Medieval India witnessed a drastic change in the Indian social order. Hereditary, closed social regrouping based on the professions became inevitable for the want of survival. Onslaughts of the ever-changing socio-political conditions continued till the rise of the British Raj. The entire populace suffered because of the raids of the warlords, may it be Hindu or Muslim, and freebooters in quest of recovering ransoms or ¼ part of the duties from the common people, if not paid by the local rulers. India saw most of the cities and villages fortified during this era to protect themselves from the constant raids. No part of the country experienced stability in the post-Aurangzeb era, too. This further triggered financial debacles and thus caused, as an inevitable result, the tightening of the caste ties as caste became the only shield that provided a sense of security while facing tough situations in times of anarchy.
Also, the relations between the different castes were reconsolidated, and hierarchy was redefined and strictly practiced. Even the strict rules about sharing food and drinks with other castes too came into force. Society already had become mostly endogamous and child marriage had become a regular custom. In times of continuous crisis, many social evils pop up. People become more orthodox and destiny-centric. This era saw the uprising of Vedic religion in a new form, taking reign of religious authority over Hindus in their hands, propagating Vedic doctrine in a more corrupt form. In lack of stability and in the quest for survival people kept on contracting in the cocoon of the self-created defenses. This led to total disharmony and strife among the various castes.
We find many such caste dispute cases viciously fought in the Peshva and other rulers' courts. It was a weak attempt to restore the sense of lost dignity through maintaining minimal social and even religious rights that could be afforded by the system to restore or maintain dignity. This way mentality of the people of all the castes became caste-centered, breaking the inherent sense of unity forever.
In short, during this period caste became a distinct group with its own assigned status and internal code of conduct and values. For livelihood, they had nothing else than the hereditary professions, though uncertain and mostly unable to feed them properly. For mental solace, they had some or other religious cult to follow. For the sense of security, they nourished their caste pride and caste unity.
The British had set their foot on Indian soil to make profits through the trade. Most of the Indian natural resources had remained unexploited for a long period because of socio-economic and political reasons. Indian economics already had become directionless and the social situation chaotic.
The British were always fascinated as well intrigued with the Indian social system that they never had come across in other countries they ruled or traded with. The British scholars, especially ethnologists, perception of the caste system was marred by their class and race theories and they tried to connect the both, which ultimately led to the wrong policies that further severely harmed the overall social system.
“One of the main tools used in the British attempt to understand the Indian population was the census. Attempts were made as early as the beginning of the 19th century to estimate populations in various regions of the country but these, as earlier noted, were methodologically flawed and led to grossly erroneous conclusions. It was not until 1872 that a planned comprehensive census was attempted. This was done under the direction of Henry Beverely, Inspector General of Registration in Bengal. The primary purpose given for the taking of the census, that of governmental preparedness to deal with disaster situations, was both laudable and logical. However, the census went well beyond counting heads or even enquiring into sex ratios or general living conditions. Among the many questions were enquiries regarding nationality, race, tribe, religion and caste.” States Kevin Hobson in “Ethnographic Mapping and the Construction of the British Census in India.”
It was an attempt of the British to understand the people they were ruling, however, it made a further division in the Indian society on a racial (ethnic) basis. It was a blunder, but most of the ethnologists prepared their surveys based on head measurements, classifying them in 6 different categories. The purity of Aryan blood, they thought, was preserved by the Brahmins of North India. This elevated the Brahmanical racial ego. Many castes too jumped ahead to prove or claim how they belonged to the Aryan race or higher social status in Vedic order to add to the social strife.
Since all the castes were classified in some or other racial or ethnic group, the caste stratification in a way became permanent. The intellectual abilities too were defined by this wrong hypothesis of ethnology. Purity of the blood was never ever the foundation of the caste system, but gradually it too became a source of pride that helped elite classes to feel close to the ruling Britishers as they too were Aryan. To them, as Aryan Invasion Theory reached the height of popularity, non-elite masses were the ones to whom they had enslaved in the ancient past. This was a racial divide over religion and caste that gave a new dimension to the caste struggle.
The little bit of mobility that the previous system afforded thus completely vanished. The British further classified the castes, as useful for administration, army, petty services, and the troublesome castes or tribes that possibly could rebel. Many such castes and tribes were declared criminals, treating them inhumanely, and isolating them by imposing many severe restrictions on their lives.
This was another churning in the society. It again redefined the socio-political status of various castes. It forced many castes to change their internal rules while fundamentally transforming their previous status. While these happenings were reshaping their mindsets, what was their temporal condition?
Industrialization
The wake of the industrialization era did further damage to the local economy whatever of it was left. Britishers saw India as a supplier of the raw material and consumer of the finished goods produced back home in their factories. India never ever was in a situation to learn from the West the modern technologies and deploy them for their own benefit. The traditional technologies by then had become mostly outdated. Many people shifted to the cities to work in factories as laborers. Many turned to the work hard for Railway tracks and other infrastructure work. Indian occupational businesses like weaving had suffered from the cheap textile imports. India became a mere exporter of raw materials. The exports kept growing from 89 million dollars (1850) to 1178 million dollars by 1950 while exports of the finished product were as good as nil.
British avoided modernizing traditional occupations with new technologies and management sciences. The education that they provided was to create a clerical workforce, not a technical one. “Even in the Bombay textile industry, where most of the capital was Indian, 28 percent of the managerial and supervisory staff were British in 1925 (42 percent in 1895) and the British component was even bigger in more complex industries.” States Angus Maddison in his “The Economic and Social Impact of Colonial Rule in India”.
This way Indian workforce never achieved the ability to learn new technologies to compete and increase productivity. The independent village system thus could not get broken to give way to the people spreading wings in the modern atmosphere. Local economic conditions further deteriorated with the shrinking, even local, marketplaces. British never preferred to create industrial plants or development banks. They even never gave any preference to the local industries while allotting the contracts.
Though some social reforms were introduced by British law and indigenous social activists tried their best to eradicate the caste system, the root cause, poverty, remained intact or rather worsened. The basic principles of economics and its impact on the social order remained totally neglected even by the social reformers. Hence, it became almost impossible to break the caste ties in the new age too, as it did not reach them. Social reformers never gave preference to promoting technical education amongst the Indian populace. By the time of independence, large-scale industries could employ less than 3% of the population whereas about 1.2 crore population were engaged in traditional occupational small-scale industries and 16 crore people were only laborers. The rest of the population sustained somehow on agriculture.
The British prejudicial preferences towards the castes, their census’, choicy classifications did so much so harm to the caste system that even in the modern era, people remained stuck with the caste barriers. The people engaged in government jobs were from the so-called upper caste or risen to the upper caste and changed their tastes suitable to the British culture. However, the populace that was far away from the mainstream of the economy suffered heavily from the negligence as they never got encouragement to promote their products among the new elite class. This caused a further divide in the society. On the one hand, the Indian finances were siphoned out abroad, making poor the poorer, and making new investments impossible.
This was, in a way third setback to the Indian communities. They could not break the caste ties because they never had any economically liberal atmosphere since the 11th century. The grave competition among themselves grew to the level that added to the caste base hatred. Even after independence the situation largely remained the same with no major economic reforms. It never occurred to the socialist mindsets that without economic reforms there hardly is any scope to the social reforms. The previous chapters on the caste system have shown in detail, how, from a very flexible occupational system gradually turned to the rigid and unjust caste system because of the drastic changes in the economic order of the country.
We also will see other aspects of the caste system in detail so that the myth of the birth-based caste may shatter and help us to solve the caste problem.
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