Caste in Contemporary India - The Deep-Rooted Racism

I have just ordered the latest book by Narendra Jadhav, titled "Untouchables: My Family's Triumphant Journey out of the Caste System in Modern India". (The book is originally written in Marathi, and titled "Aamcha Baap Aan Aamhi", which translates into "Our Father and Us". If you can read Marathi, you might want to purchase this.)

I have read excerpts of the book, and also some interviews with the author, and I look forward to reading the book. Jadhav is a very well-known Indian economist, and is the Principal Advisor and Chief Economist of the Reserve Bank of India. He is also a Dalit. Dalits are perhaps the most down-trodden group in India. The realities faced by the lower rungs of the caste system are bitter and potent, and contrary to the beliefs (or claims) by several upper-caste people, very alive.

I write this afternoon's blog partly to mention this book to you. Primarily, however, I have started writing this piece because reading about Jadhav and his book brought back several of my own thoughts and experiences into sharp focus in my mind. I intend to write several blogs on the caste system, and I think this one is a very appropriate beginning.

The thing that struck me the most on reading Jadhav's own comments (and I will try and post a link to this asap) is the fact that people still ask him about his caste, and that caste is an inseparable part of his identity. More than anything else, more than any post-modern analysis of the Indian society, more than any statistics (dire and shocking as they are) on the socioeconomic status of the lowest castes, this is the most damning fact that allows one to truly understand how deep and rigid and leech-like is the hold of caste identity in Indian society. To this day, great numbers of dalits in rural India are being subjected to rapes, murders, lootings, and burnings. Most of the atrocities on Dalits occuring today have a medieval flavor, and a question that makes me lose sleep very often is, although many things have improved, how come we are not outraged to the point of eliminating this inhumane behavior. And I believe that I will get the answer to my question by understanding the place of caste identity in the minds of the higher-caste people of India, mainly the Brahmins, but not only them. And by understanding why Jadhav's fellow-Indians still need to know his caste.

If you have interacted with Indians in the United States (most of whom belong to higher caste rungs), and if you ask them about the caste system, ask them if they believe in the caste system, the answer invariably will be an emphatic 'No'. Of course, no Indian Brahmin today will openly admit to an outsider that she believes in the caste system, which would imply that she believes that the lower castes are lesser beings. Obviously, only a really stupid or crazy person will admit that openly today. It would be akin to a white American saying to an international audience today that she does not believe in black Americans having civil rights. But not openly acknowledging the caste system does not mean that it does not exist in the minds of most Indians. The fact that they still buy into it comes out in more subtle and devious ways. If you are an Indian, and if people ask you your surname (especially if you are Marathi) or if people ask you whether you are vegetarian, that is often an underhand way of probing for caste information (Brahmins generally tend to be militant about vegetarianism. I will write about the reasons for this in another blog). There are other ways they probe for caste, which I can talk about another time.

That said, social conversation by Indians on the caste system can often become less subtle and more revealing when Indian Brahmins or other higher caste folks are by themselves, say, during a typical Diwali get-together or one of the countless pot-luck dinners in the U.S. Those coversations will, I am certain, sound similar to conversations over, say, thanksgiving dinners at a neo-conservative's house. (BTW, what I would give to be a fly on the wall at the neo-con's house!) That's when all the pretences are dropped and the real contempt and hatred towards the lower castes (or towards blacks) comes out.

It is this deep-rooted racism and hatred towards a particular group that is handed down across generations that holds the answer for the caste ills in contemporary India. It reminds me of something Noam Chomsky had once said. He said that you can look at any instance of racism and atrocities and colonialism and slavery, and wonder how it is these terrible things are done by one group to another. And the key aspect to understand is that the hooligan who has his boot on the little guy's throat does not say to himself - I am a hooligan and a barbarian, and that is why I am inflicting cruelty on this guy. No. In order to allow himself to keep his boot there, he has to somehow rationalize and justify his action. He does that by convincing himself that the little guy is horrible and awful and he deserves it. By dehumanizing the little guy.

Thus, the only explanation one can find for the continuing of caste evils in India today is that we Indians (high caste Indians) still believe that the Dalit deserves to have our boot on his throat. This is the real caste-based racism. That is why, when we run into a fellow-Indian, we still feel the need to find out his caste. (Another related point is our collective Indian contempt of dark-skinned people. The skin color thing is somewhat orthogonal, and hence outside the scope of today's blog, but still closely correlated to caste.) And when I say 'high-caste Indians', I don't just mean Indians who grew up in India. People of other nationalities who are children of Indian Brahmins are also included in this group. Just glance at any US-based matrimonial website, and you'll know what I mean.

And talking about caste identity, the point is that we Indians do not merely still buy into it. It is much more than that. Much of our identity and feeling of self-worth revolves around it. We slot ourselves and fellow Indians into categories based on caste (and other things, but primarily caste). Therefore, the caste system will end only when individuals born into Brahmin and other higher caste families can have the courage (and frankly, the ego and self-respect) to remove caste from their own personal identity. Until, that happens, nothing essentially will change.

For those of you who will inevitably wonder why I say that one would need self-respect and ego to dissociate one's identity from caste, here is my logic for this: The way I see it, for a person with a strong sense of self-respect and self-worth and ego, it should be disturbing to have the need to use an external prop like caste, and the need to become part of a group, to proclaim his position in the world. Wearing membership in a caste group as a medal implies that you need this medal since you haven't got other medals from your own accomplishment. A person with a real ego should have a problem with this.

Thus, in an way, it is not merely a matter of a desire for social justice that will motivate a movement away from the caste system, but also a purely self-centered desire to refuse to use caste identity to prop oneself up to a position of worthiness in the eyes of oneself and others.

More anon...