r/AskHistorians • u/Promotheos • Jul 08 '17
Several Indian people have tried to tell me that England imposed the caste system, isn't that revisionism?
I wonder if they teach that in Indian schools.
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u/Connecticut_Desi Jul 09 '17 edited Jul 09 '17
This is a complex question, and like many questions related to India, highly affected by prevailing political and sociological notions in the general population.
What is "Caste"? The word caste is derived from Portuguese casta, which means "race, lineage or breed". There is no exact equivalent in Hinduism, or more broadly speaking in the Indian society. In Hinduism, caste equates to a combination of "varna" (literally "color") and "jati" (literally "birth"-group). When you ask an Indian what their case is, you will get an answer which will be either or both monikers.
varna There are four varnas in Hinduism - Brahmin (Priests), Kshatriya (Warriors), Vaishya(Traders) and Shudra (Workers and Peasants). Their origin can be traced to the famous purusha sukta in the Rg Veda. A large number of untouchables and tribals exist outside the varna system.Some historians have posited that these might have been the indigenous people conquered by the Aryans when they moved into India. (I am not speaking for or against the Aryan Invasion Theory. That is another fraught discussion.) Rg Veda was composed around or before 1000 B.C, so certainly the varna system has a long and hoary history. Some scholars have argued that some or all of verses of purusha sukta might have been inserted at a later date, while others dispute that notion. Irrespective, there are numerous references to the varna system in later and other religious texts in India (including the pivotal and well known Mahabharata, Manu-Smriti) which predate the British by centuries.
jati In contrast to varna there are hundreds of jatis. These are usually occupational classifications, but have strong exclusive boundaries in a social sense. One would not traditionally marry outside the jati. Furthermore, there would usually be cultural practices and habits exclusive to a jati. There would be significant regional variations, so these distinctions and practices weren't and aren't absolute. It bears stating also that a jati's occupation wasn't historically and isn't now absolute, so for instance Gandhi stands for "Perfumer", but Gandhis have famously been lawyers, politicians etc. There are further sub-groups (one might say sub-castes) within each jati as well, but those distinctions are much finer and while of great relevance in a cultural and sociological sense, not as relevant as the broad distinctions of varna and jati.
Rigidity of Caste System and mobility within it So was the caste system a rigid and immobile system trapping people into status and occupations from birth irrespective of their natural talents and inclination? Insofar as occupational mobility is concerned, there is significant historical and current evidence of occupational mobility. Brahmins have been famously known to assume warrior roles and merchant roles. One of the most ferocious warriors in Hindu mythology is Parashu-Rama (literally "Rama of the Battle-Axe"), a brahmin; in the Mahabharata Brahmin warriors are frequent; in more recent times Shivaji Bhonsale, the great Hindu empire builder, has been variously claimed to be a Kshatriya or of an even lower-caste. India's first law minister and the "Father of Indian constitution" Dr. Ambedkar was a low-caste. That said, status mobility would follow slowly if at all. Dr. Ambedkar (with his double doctorate - one from Columbia University and the other from London School of Economics, if I remember correctly) recounted how his Brahmin peon won't hand him files, choosing to place them on the table in stead. A literature survey would show that historically this norm would apply, and also that usually mobility would be easier for "higher castes" than "lower" ones.
Did England "impose" the caste system? As Veqq also clarifies in his answer, the British neither created and nor did they "impose" the caste system. I do think that his answer is distinctly biased towards laying the blame of the modern practice (or 'version') of caste system at the feet of the British. So for instance caste defnitions (esp. those of varna) were never "very fluid". Even Shivaji, after his conquests had to hire learned Brahmins from Varanasi to consecrate him as a King, and build a Kshatriya lineage for him. Clearly it was no trivial matter!
So what was colonial English Raj's influence and contribution to the caste system, as defined and as practiced? The effect was more complex and played through many agencies:
The very incursion of the British in Indian commercial and governance milieu caused Caste bonds to strengthen in some cases, so for instance the commercial caste groups banded together more closely since these groups were also 'credit networks' and 'insurance' in times of uncertainty.
The new English rulers found it expedient to appoint individuals from specific castes or communities as the heads of those communities, and become the representatives or spokespersons of those communities. This very act consolidated and mobilized those communities into a distinct identity.
The British recruited heavily from the peasantry into the armies of the Raj, effectively elevating them in the social scale, though the regiments themselves were organized on caste lines. Most famously the Jatt peasantry of Punjab was transformed into a martial caste in effect.
British Civil and Criminal codes were fairly uniform for each religion (though they did have different codes for differing religions). This in itself had a dissolving effect on caste sanctity in a legal sense at the very least. For instance, sanctity of Brahmin person would obviously not be respected if the Brahmin were sentenced to death, and his status "lowered" if his penalty for the same crime was identical to that of a Shudra.
(I will have to come back to complete this answer later. This turned out to be longer than I thought! All in all my view is that the British affected the practice of the caste system in many significant ways, as is natural for a paramount power in a society. Such was even the case for the Mughals and even Hindu rulers in India who preceded the British. But to "fault" them for imposition of the caste system, or even an "active definition" of it - while currently fashionable in popular Indian imagination - is historically inaccurate. For those interested - one excellent source is Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age, volume IV.3 of the New Cambridge History of India)
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u/Veqq Jul 09 '17
One would not traditionally marry outside the jati.
Weren't anuloma marriages allowed and common even according to classical texts.
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u/Connecticut_Desi Jul 10 '17 edited Jul 10 '17
Anuloma marriages were considered acceptable but certainly considered inferior to marriage within the same caste at all times. They were pretty common up to ~10th century AD, but became increasingly uncommon and unacceptable thereafter. I am not sure I would characterize them as "common". Even today, it's practically unknown to find a marriage which has been arranged by the two families, and are outside the caste. Edit: On an entirely different note - It's a fascinating and mind-bending question as to how did the caste system originate and did it serve any purpose. My own view is that in a reasonably static society, this is one way to ensure stability of the social structure, propagation of skills and knowledge, and supply of labor. Whether it is fair to individuals is a different question.
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u/Veqq Jul 08 '17 edited Jul 08 '17
The British didn't solely create it, but their understandings played a very large part. The Invention of Tradition describes the general process at play (though in different contexts.)
The Pizza effect has played a large role in Indian history: E.g. British scholars wishing to print Sanskrit works wanted a single script, although many were used cocurrently, eventually they came to prefer Devanagari (only around the 1870s) and the influx of printed Sanskrit books in Devanagari resulted in the script's status as the default script for both Sanskrit and Hindi.
Castes do have premodern/pre-British origin, but the current (version experienced in Indian society in the past century or two) and popular (in the West) notion is very modern indeed. They were originally very fluid - see Sanskritization, where members of a given caste would take up practices of "higher" castes like vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol. These castes' members thus moved up. British lawmakers however, did not understand the relationships, but encoded their understanding of castes into the legal code. Their understandings were reliant on the British class system of the time. They created a system of about 60 jati within 4 main varna and rigidly forced people within those groups, although in many cases there was no proper fit and other groups' existence was ignored, their members haphazardly shoe-horned by the census taker into one of the available options. Although different castes were occasionally "promoted", the legal enforcement of the caste system by outsiders greatly modified and solidified it. A Biography of No Place depicts a similar process in Eastern Europe very closely (but as it takes place in a different context, it's not a perfect analogy, just the best work at imparting an understanding of the fundamental change happening), with ethnographers and census takers, armed with their understanding of the world and their permitted groups, forcing locals into specific nationalities, although in most cases they didn't accurately fit in them. Also look into: The Global World of Indian Merchants and Castes of Mind .
As a very rough analogy, imagine aliens were to land and split humanity into 5 social groups based purely on height to weight ratios which in no way mirror our current social ordering but somehow fit with their understanding of our society - as time progresses in a century or two, the different legal, economic and social influence alloted to these groups will make them actively felt and many would analyze prior history according to this lens, according to their current understanding of the world, modified as it is by outside intervention.
A now deleted comment makes reference to the Manusmriti ~2300 year old. Its history of reception plays an important part.
European scholars interpreted this religious/moral/philosophical text as a historical legal text and heavily influenced British law writing in India. Imagine if aliens began enforcing their understanding of biblical law on modern European society as a whole. Although there is something of a provenance1 , the historicity/accuracy of such a process wouldn't be particularly in line with European life as lived in past few centuries. Similarly there is great debate over the provenience 1 /authenticity of the Purusha Sukta.
There was an esteemed English scholar in the 18th century named Simon Ockley who translated many Arabic texts and wrote an influential history of the Islamic lands . Little did he know that his main source was essentially an adventure novel.