Indian Caste System Will Always Block Social and Political Progress

The Hindu caste system refers to the division of society according to hereditary classes. It is based on degrees of ritual purity and of social status. As a result, with the Brahmins on the top, the few in the higher classes exploit the vast majority in the perceived lower classes.

For thousands of years, the Brahmin class has used the authority of the Vedas, which the lower classes are prepared to accept as their lot, their karma, the result of their deeds in previous lives! Dalits, the so called untouchables at the bottom, suffer atrocious cruelties and degrading insults. Such a system is a form of slavery and a major obstacle in the way of human progress towards a just society. Such a social system should be anathema to any civilized society today.

Mahatma Gandhi and Dr B. R. Ambedkar are the most revered figures in modern India. However, they fundamentally disagreed about the caste system. Sadly, at a crucial time, Gandhi blocked abolition of the system to keep the so-called lower castes in the broad Hindu fold. In effect, he stood in the way of socio-economic and political liberation of millions of Dalits. He believed that the caste system could be reformed by fighting from within the Hindu religion. In 1932, he went on a fast unto death to oppose separate electorates for the depressed classes, arguing that the upliftment of Dalits was a duty of caste Hindus. That meant leaving the progress of these social classes to the mercy of the higher caste Hindus!

Ambedkar, himself from the untouchable community, viewed the four-fold varna (caste) system as the very foundation of social injustice. He argued that true social equality required its destruction, not its reform. He believed that the Hindu religion itself was corrupt and could not be reformed to provide equality for Dalits. His own conversion to Buddhism in 1956 led to mass conversion of many of his followers. However, due mainly to opposition by Gandhi, Ambedkar never achieved his objective, the total abolition of the caste system.

Indian Manuvadi social divisions, based on the Manava Dharamasastra meaning the Laws of Svayambhuva Manu, are hardwired into collective Indian psyche by Brahmin priests. Today, they are enforced by majority community rule turning a blind eye to Hindutva forces. Stuck in time, it is a worldview of an Indian society of about 2,000 years ago when it would have been regarded as an acceptable system for division of labour conveniently enforced by the karma ideology. In theory, these laws for individuals and society cover dharma (righteous duty), social order, rituals, and the system of government. Needless to say, the caste system runs counter to the principles of equality and human rights as understood today.

In India, discrimination based on the caste system is illegal under the Constitution Article 17, which abolished untouchability and guarantees the right to equality. However, caste discrimination, denial of access to public amenities, separation of living areas in villages and towns, and violence against lower-caste individuals continues. A level playing field and equal opportunities are not there. The reservation policy as a form of positive discrimination, by requiring people to identify their caste to receive benefits, reinforces the very identity politics it aims to dismantle.

The debate is not about whether caste discrimination should be outlawed, but whether the caste system itself, as a social identity and practice, should be legally banned in India and internationally.

Gurmukh Singh OBE

E-mail: sewauk2005@yahoo.co.uk

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