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by Manas Agarwal 11 July 2021
“Caste may be the precipitate of the modern, but it is still the spectre of the past” (p.18). In simpler words, ‘Colonizers restructured the institution of caste to make it a single and systematic category to effectively manage and maintain social order.’ To prove this, I have divided the article into three sections.
Section I – Colonizers and their interest in Caste
In India, the British had to govern a greater number of people than anywhere else in the British Empire. Furthermore, the layout of Indian towns and cities added to the troubles of the colonizers. This is because, unlike their European counterparts, Indians towns and cities had narrows lanes and pathways and these were surrounded by two and three-story buildings. Hence, the perception of over-crowding was developed. Moreover, the censuses that were taken returned overwhelming numbers of the Indian population. Hence, the colonizers felt the need to compartmentalize the population into groups that are distinct and have specific characteristics so that administration of India becomes easier.
The next step is to understand the rationale behind choosing caste as the compartmentalizing factor. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the caste system was something completely new that the British encountered when they came to India. Caste as a social determinant was absent in English society. Western society was divided along class lines. On the one hand, there were the bourgeoisies with economic and social entitlements. On the other hand, there were the proletariats who were working for the bourgeois and had minimum access to resources. However, in Indian society discrimination was not only on economic lines but also on purity and birth. Hence, even though the British considered the caste system as primitive, pre-modern and a threat to bourgeois equality, yet they were fascinated by this institution.
Secondly, this fascination led the colonizers to the belief that the caste system could fortify their rule in India. This is because of two reasons. The first is that a part of the colonial project was devoted to simplifying concepts. For instance, something as vast and complex as tradition was simplified to mean the things written in the scriptures. In doing this, they have often misinterpreted the real meaning of the concepts such as caste. The British had a superficial knowledge about the caste system according to which it was a static system with a rigid hierarchy based on the chaturvarna system . Hence, misconceptions of racial purity and rigid hierarchy led the British to the conclusion that caste can be compartmentalized into a specific set of characteristics. Moreover, by equating caste to occupation and intellectual ability, they believed they could make optimum use of the Indian people. The second reason is that of choosing Brahman- Sanskrit texts to understand the caste system. The next section of the essay sheds light on this in greater detail.
To summarize, firstly the need to compartmentalize arose because of the huge population in India. Secondly, superficial knowledge of the Indian society and the Brahman texts made the British choose caste as the unit of compartmentalization.
Section II -Manusmriti and the self-serving activity of the Brahmans
Brahmans, seeing the rise of the British power and the British’s increased interest in the institution of caste allied themselves with the British. Brahmans claimed authority on the caste system by citing various holy texts. Furthermore, the British believed in the Brahmans because the latter considerably eased the administrative difficulties of the British by defining the caste system as a closed, top-down, and, vertical hierarchal structure. Hence, in the early 19th century, Manusmriti, a Brahmin- Sanskrit text was bestowed with canonical status. That means that the British notions of the caste system were based on the interpretations of Brahmin – Sanskrit texts. Hence, to establish supremacy, Brahmans acted in a manner that suited their agendas and manipulated the British.
The manipulation can be proven by three factors. Firstly, it seems suspicious that Brahmans were dominant in the pre-colonial world as far as the material world is concerned. Brahmans had powers in spiritual spheres but their power and control hinged on their relations with the rulers which were in majority of cases Kshatriyas or Vaishyas. Moreover, barring the Brahmans and Dalits, the other castes were not identifiable. Secondly, social identities were malleable. For instance, merchants could become kings; soldiers could become farmers, etc. Lastly, it was not possible in the pre-colonial era to cherry-pick one unit of kinship such as caste and gives it an overarching character (p. 13). By this, I mean that there were multiple heterogeneous identities such as temples communities, village, region, etc. Furthermore, at a particular point, any of these identities could have used to explain the social fabric. Therefore, ignoring non-dominance of only Brahmans, malleability and multiple units of kinship and choosing caste as the sole feature to organize Indian society required manipulation and a specific disregard for ethnographic specificity (p.14).
To summarize, the Brahmans manipulated the colonizers by bringing the metaphysical concept of the Varna hierarchy (p.62) into the material world. Furthermore, this manipulation allowed the British to choose an institution based on which they could pigeonhole the Indian population into specific compartments.
Section III – Census – The Final nail In The Coffin
I have divided this section into two parts. Firstly, I will explain the role that the censuses played in developing the caste system. Secondly, I will talk about the effect of the censuses on the Indian population.
Coming to the first aspect, the first pan-India census took place in 1871-72 (p.11). This census had several defects. The reason behind this was the masses did not answer the question of caste according to British expectations. All sorts of answers ranging from religious sect to the name of the region were provided as a response to the caste question. However, rather than acknowledging that caste may not be the most important factor, the colonizers assumed that the masses were either incapable to understand the question or were incapable to correctly answer the question. As a result, the British took the onus on themselves to sort, reference and cross-reference the data of the censuses to fit the British narrative. Furthermore, the British appointed census takers which were Brahmans. Hence, there is a high probability that in future censuses these Brahmans filled the data without consulting the individuals as the greatest beneficiaries of the caste system are the Brahmans. Moreover, public offices being occupied by the Brahmans (p.163) and the army being filled up by the Rajputs prove that the British forced the masses to follow the rigid caste system which the British had developed by continuous extrapolation and identification of rigid boundaries.
Now, through the case study of Mahtons, I will explain the second aspect. Mahtons were classified as hunters/scavengers in the 1881 census. However, post the 1901 census, they contended that they are Rajputs. This is because some of the Mahtons wanted to join the army and this would only be possible if they were recognized as Rajputs. Hence, Mahtons wanted to change their status to attain material benefits. Hence, census developed caste consciousness among the masses because caste became proportional to the level of material status that one would achieve.
To summarize, the colonizers, firstly, due to their ignorance and the manipulation of the Brahmans developed the institution of the caste through the census. Secondly, based on the census, the British divided the society into the chaturvarna system. Hence, British consolidated caste as an indicator of occupation and intellectual ability and accordingly started making use of the masses.
Conclusion
To conclude, the change that caste underwent under colonial rule is that, “Caste has become uniquely Indian, and not always in ways that satisfy either liberal or conservative agendas of national identity” (p.17). Firstly, it is unique because caste has become synonymous with Indian society. No other society is so rigidly defined based on caste. Secondly, caste is antithetical to the liberal notions of equality and individualism. Lastly, caste has become a central issue. Hence, any kind of national identity coloured by caste will lose its voice and become multiple voices. Thus, caste in itself is divisive and so, it goes against the agenda of the conservatives in displaying a united, single voice.