UNDERSTANDING CASTES

The word Caste is derived from the Portuguese word casta, meaning lineage, breed or race. There are many theories, definition and observations concerning this term. In practice, however, this term denotes the hereditarily imposed social status on an individual, family, group or community in a highly stratified Indian and South Asian Society. It is essentially historical, hereditary, exclusive, discriminatory, inequitous and inhumane in nature and has been sanctified by the Hindu religious scriptures and has been accepted and regarded by Hindus and the priestly classes of non-Hindu religions in India and South Asia.  It can safely be said that caste in Indian sub-continent is not an exception but a rule of construction of Indian and South Asian Society.

Many intellectuals have tried to define the nature of Caste. Most prominent among them are the following:

SENART, E. (1927). LES CASTES DANS’ L’INDE PARIS: LIBRARIE ORIENTALISTE PAUL GEUTHNER.

Caste is a close corporation, in theory at any rate rigorously hereditary: equipped with a certain traditional and independent organisation, including a chief and a council, meeting on occasion in assemblies of more or less plenary authority and joining together at certain festivals : bound together by common occupations, which relate more particularly to marriage and to food and to questions of ceremonial pollution, and ruling its members by the exercise of jurisdiction, the extent of which varies, but which succeeds in making the authority of the community more felt by the sanction of detrain penalties and, above all, by final irrevocable exclusion from the group.

J C NESFIELD, BRIEF VIEW OF THE CASTE SYSTEM OF THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDH, PUBLISHED CIRCA 1885

Caste is a class of the community which disowns any connection with any other class and can neither intermarry nor eat nor drink with any but persons of their own community.

RISLEY, H H, THE TRIBES AND CASTES OF BENGA, VOLS 1 AND 2, FIRMA MUKHOPADHYAY, CALCUTTA, 1981, 1891

A caste may be defined as a collection of families or groups of families bearing a common name which usually denotes or is associated with specific occupation, claiming common descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine, professing to follow the same professional callings and are regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community.

KETKAR, S.V., HISTORY OF CASTE, VOL.I, ITHACA, N.Y., 1909, PP. 121-2

Caste is a social group having two characteristics: (i) membership is confined to those who are born of members and includes all persons so born; (ii) the members are forbidden by an inexorable social law to marry outside the group.

DR. B. R. AMBEDKAR ON CASTE:

p       CASTES IN INDIA

p       ANNIHILATION OF CASTE

INTER-CASTE MARRIAGES LEAD LYNCHING

Whatever may be the theoretical nature of the caste, it has rendered Indian society into thousand of endogamous communities, who by have accustomed to preserve this endogamy.  Indians or South Asians, however modern they are, living in United States, UK or any other country will always try to find a match within their caste. Higher is the caste, stricter is the endogamy. Caste prevents free inter-mingling of young and all. Belief in caste has led to numerous cases of lynching of young couples who dare to marry beyond their caste. There is increased possibility of lynching if the boy happens to be of lower caste than the caste of the girl. Though, inter-caste marriages are taking place in India, but one can easily predict that these couple face continue to face serious insecurities, humiliation and dignities at the hand of their own relatives and community.

 

HABITATION HAS CASTE

From the time immemorial, the Dalits in India have been compelled to live outside the main habitations, be it a village in rural India or town in modern Indian cities. It would be interesting for a researcher to study the location of Dalit habitation in relation with the main habitations.  Even now, Dalits live at the periphery or the margins of the village or urban settings. They are denied housing in the main habitation in the village, town, or cities. Renting a good house for a Dalit could be the toughest challenge for him or her.

DALIT'S HOUSE RAZED IN AMETHI Some upper caste members allegedly set ablaze two thatched houses, pulled down a dalit's house and roughed up a woman in a village in Amethi Lok Sabha constituency represented by Congress' Rahul Gandhi. Gaya Prasad, whose house in Dulapur village of Sultanpur district was pulled down on Sunday evening, has lodged a complaint with the police. A case was registered in the Mushiganj police station and senior civil and police officials have reached the spot.

 

WATER KNOWS CASTE

In 1927, Dr. Ambedkar had to launch Mahad Struggle to establish Dalit right on common water resources. Situation since then has improved, but caste bias are still very strong. Recently in Chakwara, a dusty village, barely 50 kilometres from Jaipur, Rajasthan, witnessed turmoil over the issue of access to the common village pond. The pond and the steps leading to it (ghats) have been maintained over the years with state funds and village contributions, including the Dalits’ too.  There was no reason but caste rules that treats them lower than the buffaloes and pigs which have access to the pond.  

LOW CASTE SURVIVORS OF TSUNAMI DENIED FOOD AND WATER Thousands of low caste Indian "untouchables" are being denied food, water and shelter by higher castes in camps for tsunami survivors. Around 5,000 Dalits from the worst hit area south of Madras have been kept from aid agency water tanks and pushed to the back of long food queues. Fishermen from the higher Meenavar caste also turned the Dalits, who they employed as labourers before the tsunami, out of shelters, gave them leftovers to eat and prevented them from using lavatories. At one camp outside Nagapattinam, the Dalits were accused of polluting drinking water supplied by the United Nations and were told at another that biscuits being handed out were not for them. When the Dalits asked for food packages and clothes, they were pushed away and forced to sleep on a nearby road because upper caste women said they did not "feel safe" with them around. "There are no toilets here and the upper castes even prevent us from using the area which serves others as an open toilet," said V Vanith, a Dalit teenager. Dalits, a third of India's billion population, prop up its 3,000-year-old Hindu caste system, which is topped by Brahmans. A majority live below the poverty line and have no homes. They are associated with "unclean" jobs such as scavenging and cleaning lavatories and were involved in disposing of the bodies of many victims of the tsunami.

 

CASTE IS EDUCATION

Not only in habitation or common property resources, this social segregation of Dalits is also maintained in education and business. In many parts of India, separate tea cups or water-glasses are maintained by the shopkeepers for Dalits and they are compelled to clean, while for others shop keepers clean themselves. Caste is practised in schools where Dalit children are compelled to sit separately. One girl, Dhanam lost her eye when she was beaten up by her teacher for taking drinking water by herself without waiting for the other caste fellow to serve her from the pot.