An Evidence-Based Rejection of “Caste” to Describe Social Life in Bharat

Abstract

The notion of “caste” has been institutionalized by colonial agencies from a couple of centuries ago and continued to the present day by the Indian government. A variety of actors use this institution for parochial reasons. “Caste” has been weaponized and deployed in the academic, administrative, media and political arenas, including activities of foreign-religions, resulting in detrimental outcomes to the identity of Hindus and the cultural unity of Bhārat. Whenever “caste” is used by any of the above-mentioned agencies, it is obligatorily packaged with adjectives such as “inhumane”, “hierarchical”, “discriminatory”, “immobile”, “upper/lower”,
“oppressive”, “oppressor/oppressed” and more, revealing an antagonistic approach to this subject, rather than a fair, evidence-based treatment. In this paper, the author deconstructs each of these adjectives and by marshaling evidence from Hindu texts, shows the spuriousness of these manufactured controversies. The author proposes a 360-degree view of the traditional organizations of “Jāti, Varṇa, Kulam, Gotra” and shows how these have been subversively interpreted by Colonial/Missionary
interlocutors, despite there being no evidence to support their conclusions. By examining colonial records, the author shows the origin of each of the adjectives listed earlier.

The author proposes a paradigm shift in the way we see the traditional organization of Indian society. Rather than adopt the combative “oppressor/oppressed” lens of inimical agencies, we present evidence for far deeper reasons that are neither “hierarchical”, “discriminatory” nor “oppressive”. The author examines Hindu texts and colonial records on the history of public health in India and shows clear awareness of disease contagions from the distant past. The author also examines evidence of mobility across Varṇas in ancient and recent times, the use of Vāstu Śāstras for town planning, and the Āchāram and Saucha practices prescribed in Dharma Śāstras for the different Varṇas. The author uses this multiplicity of evidence to propose that public health was the driving factor for hygiene practices that evolved in India, but subverted as “oppressive/discriminatory” by Colonial sociologists. The author’s model of public health driving the practices of the different Varṇas and Jātis is a far better evidence-based fit to the institution of “Jāti, Varṇa, Kulam, Gotra” than the present-day received wisdom of the Colonial, Missionary, Eurocentric, Socialist, and Marxist narratives which views these as “oppressive, discriminatory, immobile, hierarchical caste” arising from their prejudiced ideological leaning.