human beings or negating their human identity is the crux of this Hindu society.
Violence against Dalits is only a logical extension of the culturally integrated values of not treating
certain human beings as part of society or on par with others.

The purpose of this paper is to explain as to how violence in its brute forms is not a
temporary social unrest or sporadic phenomenon of contemporary times but inherent in the very way
the social structure is constituted. In other words it is structural violence often erupting into
transacted episodes of open violence. The subtle relationship between the structure and the
individual episodes was clearly recognised and pointed out by Alien Feldman in the following
manner.
 "The traditional polarization of the analysis of violence into structure
versus event can be seen as two complementary blockages that inhibit the human
sciences from speaking to situations where the practices and genealogies of
violence self organise into continuums of iterative meaning, where the very form
of violence can capture the movement and patterns of history in itself, and where
practices of violence both reflect and fashion social agency" (1999 : 3).

Sociologist and Anthropologists made attempts to explain violence in terms of

psychological profiles (Benedict, 1934, 1946; DuBois, 1961; Whiting; 1969) structural
functional explanations (Gluckman, 1955; Malinowski, 1964; Radcliff-Brown, 1952; Turner,
1967) biology (Bolton, 1982; Eibl-Eibesfeld, 1977; Konner, 1982; Lorenz, 1966; Wilson, 1975)
material factors (Chagnon, 1983; Ferguson, 1984b; Harris, 1974; Rappaport, 1968) and as
contrast between tradition and modernity (Veena Das, 1990a; Nandy, 1990). For Marxists
scholars, conflict is regarded as built into the social system and is seen as productive or positive,
in as much as it is the expression of underlying contradictions which will culminate in the
transformation of society itself. Given these divergent perspectives, it is not surprising that caste
violence is treated as a consequence of one or several factors of the above.

Several sociologists and Anthropologists hailing from western background are apparently
impressed by the regularity of caste system in the Hindu order and mistook the surface parallels
between the division of labour in the west and India. 1 As a division of labour it really would have
been advancement had it not been for the fact that it is a division of labourers denying any
change of vocation manifesting its most severe and cruel compulsion on Dalits (Ambedkar, 1944).
Some Indian sociologists and Anthropologists also chose to toe the same line of thought
evcnthough they know that the truth is much different.

"Reluctant to acknowledge the existence of a range of conflicts, for

whatever reasons, we may be tempted to bury them under such concepts as 'false
consciousness' or India's hallowed traditions of tolerance and community living"
(Jayaram N. and Satish Saberwal, 1996 : 526).
 The conflict of values and the silent struggle among the groups is cleverly interpreted as a
normal strife occurring in any society and not understanding that the matrix of skewed and unequal
relationship is the source of this strife. A simplistic account of the commission of violence
against certain group would not throw any light as to how the phenomena is recurrent is nature by
naively taking the stand that it is not an integral part of culture itself, but rather an aberrant and
temporarily deviant social phenomena and should be condemned in order to restore normalcy. This
discrepancy of treating violence as not due to the way culture factors are constituted but isolated
episodes and instants has been sharply remarked by Feldman:

"Event histories tend to write culture out of violence, for cultural values
such as reason and morality are built into the very act of narration and linearity
that reserves for the author and reader a semantic and moral hold on violence denied
to aggressors and victims who are seemingly blindly caught up in the fulcrum of
morbid action" (1999 : 3).

Hindu Society as a Cybernetic System:

The cybernetic model operates as a kind of self regulating set of devices, gathering
information of the status of its activities and using it as feedback to maintain the system in a
homeostatic position2. The same model is chosen as a tentative one to explain the dynamics of
Hindu society. The Brahmanical group as intelligence and information controlling agency
regulates the rest of the social activities so that the social order created by them does not go out
of control and status quo is maintained, despite the stresses and strains that it is subjected to,
both from inside and outside. The energy needed to run a cybernetic model is equated to the
productive contributions of Dalit groups which have to be kept in a servile position through
structural and other means so that they do not threaten the rest of the society nor tend to destroy
it by trying to liberate themselves from their subordinate position. Violence becomes an integral
and crucial part of such a system wherein Dalits have to be regulated and conditioned so that the
value system they follow does not permit them to raise a voice of protest against other groups.
Even the argument of Gramsci that in the struggle between the haves and have-nots in the
society, the "War of Position" is crucial in deciding the outcome of the issues is relevant in the
context of Hindu Social order. This is more so in the case of Brahmins who are always highly
conscious group in the whole Hindu social order and who manage and manipulate the
consciousness of other groups in order to sustain their own social standing as well as decision-
making on crucial aspects of society.

Culture of Violence:

The peculiar and significant fact about the nature of violence committed against Dalits is that
it is not due to any personal or immediately beneficial results but just because the other person
belongs to a traditionally deprived group which is supposed to be of inferior status. It is a kind of
impersonal violence unleashed due to the consent it gains from the hierarchical system which
sanctions violence as a means of curbing insubordination or any kind of protest.

In contrast to racial, ethnic, religious and gender violence, where both parties to violence,
the inflictor as well as the inflicted, can be clearly identified as two opposing ones, in the case of
Hindu society, there is an overall tolerant acceptance that Dalits also belong to Hindu society, :as
no less a leader than Mahatma Gandhi argued, any kind of questioning from Dalits of their
deprived and depraved position is met with violent reprisal in order to restore the status quo. The
loud protest from the well-entrenched caste groups against conversion is due to the reason that
conversion not only undermines their own superior position but also weans away the converted
Dalit groups into other sections of society. There need not be a clearer proof than that the upper
caste groups tacitly accept that Dalits belong to the Hindu fold but at the same time they should
not aspire to a higher status.

Scriptural Evidence as a Component of Violence:

A close examination of the nature of scriptural writings supporting Hindu culture shows that
violence is legitimately sanctioned wherever the status quo of social order is threatened not from
outsiders but from within the system itself. A clear and outstanding evidence of scriptural sanctions
can he found in the words of Krishna in the Gita who says that wherever the divinely instituted
social order is threatened, he incarnates himself and destroy the enemies of social order. In
addition, he approves violence as a kind of necessity to uphold certain social forms of which the
under tone is the superiority of some over the others. This scriptural sanction is given a social
legitimacy through Manu Smriti which imposes harsh penalties on any group or individual who
try to violate or disrupt the hierarchical order, the apex of which is controlled by Brahmins. If Manu
was able to produce such legal codes against the healthy instincts of equality and fair play, it shows
to what extent the system is already arranged and organised on which he puts the legal seal, hi
other words, Manu is a legal encoder of social practices already existing at that time, and not the
originator.

Ironically, the Karma theory, which is supposed to be a brilliant conception of a moral

order, is turned on its head to inform the Dalit that his deprived condition is a matter of his own
doing and that the society docs not owe any responsibility to uplift him. It means that the control
of information is two fold: the positive one of denying all access to resources, intellectual or
otherwise and the negative one of conditioning him that his position is not due to collective
conspiracy of the society against him but the result of his own past sins. It is only by this culture
of subordination and maintenance of an Ambiance of Terror through cultural values that the
position of Dalits were held right in place in order to extract labour and essential services from
him but at the same time erase his identity as a human being.

Coming to the structural order, the relationship between the Brahmin and the Kshtirya
comes into focus as to how Brahmin priest provides the social sanction for the existence of the
Kshtriya and how Kshtriya, in turn has to uphold the values supporting Brahmin superiority. Apart
from the power struggles between these two groups, Indian mythology and Manu Smriti provide
several evidences as to how the prime responsibility of Kshtriya is the protection of the Brahmin
and the hierarchical Dhanna that he represents. A clear evidence can be found in the words of
Rama who kills Shambuka saying that he is killing him not out of personal vengeance but to
uphold the Yuga Dharma which Shambuka is violating by indulging in the ascetic practices
which is the privilege of the Brahmin. In turn, when the struggle between the Brahmin and
Kshtriya became intense, the myth of Parasurama was invented so as to project that the power and
prestige of the Brahmin can destroy the existence of the Kshtriya. Otherwise, both Brahmin and
Kshtriya are colluders and collaborators to keep the other social groups in a subordinate and
enslaved position by using violence and providing cultural and social justification for using
violence. Interestingly, both these groups belong to the unproductive sections of society like
producing the basic necessities of life which can only be plundered by this cultural justification.
The bulk of production is produced by the Sudras and the Untouchables while the Vaishyas, the
third varna indulge in exchange and not in production. It is quite surprising to observe that there
is an ascending order to power and prestige to the plunderers and exploiters of the system while
there is a descending order of disrespect and degradation to the toilers and producers of society.
To speak in a plain way it is only by using a set of cultural values and practices and
attaching power gradient to them can plunder the production of these groups can be
sustained.

Violence against Contestation:

The cultural history of India reveals, among other things, two powerful religio- social
movements, which questioned the basic assumptions of Hindu society and offered an alternative
model with social democracy as the basis. Buddhism in ancient India and the Basava
movement, in the 12th century aimed at creating new social order providing opportunities of
growth and well-being to all sections of society, which, eventually were destroyed by a two-
pronged strategy of assimilation of the best values in these movements and destroying
violently the practitioners or adherents of the new model. It is a clear evidence of how Hindu
society order would not hesitate to use violence to destroy any alternative model and sustain its
status quo.

Cultural Anesthesia and Punitive Violence:

The severe form of this kind of culturally sanctioned violence, right from the denial of
identity to the contemporary unleashing of violence, is felt in the lives of Dalits today. It is a
common observation that in several parts of the country, the killing and destroying of Dalits
lives and property docs not evoke any strong protest from the rest of the society, however
intense it might be. It is almost taken as an every day recurring phenomena3. Why is there a
rise of violence against Dalit groups? Why is the total system silent, rather reluctant to raise
its voice and protest such violence? The collective silence can only be interpreted as follows:
There is a tacit agreement that if the rest of the groups are in the same position of opposition
to the Dalit groups in the event that happened, their behaviour would not be any way
different from the group that inflicted violence, and that the lives of Dalits arc of no value or
significance whatsoever.
Modernity: Gap between Legal Illegitimacy and Cultural Legitimacy:

The facade of modernity that the educated section and mass media project to the outside
world and to certain sections within itself is only a thin veneer of which Dr. Ambedkar (1949)
gave the final warning in the third reading of the constitutional bill itself.

"On 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions.
In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have
inequality. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man-one vote
and one vole-one value. In our social and economic life, we shall by reason of
our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man-one
value.

How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long
shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue
to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril.
We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those
who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy
which this Assembly has so laboriously built up".

To rephrase the same idea, modernity in India failed to penetrate to the basic levels
creating social democracy but on the other hand gave a new lease of life to the caste order by
producing a socio-political segregation of groups, like caste groups emerging as power blocks
vying with one another to capture the resources. There is no need to dilate on this point as
several sociologists and Anthropologists have pointed out to the nexus between caste and power
politics.

The failure of modernity has another dimension. It did not change the relationships
among agrarian groups, the dominant, traditionally land-holding castes being the political
leaders in the contemporary scenario and keeping the traditionally working classes in
subordination by using the state machinery of oppression like police and other forces. Of late,
even the beauracracy is playing a low-key role in serving the traditionally dominant groups for
their own betterment and material benefits. This is sometimes elegantly interpreted as tradition
and modernity, or that the Indian society has the in-built flexibility to withstand any kind of
changes, obscuring the fact that the rate of adaptation is faster in the dominant groups than in the
subordinate ones and seeing that these benefits do not reach the latter. In other words, the
traditionally oppressed and exploited groups still exist as the underdogs of the Hindu society
despite claims of modernity.

In addition, any kind of social and economic alternatives are denied to these Dalit groups
so that they are structurally held together to provide the substratum. The proof of this argument
lies in the fact that whenever there is some kind of questioning and signs of revolt among the
Dalits, all the other caste groups combine and would not mind using overt violence to put them
back in their old place. One need not even baulk at questioning the role of Judiciary in this
matter4. From Karamchedu to Jhajjar and to Khairlanji, a close observation of the role as well as
the failure of the police force to come to the rescue of Dalit groups is clear evidence of the oblique
role they played in siding with the inflictors of violence5.

Secret Terror:

The educated section among the Dalits finds themselves subjected to the subtle forms of
conditioning and cultural design which choke their consciousness and stultifies their personalities.
At the same time, it can be observed as to how several Dalit leaders develop social pressure and
become powerful articulators of Dalit concerns and how they are accepted and assimilated by the
oppressor groups and sometimes made to articulate and justify their interests and outlook. It is by
this strategy of assimilating and nullifying the Dalit leadership that the Hindu Social order reveals
its cybernetic nature. In other words, the normative and actual practices always work in tandem
so as to sustain the supremacy of the oppressor.

Conclusion:

Of all the models available so far, there is some amount of controversy and lack of
agreement to explain in a satisfying manner the organisation and dynamics of Hindu society and
how it was able to resist change and sometimes adapt itself to external conditions. Even the set
of ideas expounding tradition and modernity do not give a satisfactory picture of the way Hindu
society operates. The cybernetic model is chosen on a tentative basis as it accommodates other
models and provides satisfactory explanation to the observed social phenomena. The Brahmanical
group is the intelligence-gathering and knowledge-holding group, which it uses to regulate and
monitor the activities of the other groups in Hindu society for which, the sustenance is provided
by the Sudra and Dalit groups. By keeping them in a state of subordination and denying other
alternatives, their labour is smoothly appropriated. In addition, wherever there is protest or revolt
from below against their enslaved and degraded conditions, violence is callously and legitimately
employed to keep them in subjection. The present paper points out that the current spate of
violent events against the Dalit groups is not an unexpected or sporadic set of activities but are
only a logical and overt extension of the violent values built into the culture system it self. In
other words, Hindu society as hierarchically organised groups is built on the ethic of violence as
it is against the principles of natural justice and healthy instincts of Justice, equality and fair play.

Notes:

1. Except for a few like Berreman, Breman and Mencher, many western scholars treated the
Brahmanical view of caste as the so-called harmonious co-existence as the official version. A
majority Indian counterpart followed the same concept. However Dipankar Gupta, Khare and
others tried to see multiple hierarchies and the view from below.

2. Norbert Wiener (1950) used systems perspective and cybernetics in studying the
management of human labour. Gregory Bateson (1936, 1958, and 1971) drew on
cybernetics, the theory of types, and the concept of 'Schismogenesis' in providing
Anthropological interpretations of the growth, if not the origin, of conflicts. P.N. Rastogi
(1975) used this model to explain factional conflicts and other political phenomena in Indian
context.

3. Even a communist like Jyothi Basu once replied a journalist who enquired about CPM
alliance to Rastriya Janata Dal Government in Bihar, which failed to stop Ranvir Sena killing
Dalits "What is there? Dalits die every day!!”

4. See Justice V.R. Krishna lyar's and Justice K. Ramaswamy’s observations on Indian Judiciary.

Dr. Justice K. Ramaswamy observes (2003) that “till Thomas case (1976), the Supreme Court
interpreted the constitution to elongate social justice and economic empowerment and other human
rights by the deprived social segments. But in the later judgments, starting from Indra Sawhney’s
 case, deprivatory interpretation has become the order… The glorious contents of social and
economic justice and process of judicial review be used as a shield but unfortunately used as sword
against the deprived social segments namely the Dalits, Adivasis and the OBCs.”

5. Karamchedu in Andhra Pradesh came into light over the brutal massacre of Dalits in 1985.
In spite of wide publicity and strong protest from Dalit organisations, the witnesses are later
murdered and the High Court of A.P. quashed the case on the lack of satisfactory evidences.
The case of Tsunduru Dalit killings in 1987 is still pending in the court whereas the activists
who protested against Tsunduru killings were sentenced to punishment by the lower court.
The murder of five Dalits in Jhajjar in Haryana is later defended by the Jat Mahapanchayat,
Arya Samaj, VHP and RSS that the murderers arc only performing their 'Dharma' and hence
not guilty.

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To
Dear Dr. Hari,

Jai Bheem!

Please find attached paper on The Cultural Background of Violence and Its Latent
manifestations in the Indian Society - An Overview. Feel free to make any modifications of your
choice. I will positively try to send a paper on Kanshiram at the earliest. Hope everything is fine at
your end.

Yours in Mission

P.D. Satya Pal

drtenepalli@rediffmail.com