View: Understanding caste as economies

Caste (jati) is how resources and respect was inherited and distributed in traditional Indian society. The distribution pattern varied across India. The thousands of jatis were classified neatly into a four-fold varna framework found in the Vedas – brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas and shudras. The meanings of these four terms have changed over time. In popular imagination, brahmins are visualised as priests, kshatriyas as warriors, vaishyas as traders and shudras as servants. But the reality is not so simple. Many brahmins were bureaucrats, warriors and landlords, having disproportionately more income and respect. Even among the brahmins, there were temple priests who had greater respect, though often lesser income, than priests involved in cremation rites. While Brahmins insist this division was god-given, the organisation is clearly economic and political, meant to grant Brahmins, who wrote these scriptures, special privilege like tax-free lands and exemption from capital punishment. The early Vedic period was a pastoral economy. People’s wealth was based on the number of cows they had. So, kshatriyas were people who fought over cows. Kings were celebrated for donating cows to brahmins. Who actually herded the cows, and milked them? Was the owner brahmin/kshatriya or the vaishya/shudra? No one is sure. Later, in the post-Vedic period, as the agricultural economy evolved, land became the primary source of wealth. Land was referred to metaphorically as the cow. So, doing godaan was actually the act of giving land. Those who owned the land became the dominant members of society. The Sanskrit word for land is kshetra. So, kshatriyas now became landowners. Through land grants they gave land to temples, monasteries, and priests. Later land was given to courtiers in lieu of payments. This led to the rise of the feudal system. It was difficult to know who owned the land, who tilled it, who had rights over the harvest, and who collected the taxes. This complex relationship with land created complicated caste hierarchies. Besides herding and agriculture, the other source of income was the market. Those who controlled the market were the vaishyas. Now, both Brahmin priests and Buddhist monks competed for patronage from land-based and market-based economies. The brahmins were successful with the land-based economies controlled by kings as they provided various statecraft services such as tax-collection, and helped kings consolidate hold over lands. The Buddhist monks were more successful with trading communities. This explains the Buddhist influence along the Silk Route in the north and in the islands of South East Asia.The market-based economy became weak after the collapse of the Roman Empire, and the simultaneous rise of the brahmanical claim that one loses caste when one crosses the sea. International trade was outsourced to Arabs. Traders and money lenders became regional power, subservient to landowners. Rather than support Brahmins, most mercantile communities in India preferred to serve Jain monks. The service providers fell into the category of shudras and were further classified on the basis of purity. So the potter, carpenter and weaver were segregated into ‘purer’ vocations than those involved in managing crematoriums and refuse. When we approach caste through this economic lens, we realise the caste system survived in a pre-industrial pastoral and agricultural ecosystem. The European rulers of India did not care too much about caste, but cared a lot about religion. Their educational institutions were available to all – disturbing the traditional market for clerks. Soldiers were recruited on the basis of caste, but this changed after the 1857 mutiny. With the rise of industries, there was a merit-based market for labour, for service, skills and knowledge. Owning cows and land was no longer as lucrative. Cowherds and landowners, and temple priests, stoped enjoying the status they once had. People, providing services such as banking, infrastructure, logistics and technology industries are becoming the more powerful members of the community. Where do we locate contemporary service providers? By traditional classifications they are the shudras? Does the old varna system still hold? We must understand the transformation of economies and ergo, its role in rendering old models of caste irrelevant, except in identity politics.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3ArP2cQ