Caste system a curse or a boon

 

Hearing the Voices of the Oppressed Within Our Traditions

By Dr. Anantanand Rambachan, Sadhana Advisory Board Member and Professor of Religion at St. Olaf College, MN

It saddens and disturbs me deeply whenever I see some of the responses of Hindu organizations and individuals to Dalits who voice criticism of the tradition and its practitioners. One immediate response is to accuse Dalits of Hindu-hate and of failure to understand that caste oppression is not intrinsic to Hinduism.

Those who come from places or power and privilege within a tradition find it difficult to understand the ways in which the same tradition is experienced by others as oppressive and as negating their dignity and self-worth. Having never experienced cruelty and injustice in the name of religion, they assume that the tradition that has been good to them has been good for all who live within it.

How could we criticize Dalits for not knowing of the emancipating and redemptive teachings and practices within the Hindu tradition when they do not experience these in encounters with Hindus? Or when Hindus are hostile to criticism and attribute the worst motives to those who lift their voices in protest against suffering?

Hindus need to humbly receive the criticisms of those who experience the tradition as denying their humanity and to hear and to acknowledge the deep pain from which such criticism emerges. We must cease underplaying or explaining away the witness of those who describe their experiences of powerlessness and lack of freedom.

There are times when we need to stop defending, speaking and posting and to just listen in chastened silence with our hearts and minds. Without such empathy and identity with the pain of others we will never cultivate the understanding that starts the journey to transformation.

Travelers to India have commented on caste for more than two thousand years. In Indian society the group comes first, unlike our own society that gives so much importance to the individual personality. After a person’s family, the caste commands an individual’s major loyalty. Indians still often identify themselves by the community they belong to and caste is still a factor in marriage selection. In addition, caste has allowed countless groups that have migrated into India to find a place and to play an important role.

The caste system, as it actually works in India is called jati. The term jati appears in almost all Indian languages and is related to the idea of lineage or kinship group. There are perhaps more than 3000 jatis in India and there is no one all-Indian system of ranking them in order of status. Yet in each local area jati ranking exists and is very much related to purity and pollution. Each jati has some unique job, but not everyone in the jati performs it. Thus there are barbers who do not shave, carpenters who do not build, and Brahmins who do not act as priests. A jati is identified in a local setting by whom its members will accept food and water from and to which jatis its members will give food and water. People will try to marry their sons and daughters to members of their same jati and will give their major loyalty to their jati. A jati will usually be organized into a biradari (a brotherhood), and this organization carries out the business and oversees the working of the jati and has the power to exclude an offender from the jati.

The jati system is not static in which all groups stay in the same position. There is mobility in the system and jatis have changed their position over the centuries of Indian history. However, the jati moves up the social scale as a group and not as individuals. A jati can improve its position in the class system by advancing economically and emulating social groups with money and power. At the same time, a jati can also move up in the caste hierarchy. Mobility in the caste system has been termed “Sanskritization” by the scholar M.N. Srinivas. To gain position in this process, a lower jati copies the habits and behavior patterns of the dominant jati in the area. This may mean a lower jati will change its name to one of a higher jati, adopt vegetarianism, observe more orthodox religious practices, build a temple, and treat its women in a more conservative way. The type of emulation will depend on the habits of the dominant jati being copied. If the jati can gain acceptance for its new name, new history, and new status, it will then marry its daughters to members of the jati in which it is seeking to gain membership. In due time the new position on the social scale will be solidified and accepted by other jatis. This practice is not totally unlike that of immigrant groups coming to America and copying the habits of the WASPs who were in control. In your own community you could probably identify the most prestigious group of people and observe other members of the community copying their behavior in ways such as sending their children to dancing classes and summer camps, and putting braces on their teeth.