Preface

India, a large country in south Asia, is a perplexing and mammoth land with a long history. Its population is more than one billion. It is a home to many languages, religions, cults, ethnicities and not the last – the Hindu caste system. Its inhabitants follow Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim religions. About eighty percent population follows Hindu religion. The diversity found here is amazing. Some consider it a power house of spirituality with gross disregard to Western materialism. Its still ancient society is based on caste. The caste system is still the unofficial system of India. Any individual is a derivative of his caste and any caste cannot be derived from any individual. The caste of an individual is fused with him. Therefore, it is difficult to separate the individual from the caste – the lines here are blurring. But the lines are thick and dark for everybody to see, between the different castes.

This book is about the caste system in India with particular emphasis on the treatment of the fifth stratum in the Hindu society. The caste system has been successfully exported to other major religions in India – the Islam and the Christianity. Or rather the converts took the caste system along with them to these religions. In this way the Hindu religion exported the casteism and the untouchability to other major religions in the region. The converts brought this baggage to their new religion. This baggage provided them with an innate superiority over the low caste entrants in the new religion. Therefore, the caste system in one form or other form prevails nearly all over India. There is no escape from it. And it is not a small thing.

There have been many books on the Hindu society and its functioning. This book is more about the manner in which the Hindus society reacts to the lowest stratum. This book aims to provide a different aspect than the dominant views. On the one hand, there are views and books extolling the caste system treating it as a good system barring some blots on it. On the other hand, there are self-delusory views from the fifth stratum about their grand past history and their fall to present status due to unknown reasons.  This book will try to read the things as they are. The approach in this book is normative rather than empiricist. This book does not aim to quote the specific instances as proof of its views. However, those interested in the fieldwork may explore the literature and data of which plenty is available. It is hoped that the readers would bear with the language keeping in view that English is second language for the author. 

This system which stratifies and segments people is an extremely old one as compared to modern religions and modernity. It is about 2500 years old and surpasses other existing large systems may be excepting Judaism and Parsi religion.  The stability and extent of this system is surprising which most probably due to insulated villages and ghastly village caste councils. The possible rebellion was, most probably, thwarted by the policy of not allowing the lower stratum to wield the arms. This left them defenseless without any option to rebel. The European kind of Renaissance was never to hit this ancient land which took pride in its ultimate knowledge (?) of the Vedas beyond nothing was supposed to exist. Even if something was supposed to exist, it was given a quiet burial.

The caste system or the Chaturvarna has four born Varnas viz. Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra in socially descending order. There is one more, large group, below the Shudra, called the Untouchables. There are thousands of endogamous castes/jatis belonging to these Varnas. The Untouchability is a supposed to be a blot on the Hindu society by modern standard; otherwise it was/is a matter of pride, unofficially.  

Each group drives its strength/weakness from its respective jati and Varna. Any individual is as strong as his jati/Varna. These strengths are decreasing downward starting from the Brahmans. If left to itself, it is an unchanging system and tends to keep some specific people permanently at the top. And some deprived group, permanently, are kept at the bottom. It operates through a birth-attached system, where not only the wealth, but also social status and occupations are forcibly and directly/indirectly transferred to an individual at the time of birth. Any deviation from this birth-attached system was punished by the ghastly caste councils. The social/economic disabilities and other things which are deemed to be the qualities of the caste are inherited by an individual by virtue of taking birth in that caste.  This process is supposed to be divine in its origin. This process proved to be crippling for nearly every fifth Hindu. The marriages also take place on endogamous basis at the level of sub-caste. The endless matrimonial advertisements in media are a proof to endogamous nature of caste.  This system has kept the millions of people at the bottom and out of mainstream.  These millions of people live a wretched life. These untouchables are not supposed to take breath properly for the fear of breaking the social equilibrium. They were (or is it “are”) supposed to speak properly with downcast eyes and a humble tone in low volume. They were supposed to look away when the honor of their womenfolk was in danger; it is unofficial India. The walls of rejection they face, in society, are non-negotiable.

The practice of Untouchability has been outlawed by Indian Government by making provision against it in its Constitution. Why should we harp on it when it has been legally abolished? The answer lies in its all pervasiveness, in the affairs of Indian society, despite being illegal. This illegal practice persists in many forms. Its total unofficial eradication has proved to be a mirage.

The traditional system is rooted in plethora of Hindu scriptures and Indian State is helpless is in removing this stinking features of Hindu society. The Indian Government remains committed in removing this blot on humanity. But it is only partially successful. And that is not enough and that is why this book is there. Had the Indian state been successful in its noble intentions this book might not have been necessary. The caste system is still the unofficial system of India whether one believes in its existence or not. The results obtained by any study would point to its existence. It governs the lives of a billion people and easily makes life hellish for people at the bottom. The greatness of the unofficial India lies in perpetuating this abhorring system through traditions whoever might be the ruler. These traditions should not be broken. The spirit of equality as propounded in Constitution does not lie at the heart of people who benefit from the caste system. Therefore whatever is written here is generally applicable to unofficial India or private India. There are two versions of India official and unofficial. Here we are mainly concerned with the unofficial India. There are some other things in the Appendix which may have more general applicability.

Constitution of India bars the discrimination by the state on caste and religious grounds but it does not say that the caste is illegal. It does not bar any discrimination against fifth stratum barring practice of untouchability. The caste becomes private and presents a different picture of India than the official one because it carries the bag and baggage of the glorious traditions and heritage. The traditional Indian society carries in itself a large element of inhumanity. The state is committed to abolition of Untouchability but not the society.

Before we embark on further enquiry, we should make few things clear –
Untouchables – here it means the unofficial Untouchables who are Untouchables in traditional or unofficial sense not in terms of Indian Constitution. In terms of the Indian Constitution it means the numerous castes includes in 42nd schedule of Indian Constitution and were formerly known as Untouchables. The Untouchability has been outlawed by the Government. To benefit the Scheduled castes the Government has devised many schemes but as everybody know the monetary  implementation carries a gaping hole of 90% and only 10 % reaches to these poor people. The ninety percent is devoured by the crocodile known as corruption.  When we say Untouchables it should be taken as the unofficial Untouchables. These people prefer to call themselves as Dalits or Crushed people. This nomenclature is of recent origin.
In India, the present and past reside together and it becomes difficult to separate them. Like modernity and tradition live together, entwined. Thus the writer has taken the liberty to use the tense (as in grammar) as it is juxtaposed and leaves the reader to draw his own conclusion. There are certain bumps here and there. The book is full of danglers. Sometime it moves to and fro and sometimes in a zigzag manner. Otherwise, the book could have become very bulky and in turn could have produced disinclination in the potential readers towards it.
Then the writer has depended on the suffocating atmosphere and has avoided the inclusion of data by and large.  This book rather depends on abstraction, reasoning, logic and creativity and an attempt to produce somewhat different perspective. Those who are interested in data bound proof would find plenty of sources from they can gather the data. They just have to be interested in deep digging. And it may not be surprising that they find my conclusion as true.
The Untouchability exists. There are laws against it to prove it. And it would be foolish to make law against something which does not exist.

Then at last, the author would like to express his gratitude to other authors whose works have deeply influenced author’s work.  First and foremost are Louis Dumont, Emmanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Nash, Hobbes, Lockes, Russeou,   Jeremy Bentham, B. R. Ambedkar, Witzel, M. N. Srinivas, Karl Marx, Gramsci, Weber, Durkheim, Sarvpalli Radha Krishan, Rawls,  – the list endless. There are various authors whom have not been mentioned above. You can imagine that how big is the list! Next time the author would do his best to give the readers a complete list. Some other authors are given in bibliography which is by no measure complete. Other works which have influenced in similar way are yet to be taken into account.  However, it is not necessary that the author agrees with all the above mentioned thinkers/authors.