What is caste? The answer is complex, and borrowing a Portuguese word casta to understand India’s multi-layered social fabric doesn’t always help. For a start, contrary to Krishna’s quote in Bhagavad Gita, chaturvarna (brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya, shudra) stereotyping probably never existed. Chapter 8 of the Hindu scripture states what the four varnas were supposed to do. None of these, however, listed activities, including fishing. What was then the caste of Satyavati’s father? What, for that matter, was King Nala’s (a nishada) caste? Had everything been straitjacketed into four varnas, why did dharmashastra texts (Chapter 10 of much-maligned Manu Samhita is an example) develop a taxonomy of varnas that go beyond the four? In the Gita, why does Arjuna mention dharma of jatis and dharma of kulas? When the British first introduced a Census (1871-72) and mentioned four castes, why were people confused about how they should report? “In his zeal to make out that the original conception of caste was totally benign, Kapur glossed over all scriptural evidence to the contrary”.
This is a reference to Justice Jivanlal Kapur of the Supreme Court, in the 1959 VV Giri case. By the same token, in his zeal to make out that the original conception of caste was totally malign, Manoj Mitta glosses over scriptural evidence to the contrary. It depends on the scripture and on the timeline. It isn’t just Bhagavad Gita, ‘Yaksha Prashna’ of the Mahabharata, Satyakama Jabala and rishi Vishvamitra, all quoted by Justice Kapur. There are instances galore, before varna became hereditary, and not
a matter of choice.
This isn’t to deny oppression against shudras (defined as a residual, distinct from the first three varnas or dvijas), in scriptures and in practice. One should, however, stay away from hasty generalisations. The word dalit, in its present sense, doesn’t exist in Sanskrit texts, despite its popularisation by BR Ambedkar. A shudra (part of the caste system) is not an outcast. Without the Colonial legacy, there would have been no schedules, through which, we defined SCs (scheduled castes) and STs (scheduled tribes). (There may be similarities, but development and deprivation issues of SCs are somewhat different from those of STs.)
What is Mitta’s book about? In his own words, from the preface, “Over the last two centuries, many a battle has been fought against caste, a defining feature of India’s public life. These battles abound in tragedy and farce, courage and subterfuge, bigotry and humanity… The archival discoveries were far too many though––and far too significant––for me to pack them all into one book… Besides unveiling milestones, the material herein upends smug assumptions about India’s progress in combating caste… The revelations from the past underlie many of the fault lines of today’s India. Whatever caste reforms India pulled off after its Independence, have their origins in the pioneering struggles against Hindu conservatives that had been waged under British rule. The reformers were mostly unsung heroes.” That last sentence is important. Many leaders, products of time and space, exhibited feet of clay.
The 18 chapters in the book are divided into five heads: Early Codes (Colonial); Impure Majority; Access Barriers; Temple Entry; and Impunity for Violence. The research is detailed and meticulous, exploiting the author’s knowledge of law (he is a law graduate). But, Mitta’s bibliography on the 1984 and 2002 riots notwithstanding, he is a journalist by training, making his writing prone to generalisations, unlike an academic, who doesn’t stray from what research has uncovered.
Caste Pride puts forth important questions. If caste is a defining feature of India’s public life, is that partly because of what the Constitution and political system enjoin? Is oppression against SCs and STs, and their deprivation, increasing or decreasing? (Think of temple entry and Dalits as priests.) Incidentally, the author’s initial intention was to write a book on Dalit massacres. Is such violence only a Hindu-Dalit issue, or have there been tensions and violence between Dalits and Muslims too? “However fashionable (and hopeful) it may be to claim that caste is receding in the face of modernity, the daily news cycle, even as it only captures a part of the reality, belies that sanctimonious assertion,” reads the closing sentence of the book.
The point, however, is that a daily news cycle is no indicator. While the author has probed the past, the present, including the “sanctimonious assertion”, is left unexplored. This is where the generalisation tendencies creep in, and this is where the otherwise comprehensive book falters.