This blog is in response to an article by distinguished journalist, Mr. A.J. Philip, in the newspaper he edits, The Herald of India. Here is the link to the original article: http://www.heraldofindia.com/article.php?id=489
Dear Mr. Philip,
Your reference to Bihar brings back lots of memories of my own stint as a journalist in that state. A senior colleague of mine, the late Arvind Das, used to call Bihar the centre of the universe, given the state's social complexities. While I appreciate your views on caste, and do abhor discrimination of any kind, I would like to point out a couple of things. Discrimination is as Darwinian as oppression. The evolution of a society is studied through the many cycles of catharsis that it has experienced. Our sociologists and historians have been trying for centuries to simply understand what is India and why is India different from any other society in the world. I have not found a decent answer yet in my many readings. I feel a society has to be seen in its living past and living present. Ignoring or denying any variable of that society and then attempting to study its evolution is a backfiring proposition. We may abhor cateism, we may deny we are casteists, but that does not make casteism go away. For the simple reason that our actions of the present have their moorings not only in our geneology but also in our cultural past. These actions define our identity, our location in society, whether we believe or not. Our society has evolved over thousands of years, its culture influenced by societies from across the seas at frequent intervals of history, now more so and at faster intervals because of the factor of globalisation. Some of the best Sikhs I know, professionals all in various countries abroad, came from Khalsa College. I know of two youngsters currently at an IIT who proudly say they are the alumni of the Brahman-Bhumihar Collegiate in Muzaffarpur. I know of many families with liberal values subscribing to caste-based matrimony publications. And so forth. Are these people casteist? I'd say yes. And any other answer conveys self-denial. More than ever before I today feel the need for a full-fledged caste census in India. For, never before has our society seen siesmic social and cultural changes as like now, what with India in the vortex of globalisation. There are many who predict a homogenous mass of peoples in a few generations' time. That would be the time of a society, truly classless and casteless. That would also be a time to forget where this society came from because for the citizens of that future society, their past would be an alien, long-forgotten, un-understandable phenomenon. In short, the legacy of this society of our times and our past will not remain even a memory. Why? Because nobody in our times cares to write a true account of it in the first place. I challenge any sociologist or historian to refute that their research of the Indian society is based on half or quarter knowledge considering the singular fact that never in our history has an accurate data of the caste composition been made available. Furthermore, histories and social texts are contructed realities and mediated by the ideologies of their authors. For example, I want to recall the controversy created when social and history theoreticians of the Left and Right fought over the origins of Ayodhya in the 1990s. Secondly, histories are written by conquerors, whether Hindu, Pashto, Iranian, Persian or Christian. And we have never had any clear interest in the subaltern and native histories except some works which in any case have never become mainstream reading material. For example, how many Indians even know what Kamban Ramayan is? See, even our so-called national epics have not escaped the scalpel of a divided society. So, when I say I am a a Vaidi ki Velanati Brahmin from Vemuru village in the coastal Andhra region of south India, am I speaking the truth? I have no way of verifying it. None of us Indians have. The point is, when we talk of caste even if to deny it, we have no historical or cultural basis to do so. That is why I support the caste census. Let us at least know what is that multi-cultural society we are a part of? We have already lived quite long in a social oblivion, basing our identities and ideologies developed out of socio-cultural castles built merely on belief. What we need is a new sociology of our not-so-new past.
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4 comments:
Balvinder Singh The writer of “Needed new sociology... See More” supports caste based censuses though his supportive arguments are both weak and confusing.
If we need a new sociology then we will have to seek for new ways. By taking defense in the past cultural practices, may be centuries old, the talk of newness appears to be paradoxical. One cannot cling to ones moorings, resting in our geneology or our cultural past, and newness simultaneously.
He is arguing in favour of a casteist society on the one hand and still looking for new social patterns. Strange indeed.
I go a step further than what Mr Philip has sensibly stated in his article. I consider the inheritance of one’s religion a coerced conversion.
For, we do not give our children the liberty to choose their religion, when they grow up, as per their own likes or dislikes. We in fact force them to adopt our ancestral religion which I consider no less than a coercive crime.
In this context I fail to understand what our constitution means when it talks of a society that has no bias in favour or against caste, colour and creed!
When would the actual new humane society actually be a reality? With the kind of caste promoters, deeply caught into the past marsh, around us at least I have no hope
My reply to Mr. Balwinder Singh:
Dear Mr. Singh. I only called for a caste based census to know exactly what we are. Not that am for clinging to the past. The 'new' sociology I talk about is one based on a factual census, not centuries' old figures left to us by the British. And I am not looking for 'new' social patterns. All I want to find is the 'real' social pattern. I stand by... See More what I said that our actions are much dictated by the past as they are influenced by our present. 'Upbringing' is what social coercion is all about and it is mostly, if not all, about what one has learnt from one's parents, one's friends and one's community. Deny yourself your culture, you deny your identity, at least the identity bestowed on you. You have misconstrued what I wrote, to the extent of calling me a caste promotor. And what is this humane society you are talking about? Man has survived by being the strongest of all beasts. Unless you change that elementary theory, it is merely a wish and totally unreal concept. If you deny caste, soceity, culture, religion, practices, merely because they are centuries old and do not sync with modern reality, to what will you thether your beliefs to? Air? If every Indian citizen followed his or her religion, for argument's sake, to the t, there should be peace, isn't it? But while everyone claims to follow one's religion, why is there no peace? I am not throwing logic at you to score a point. I am merely suggesting that in a debate, there are different points of view and each view, however contrary to your own, needs to be respected. Otherwise, there is no debate. Only 'hulla'. To get into a debate on shedding the layers of one's identity just because it has been 'bestowed' on us or 'coerced' into is taking the debate to a philosophical plane where one strives to be a being without identity. Obviously, none of us is taking of sucha case here. Or are we? So, until we are not sure of that, the reality is we live in a society which binds us with its culture and all the baggage of the past. One can attempt to shed some of the unwanted baggage, like caste, but, as I said earlier, that will not make caste go away. Till now we as a country have accepted caste passively. We are ashamed to talk of caste in the presence particularly of foreigners, in conversations with whom we talk of caste in the third person.Why be ashamed of our past? Each society has its own skeleton of shames. The idea is to confront them with a sense of active acceptance. And not individual nitpicking, as seems to be the case here.
Mr. Balwinder Singh replied on Face Book:
thanks for your views. But as they say in journalism i stand by assertions may be foolish ones. however i must confess i am not ashamed of my past, BUT surely am ashamed of the PRESENT going ons in the 21st century on the basis of caste and so on.
I assert I agree with your views too, entirely.
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