Posted on 05/08/2013 2:45:41 PM PDT by Jandy on Genesis
The evils of the caste system are regularly expounded in contemporary writings. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper argued that Plato’s ideal state, with it three-tier structure, is totalitarian. Yet, as others have noted, Plato's ideal represents an improvement upon the rigid caste structure that characterized ancient societies. Plato suggested that some particularly gifted individuals should be trained to work outside of their caste. This was a radical idea for his time (B.C. 428-347).
The egalitarian nature of American society makes castes anathema. We react strongly to perceived or real limitations of our freedom of choice. On this matter we find agreement among such disparate groups as feminists, the National Rifle Association, gay activists, and libertarians.
Rarely do we consider the benefits of the caste system. It lent stability to ancient societies. People knew their place in society and were proud of the work done by their caste. Caste identity provided a strong sense of duty. The Bhagavad Gita states, "By devotion to one's particular duty, everyone can attain perfection... By fulfilling the obligations he is born with, a person never comes to grief." (BG 18:44-48) This idea is found in Judaism also. Baba Batra wrote, "All appointments are from Heaven, even that of a janitor." (Talmud, Baba Batra 91b)
Members formed stable marriages with partners within their caste and received support from their kinsmen. The caste also lent job security similar to that provided by Medieval guilds and modern trade unions.
(Excerpt) Read more at jandyongenesis.blogspot.com ...
Darn right it is anathema. Some things are simply indefensible and anyone saying *anything* positive about them should be ostracized (or pummeled to within an inch of their life and *then* debated).
Post it here.
Substitute “woman” for “low caste” as needed.
Interesting. That’s a very cool site.
Caste as social capital
By R Vaidyanathan | Monday, May 24, 2010, 23:22 IST | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
There is no need to vilify the caste system as it has helped India in various ways.
Caste is back. It is likely to be part of the 2011 census. It was part of the decennial censuses between 1881 and 1931.
Of the 1929 castes aggregated in the 1881 census, 1126 [58%] had population of less than 1000; 275 less than ten. A large number of them were single member castes. The British had created a social “hierarchy” on the basis of caste in that Census.
The alienated metropolitan rootless wonders (AMROWs) and other assorted experts are upset since they have concluded that caste is bad. They want to be counted in the census as “Indian”.
Every Indian is expected to feel guilty, whenever caste is mentioned and talked about. In international fora, caste is used as a stick to beat anything connected to Indian religions, customs, and culture. In other words, caste for Indians has been turned into what “holocaust” is for Germans and Austrians.
We have an uncanny ability for self-flagellation. But more tragic is our enthusiasm to convert all our strengths into weaknesses since some white men and missionaries started denigrating Indians on the issue of caste.
We fail to recognise that it is a valuable social capital, which provides cushion for individuals and families in dealing with society at large, and more particularly the State. The Anglo-Saxon model of atomised individuals in a contract-based system and forcing him to have a direct link with the State has had disastrous effects in the west where families have been destroyed and communities have been forgotten.
Every person is standing alone, stark naked with only rights as his imaginary clothes to deal directly with the State.
The State also does not have the benefit of concentric circles of cushions to deal with individuals. Caste has been made a curse by our intellectuals based on the half-baked knowledge and acceptance of the Euro-centric individual-based model, which is based on rights and contracts rather than relationships and duty.
At a basic level, caste promotes heterogeneity. Heterogeneous and distributive systems are more stable and long-lasting than homogeneous and centralised systems. Caste is a major bulwark against homogenisation tendencies of systems like Marxism, Maoism or Savarkarism or the Semitic faiths. We should realise that “our strength is our diversity” and acceptance of the “other”. It is much more than “multicultural tolerance”.
It is also assumed that caste is a rigid hierarchical system which is oppressive. But as observed by the renowned sociologist Dipankar Gupta that “In fact, it is more realistic to say that there are probably as many hierarchies as there are castes in India. To believe that there is a single caste order to which every caste, from Brahman to untouchable, acquiesce ideologically, is a gross misreading of facts on the ground” The truth is that no caste, howsoever lowly placed it may be, accepts the reason for its degradation”(Dipankar Gupta in Interrogating Caste; pp1; Penguin Books 2000)
History does not support the thesis of caste discrimination. If it were as oppressive as it is portrayed then there should have been massive and regular caste wars in the last thousand years. There have not been any. If it has survived thousands of years then there is some inherent strength in it. The renowned Gandhian, Dharampal has demonstrated that data for Madras, Punjab and Bengal Presidency for 1800 to 1830 shows that the majority enrolled in the schools were from OBC and SC categories.
Caste has played an important role in the consolidation of business and entrepreneurship particularly in the last fifty or so years. The World Bank suggests that the remarkable growth of Tirupur is due to the coordinated efforts of Gounders, many of whom not even matriculates. “(World Development report, 2002 pp175; The World Bank). In a financial sense caste provides the edge in being a risk taker since failure is recognised and condoned and sometimes even encouraged by the group.
We have the exhaustive Economic Census of 2005, conducted by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) which covers 41.83 million enterprises engaged in different economic activities.The survey finds that more than 50 per cent of the enterprises are owned by SC/ST/OBC categories.
As MN Srinivas, doyen of sociologists, pointed out that “An important feature of social mobility in modern India is the manner in which the successful members of the backward castes work consistently for improving the economic and social condition of their caste-fellows. This is due to the sense of identification with one’s own caste, and also a realisation that caste mobility is essential for individual or familial mobility”(Collected Essays; pp196-197, OUP2005).
Caste should be counted in 2011 census for all religions since every religion has caste even though we pretend it does not exist. It is required for policy planners and experts to work on a road map to calibrate changes based upon the census. We may have to enumerate a new caste called “Indian” consisting of the AMROWS mentioned above.
http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/1387350/column-caste-as-social-capital
Importantly, the western version of caste is simpler, a nobility and a peasantry. This version was dominant in Europe and was brought by them to central and South America.
And while the noble classes are in effect no more, there are still many that aspire to the equivalent they think of as elitism. In Europe, that is the hidden impulse behind the EU, to restore, again the equivalent, of the unelected noble classes.
Today they imagine themselves as technocrats, though their urges to make their positions hereditary are irresistible.
In central and South America it is a more economic form. For example, most of the wealth in Mexico is kept and controlled by perhaps a dozen extremely wealthy families, who would never dream of their wealth elevating anyone else to their position.
Comparatively many American wealthy, who have no great impulse or compulsion that they can only enjoy their wealth if surrounded by poverty, create vast numbers of wealthy people as a side effect of their wealth, which bothers them not one whit.
There are some Americans who crave a European style self appointed elitism, fancying themselves as superior to other Americans and thus “destined to rule”; yet when their countrymen realize what they are, they do not elicit envy, but contempt and disdain.
And yet there is always a reaction to such obnoxious elitism, often found in extremist populism and egalitarianism. And in its own way and right, it is just as offensive and oppressive. It is also a recipe for perpetual revolution and discontent.
The peasant who overthrows the dictator, then becomes a dictator who then oppresses the other peasants like the dictator did before him.
India is a backwards backwater and will remain so as long as that type of thinking prevails.
Caste
Verdict from Belgium
Hinduism Today Magazine, September 1994
Last month, two ardent Hindus battled out the controversial pros and cons of caste. This month’s assessment, from Europe, focuses on history and how jati and varna have, for the most part, helped rather than hurt Hinduism.
By Prof. Koenraad Elst
In an inter-faith debate, most Hindus can easily be put on the defensive with a single word-caste. Any anti-Hindu polemist can be counted on to allege that “the typically Hindu caste system is the most cruel apartheid, imposed by the barbaric white Aryan invaders on the gentle dark-skinned natives.” Here’s a more balanced and historical account of this controversial institution.
Merits of the Caste System
The caste system is often portrayed as the ultimate horror. Inborn inequality is indeed unacceptable to us moderns, but this does not preclude that the system has also had its merits.
Caste is perceived as an “exclusion-from,” but first of all it is a form of “belonging-to,” a natural structure of solidarity. For this reason, Christian and Muslim missionaries found it very difficult to lure Hindus away from their communities. Sometimes castes were collectively converted to Islam, and Pope Gregory XV (1621-23) decreed that the missionaries could tolerate caste distinction among Christian converts; but by and large, caste remained an effective hurdle to the destruction of Hinduism through conversion. That is why the missionaries started attacking the institution of caste and in particular the brahmin caste. This propaganda has bloomed into a full-fledged anti-brahminism, the Indian equivalent of anti-Semitism.
Every caste had a large measure of autonomy, with its own judiciary, duties and privileges, and often its own temples. Inter-caste affairs were settled at the village council by consensus; even the lowest caste had veto power. This autonomy of intermediate levels of society is the antithesis of the totalitarian society in which the individual stands helpless before the all-powerful state. This decentralized structure of civil society and of the Hindu religious commonwealth has been crucial to the survival of Hinduism under Muslim rule. Whereas Buddhism was swept away as soon as its monasteries were destroyed, Hinduism retreated into its caste structure and weathered the storm.
Caste also provided a framework for integrating immigrant communities: Jews, Zoroastrians and Syrian Christians. They were not only tolerated, but assisted in efforts to preserve their distinctive traditions.
Typically Hindu?
It is routinely claimed that caste is a uniquely Hindu institution. Yet, counter examples are not hard to come by. In Europe and elsewhere, there was (or still is) a hierarchical distinction between noblemen and commoners, with nobility only marrying nobility. Many tribal societies punished the breach of endogamy rules with death.
Coming to the Indian tribes, we find Christian missionaries claiming that “tribals are not Hindus because they do not observe caste.” In reality, missionary literature itself is rife with testimonies of caste practices among tribals. A spectacular example is what the missions call “the Mistake:” the attempt, in 1891, to make tribal converts in Chhotanagpur inter-dine with converts from other tribes. It was a disaster for the mission. Most tribals renounced Christianity because they chose to preserve the taboo on inter-dining. As strongly as the haughtiest brahmin, they refused to mix what God hath separated.
Endogamy and exogamy are observed by tribal societies the world over. The question is therefore not why Hindu society invented this system, but how it could preserve these tribal identities even after outgrowing the tribal stage of civilization. The answer lies largely in the expanding Vedic culture’s intrinsically respectful and conservative spirit, which ensured that each tribe could preserve its customs and traditions, including its defining custom of tribal endogamy.
Description and History
The Portuguese colonizers applied the term caste, “lineage, breed,” to two different Hindu institutions: jati and varna. The effective unit of the caste system is the jati, birth-unit, an endogamous group into which you are born, and within which you marry. In principle, you can only dine with fellow members, but the pressures of modern life have eroded this rule. The several thousands of jatis are subdivided in exogamous clans, gotra. This double division dates back to tribal society.
By contrast, varna is the typical functional division of an advanced society-the Indus/Saraswati civilization, 3rd millennium, bce. The youngest part of the Rg-Veda describes four classes: learned brahmins born from Brahma’s mouth, martial kshatriya-born from his arms; vaishya entrepreneurs born from His hips and shudra workers born from His feet. Everyone is a shudra by birth. Boys become dwija, twice-born, or member of one of the three upper varnas upon receiving the sacred thread in the upanayana ceremony.
The varna system expanded from the Saraswati-Yamuna area and got firmly established in the whole of Aryavarta (Kashmir to Vidarbha, Sindh to Bihar). It counted as a sign of superior culture setting the arya, civilized, heartland apart from the surrounding mleccha, barbaric, lands. In Bengal and the South, the system was reduced to a distinction between brahmins and shudras. Varna is a ritual category and does not fully correspond to effective social or economic status. Thus, half of the princely rulers in British India were shudras and a few were brahmins, though it is the kshatriya function par excellence. Many shudras are rich, many brahmins impoverished.
The Mahabharata defines the varna qualities thus: “He in whom you find truthfulness, generosity, absence of hatred, modesty, goodness and self-restraint, is a brahmana. He who fulfills the duties of a knight, studies the scriptures, concentrates on acquisition and distribution of riches, is a kshatriya. He who loves cattle-breeding, agriculture and money, is honest and well-versed in scripture, is a vaishya. He who eats anything, practises any profession, ignores purity rules, and takes no interest in scriptures and rules of life, is a shudra.” The higher the varna, the more rules of self-discipline are to be observed. Hence, a jati could collectively improve its status by adopting more demanding rules of conduct, e.g. vegetarianism.
A person’s second name usually indicates his jati or gotra. Further, one can use the following varna titles: Sharma (shelter, or joy) indicates the brahmin, Varma (armour) the kshatriya, Gupta (protected) the vaishya and Das (servant) the shudra. In a single family, one person may call himself Gupta (varna), another Agrawal (jati), yet another Garg (gotra). A monk, upon renouncing the world, sheds his name along with his caste identity.
Untouchability
Below the caste hierarchy are the untouchables, or harijan (literally “God’s people”), dalits (”oppressed”), paraiah (one such caste in South India), or scheduled castes. They make up about 16% of the Indian population, as many as the upper castes combined.
Untouchability originates in the belief that evil spirits surround dead and dying substances. People who work with corpses, body excretions or animal skins had an aura of danger and impurity, so they were kept away from mainstream society and from sacred learning and ritual. This often took grotesque forms: thus, an untouchable had to announce his polluting proximity with a rattle, like a leper.
Untouchability is unknown in the Vedas, and therefore repudiated by neo-Vedic reformers like Dayanand Saraswati, Narayan Guru, Gandhiji and Savarkar. In 1967, Dr. Ambedkar, a dalit by birth and fierce critic of social injustice in Hinduism and Islam, led a mass conversion to Buddhism, partly on the (unhistorical) assumption that Buddhism had been an anti-caste movement. The 1950 constitution outlawed untouchability and sanctioned positive discrimination programs for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Lately, the Vishva Hindu Parishad has managed to get even the most traditionalist religious leaders on the anti-untouchability platform, so that they invite harijans to Vedic schools and train them as priests. In the villages, however, pestering of dalits is still a regular phenomenon, occasioned less by ritual purity issues than by land and labor disputes. However, the dalits’ increasing political clout is accelerating the elimination of untouchability.
Caste Conversion
In the Mahabharata, Yuddhishthira affirms that varna is defined by the qualities of head and heart, not by one’s birth. Krishna teaches that varna is defined by one’s activity (karma) and quality (guna). Till today, it is an unfinished debate to what extent one’s “quality” is determined by heredity or by environmental influence. And so, while the hereditary view has been predominant for long, the non-hereditary conception of varna has always been around as well, as is clear from the practice of varna conversion. The most famous example is the 17th-century freedom fighter Shivaji, a shudra who was accorded kshatriya status to match his military achievements. The geographical spread of Vedic tradition was achieved through large-scale initiation of local elites into the varna order. From 1875 onwards, the Arya Samaj has systematically administered the “purification ritual” (shuddhi) to Muslim and Christian converts and to low-caste Hindus, making the dwija. Conversely, the present policy of positive discrimination has made upper-caste people seek acceptance into the favored Scheduled Castes.
Veer Savarkar, the ideologue of Hindu nationalism, advocated intermarriage to unify the Hindu nation even at the biological level. Most contemporary Hindus, though now generally opposed to caste inequality, continue to marry within their respective jati because they see no reason for their dissolution.
Racial Theory of Caste
Nineteenth-century Westerners projected the colonial situation and the newest race theories on the caste system: the upper castes were white invaders lording it over the black natives. This outdated view is still repeated ad-nauseam by anti-Hindu authors: now that “idolatry” has lost its force as a term of abuse, “racism” is a welcome innovation to demonize Hinduism. In reality, India is the region where all skin color types met and mingled, and you will find many brahmins as black as Nelson Mandela. Ancient “Aryan” heroes like Rama, Krishna, Draupadi, Ravana (a brahmin) and a number of Vedic seers were explicitly described as being dark-skinned.
But doesn’t varna mean “skin color?” The effective meaning of varna is “splendor, color,” and hence “distinctive quality” or “one segment in a spectrum.” The four functional classes constitute the “colors” in the spectrum of society. Symbolic colors are allotted to the varna on the basis of the cosmological scheme of “three qualities” (triguna): white is sattva (truthful), the quality typifying the brahmin; red is rajas (energetic), for the kshatriya; black is tamas (inert, solid), for the shudra; yellow is allotted to the vaishya, who is defined by a mixture of qualities.
Finally, caste society has been the most stable society in history. Indian communists used to sneer that “India has never even had a revolution.” Actually, that is no mean achievement.
Address: Professor Koenraad Elst, PO box 103, 2000 Leuven 3, Belgium.
Dr. Elst is a Belgian scholar who has extensively studied the current socio-political situation in India. Keenly interested in Asian philosophies and traditions from his early years, he has studied yoga, aikido and other oriental disciplines. Between 1988 and 1993 he spent much of his time in India doing research at the prestigious Banaras Hindu University.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=3336
It's hard to tell just where this article is coming from, and what's it take-away message might be.
It seems at times to try not just to explain, but also excuse the inexcusable.
It's almost like saying: "you know that slavery thing wasn't really so bad -- after all, it lent stability to societies, and people always knew their places."
The article also seems to say that not only were castes a pretty good thing, but everybody did it, including Christians and Jews -- after all, you can find "castes" in the bible.
Well, no, not really.
Sure, ancient social hierarchies are one thing, with kings, warriors, priests, farmers and merchants, etc.
Ancients clearly understood that things just worked better when everyone was happy with their lots in life.
But a rigid caste system, where nobody could ever leave the station they were born to does not accurately describe any ancient western culture.
In the west there was always at least some room for talent to rise to the top.
Pathways to advancement included military success, commerce, international shipping / trading, architecture, and of course, the most common road to riches: politics.
Yes, it's true that most who were born peasants also died as such, but we celebrate those who found ways to both lift up themselves and also bring along others to share their successes.
So what exactly is this article hoping to tell us?
Caste is not about money.
Castes in India originated in large part from waves of conquest. The conquered population was walled off from the new ruling tribe. And then those rulers got conquered by new invaders etc.
Neither is self appointed elitism. Money is just one of the factors.
In India, as a rule of thumb, wealth, political power, and opportunity to succeed in society are indeed tied to caste. While there are many poor Brahmins, and many wealthy Dalits, and even criminal Dacoits, as groups, caste to a great extent still determines most peoples’ lives.
Much of this nonsense is lost on most Americans, who see the imbecility of both the Asian and the European efforts to stratify society as foolish.
I sure wouldn't want to be part of whatever community you are a part of.
Individualism, liberty and self advancement are not good and true BECAUSE they were advocated and advanced by the west and (gasp! ) white people. They are good and true eternally.
Slavery, barbarism, torture and unsanitary practices have also existed for thousands of years. Things are not of intrinsic value just because they have a long history.
Next you will explain to us how burning women alive is a good thing?
Everything you said - NOT!
Sarchasm - the gap of understanding between the person being sarcastic and the person who thinks they are serious.
Caste and reincarnation has long been used as an excuse for brutality and oppression of people and women. They supposedly deserve brutal treatment, it is their karma to suffer.
> Next you will explain to us how burning women alive is a good thing?
It is? I didn’t know that! I thought that keeping women chained in the basement as sex slaves is (as in Cleveland). /sarc
Hey both have thousands of years of history! It must therefore be good using the ill logic of the article.
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