10
Dialectics of Caste and Class Conflicts Sharad Patil The transition from the non-hereditary varna to the hereditary jati marks the transition from the early tribal slave societies to the feudal societies before India was colonised. This article traces that process in some detail. Jati or caste did then represent class defined in terms of relation to land, expropriation of its surplus, and military and bureaucratic sharing of wealth and power. With colonial society, new class relations came into being. In the basically mercantile economy the urban bourgeoisie, big and small, merged with the rural class of rentier landlords as the creditor became de facto landlord and the debtor a permanent serf. Naturally, the rentier was a vehement protagonist of the varna jati dharma or ideology, ever to underpin the changing economic and political base. It should he emphasised that the ruling classes of capitalists and landlords and their parties increasingly rely on caste and religious support in the race for parliamentary power. Given the composition of Indian society, socialism cannot be achieved without peasant agrarian revolution. And it is in the rural areas that caste is the strongest. Mass organisations will have to devote as much energy to the struggle against caste as they devote to the struggle against economic exploitation on new class lines. CASTE in Vedic times was not based on birth, but on initiation (Aryan: upanayana; non-Aryan: abhisincana, upasampada). The Vratya-stoma of Atharva-veda (XV) was composed for absorbing alien tribes or tribesmen into the tribal caste society. As for hierarchi- cal ranking of castes, we see that dur- ing the epic period, through the higher three castes: Brahman, kshatriya and Vaisya, of the rajaka (monarchical) tribal slave States had hypergamous inequality amongst them, they had equal rights in the administrative organs of these States, i e, in the sabha (tribal council) and the parishad (tribal assembly). In the a-rajaka (non-monor- chical) tribal slave States or sangha- ganas — from which Mahavira and Buddha hailed — there was no Brah- min caste at all, the custodian of purity. (The Sudra-Dasas, though slaves during the whole epoch of the tribal slave so- ciety, wore varna and not non-varna, and hence were not untouchables.) Two HERTTAGES Phule's theory of the caste system was that it was created by the Aryan or Irani Bhats or Brahmana. His hark- ing back to king Bali 1 meant that, be- fore the coming of the Irani Brahmins, Indian society was a caste-less (i e, classless) agricultural community. Thus, his race theory did not owe its origin exclusively to the European one but drew upon an age-old non-Brahman tradition. 2 The term 'bahu-jana samaj', meaning majority of society, is not of Marathi origin. Indeed, 'bahu-jana' was a term which Buddha usually used to denote the masses, while 'Brahmanetara' is a term which goes back to early Vedic times. "Aitareya Brahmana" (11.19), the earliest treatise on Vedic ritualism, relates that the Vedic seer Kavasha Ailusha was denounced as 'a-Brahmin' by the Aryan priests, who were per- forming a sacrificial session on the banks of the river Saravaati; he was driven out in to the sandy waste to die of thirst and hunger. His 'Child of (he Waters' (Apo-naptriyam) hymn (Rg X.30)) was meant for performing the magic of 'controlled inundation (parisaraka) of the riparian land. This means that he belonged to the riparian agricultural civilisation of the Indus era. Rks 20-24 of the Rg-Vedic hymn 111.53, composed by the Aryan seer Visvamitra, are considered to be anti- Vasishtha. The former was patriarchal while the latter was matriarchal. Hence the struggle that commenced at this early period of Indian history was bet- ween two peoples - the one agricultural and hence matriarchal and matrilineal and the other pastoral and hence patri- archal. Karma, in his quarrel with Salya, derided the matrilineal Vahikas of Punjab as Dasamiyas and Vrshalas (slaves and slavelike). 3 The grammarian Patanjali (BC 200), commenting on Panini's rule 1.4.1, clas- sified the countries of his time as a- Brahmanako desah' (non-Brahmin coun- tries) and 'a-Vrshalak desah' (Brahmin countries). 4 The struggle between these two social systems was bound to be lenght out in the ideological field. Philosophies of India are not divided between materialistic and idealistic systems, but between a-Brahmin or Nastika (an ti-transcendentalistic) and Brahmin or Astika (transcendentalistic). Shankhya (Later tradition classified this as Brahmanic), Lokayata (materialism), Jainism and Buddhism are a-Brahmin, while Purva-Mimamsa, Vedanta, Nyaya (Logic) and Vaiseshika are Brahmin. All these non-Brahmanic philosophies had their own monastic orders called gana or sangha (tribe) which were casteless (i e, classless). It is well known that these were against caste system and karmakanda. When two Bhikkhus called Vamehi and Tokula, hailing from the Brahmin caste, urged Buddha to per- mit them to render his teachings in Sanskrit, he forbade them and laid down that his teachings should be pro- pagated exclusively in the languages spoken by die people. 5 The saint Jnan- esvwra, who is supposed to have laid the foundation of the Bhakti movement in Maharashtra, was boycotted by the Brahmin caste council (Brahma-sabha), and hence, was constrained to embrace the non-Brahmanic Nath sect. The saint Cakradhara of the Mahanubhavas was Jnaneswara's predecessor. He was tor- tured to death by Hemadri, the Brah- min minister of the Vadavas of Deo- giri. The Bhagawat dharma itself is considered to be non-Brahmanic, 6 Tims, Phule (1827-1890) had behind him a long non-Brahmin tradition. The Brahmin or Astika philosophies and their Vedic and neo-Vedic religions were fierce protagonists of caste society and sexual inequality. The philosophy fashioned by priest-kings such as Pra- vahana Jaivali, Asvapati Kaikyea, and Janaka, of the rajaka tribal slave States was Brahmavada or Monist idealism, while the philosophy of the a-rajaka tribal slave States or Sangha-ganas, which arose out of the dissolution of these theocratic monarchies, was a form of Sankhya or dualistie pluralism. Krishna, the leader of the first sanglia-gana in India, was faced with the task of preserving his nascent oli- 287

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Page 1: Patil_Dialectics of Caste and Class Conflicts

Dialectics of Caste and Class Conflicts Sharad Patil

The transition from the non-hereditary varna to the hereditary jati marks the transition from the early tribal slave societies to the feudal societies before India was colonised. This article traces that process in some detail. Jati or caste did then represent class defined in terms of relation to land, expropriation of its surplus, and military and bureaucratic sharing of wealth and power.

With colonial society, new class relations came into being. In the basically mercantile economy the urban bourgeoisie, big and small, merged with the rural class of rentier landlords as the creditor became de facto landlord and the debtor a permanent serf. Naturally, the rentier was a vehement protagonist of the varna jati dharma or ideology, ever to underpin the changing economic and political base.

It should he emphasised that the ruling classes of capitalists and landlords and their parties increasingly rely on caste and religious support in the race for parliamentary power.

Given the composition of Indian society, socialism cannot be achieved without peasant agrarian revolution. And it is in the rural areas that caste is the strongest. Mass organisations will have to devote as much energy to the struggle against caste as they devote to the struggle against economic exploitation on new class lines.

CASTE in Vedic times was not based on bir th, but on initiation (Aryan: upanayana; non-Aryan: abhisincana, upasampada). The Vratya-stoma of Atharva-veda (XV) was composed for absorbing alien tribes or tribesmen into the tribal caste society. As for hierarchi­cal ranking of castes, we see that dur­ing the epic period, through the higher three castes: Brahman, kshatriya and Vaisya, of the rajaka (monarchical) tribal slave States had hypergamous inequality amongst them, they had equal rights in the administrative organs of these States, i e, in the sabha (tribal council) and the parishad (tribal assembly). In the a-rajaka (non-monor-chical) tribal slave States or sangha-ganas — from which Mahavira and Buddha hailed — there was no Brah­min caste at all, the custodian of purity. (The Sudra-Dasas, though slaves during the whole epoch of the tribal slave so­ciety, wore varna and not non-varna, and hence were not untouchables.)

Two HERTTAGES

Phule's theory of the caste system was that it was created by the Aryan or Irani Bhats or Brahmana. His hark­ing back to king Bali1 meant that, be­fore the coming of the Irani Brahmins, Indian society was a caste-less (i e, classless) agricultural community. Thus, his race theory did not owe its origin exclusively to the European one but drew upon an age-old non-Brahman tradition.2 The term 'bahu-jana samaj', meaning majority of society, is not of Marathi origin. Indeed, 'bahu-jana' was a term which Buddha usually used to denote the masses, while 'Brahmanetara' is a term which goes back to early Vedic times.

"Aitareya Brahmana" (11.19), the earliest treatise on Vedic ritualism, relates that the Vedic seer Kavasha Ailusha was denounced as 'a-Brahmin' by the Aryan priests, who were per­forming a sacrificial session on the banks of the river Saravaati; he was driven out in to the sandy waste to die of thirst and hunger. His 'Child of (he Waters' (Apo-naptriyam) hymn (Rg X.30)) was meant for performing the magic of 'controlled inundation (parisaraka) of the riparian land. This means that he belonged to the riparian agricultural civilisation of the Indus era. Rks 20-24 of the Rg-Vedic hymn 111.53, composed by the Aryan seer Visvamitra, are considered to be anti-Vasishtha. The former was patriarchal while the latter was matriarchal. Hence the struggle that commenced at this early period of Indian history was bet­ween two peoples - the one agricultural and hence matriarchal and matrilineal and the other pastoral and hence patri­archal. Karma, in his quarrel with Salya, derided the matrilineal Vahikas of Punjab as Dasamiyas and Vrshalas (slaves and slavelike).3

The grammarian Patanjali (BC 200), commenting on Panini's rule 1.4.1, clas­sified the countries of his time as a-Brahmanako desah' (non-Brahmin coun­tries) and 'a-Vrshalak desah' (Brahmin countries).4 The struggle between these two social systems was bound to be lenght out in the ideological field. Philosophies of India are not divided between materialistic and idealistic systems, but between a-Brahmin or Nastika (an ti-transcendentalistic) and Brahmin or Astika (transcendentalistic). Shankhya (Later tradition classified this as Brahmanic), Lokayata (materialism), Jainism and Buddhism are a-Brahmin,

while Purva-Mimamsa, Vedanta, Nyaya (Logic) and Vaiseshika are Brahmin. A l l these non-Brahmanic philosophies had their own monastic orders called gana or sangha (tribe) which were casteless (i e, classless). It is well known that these were against caste system and karmakanda. When two Bhikkhus called Vamehi and Tokula, hailing from the Brahmin caste, urged Buddha to per­mit them to render his teachings in Sanskrit, he forbade them and laid down that his teachings should be pro­pagated exclusively in the languages spoken by die people.5 The saint Jnan-esvwra, who is supposed to have laid the foundation of the Bhakti movement in Maharashtra, was boycotted by the Brahmin caste council (Brahma-sabha), and hence, was constrained to embrace the non-Brahmanic Nath sect. The saint Cakradhara of the Mahanubhavas was Jnaneswara's predecessor. He was tor­tured to death by Hemadri, the Brah­min minister of the Vadavas of Deo-giri . The Bhagawat dharma itself is considered to be non-Brahmanic,6 Tims, Phule (1827-1890) had behind him a long non-Brahmin tradition.

The Brahmin or Astika philosophies and their Vedic and neo-Vedic religions were fierce protagonists of caste society and sexual inequality. The philosophy fashioned by priest-kings such as Pra-vahana Jaivali, Asvapati Kaikyea, and Janaka, of the rajaka tribal slave States was Brahmavada or Monist idealism, while the philosophy of the a-rajaka tribal slave States or Sangha-ganas, which arose out of the dissolution of these theocratic monarchies, was a form of Sankhya or dualistie pluralism.

Krishna, the leader of the first sanglia-gana in India, was faced wi th the task of preserving his nascent o l i -

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garchy from the attacks of the rajaka States such as Magadha and Salva. He struck a historic compromise with a section of these rajaka States led by the Pandavas. The philosophy which he fashioned to justify this alliance came to he known as Advaita Brahmavada, a combination of the philosophies of these two types of slave States. Better known as Vedanta, it found its greatest exponent in modern times in Tilak who wrote his famous "Gita-rahasya'' to ex­pound it . Since then it has become the official philosophy of the Indian bour­geoisie who had reached a 'historical compromise' wi th landlordism right I rum the time of Phule and which has continued even after Independence,

Dange inherited this Astika tradi­tion from T i l a k Bani Deshpande Dange's son-in-law, states in his "The Universe of Vedanta" that the Vedanta philosophy of Badarayana is the greatest philosophy of India7 and proclaims . ' . . . the Vedanta philosophers establish­ed their supremacy over every school of philosophy virtually wiping them out of existence from the soil of India. . , '8 Deshpande even claims that, what Marx did in fashioning his dia­lectical materialism was just to redis­cover the Vedanta philosophy!9 Dange, in his foreword to this book, extolls the philosophy as "astounding cognition of the world process, its taws and philoso­phy" by the ,vedavadins,,10 This is the herilage of Vedavadin nationalists and communists!

NAGATIVE INTELLECTUAL LEGACY

B R Ambedkar attempted to prove that the Sudras originally constituted the solar Kshatriya caste of the Vedic Aryan society, but that since the Brah­mins refused to perform upanayana for them they were pushed down to the fourth caste.11 The non-Brahmins regarded not only the so-called Vedic religion, but all Vedic and Sanskrit literature, culture, and philosophy, to be products of the intellectual villainy of the Brahmins against the Sudra-Atisudras.12

Ambedkar's argument, however, can hardly stand the test of history. Sangha-ganas right from that of the Yadavas of the Mahabharata times (BC 850) to those of Buddha's time (BC 600) had no Brahmin caste. Their initiation samskara consisted in taking a ceremo­nial bath (abhisincana) in their mangala Vokkurunis (lotus ponds). This negative attitude goes back to the time when the Nastika philosophies started their struggle against the At ika philosophies.

Though Buddha took the same att i­tude, he evolved his philosophy after a thorough exploration of the Astika and

Nastika philosophies of his time, and in response to the need for a philoso­phy that could provide ideological leadership to the anti-slavery feudal re­volution of his time. (Chapters X I V 'Sangha-gana', XV 'Philosophies of the Slave Era', and X V I 'Feudal Revolu­tion' , of my book "Dasa-Sudra Slavery", being published by Allied Publishers, expound these philosophies sociologi­cally.) That is why his school proved to be the longest (BO 600 to AD 700) and produced the greatest galaxy of philosophers from Nagasena and Nagar-juna to Dignaga and Dharmakirti. Bud­dhism is responsible for the greatest revolution in all fields of Indian his­tory. But, though Buddhism was against caste system, it left it untouched. W i t h its eclipse the non-Brahmin current lost its spirit of independent philoso­phical quest. The social cultural and philosophical revolts, since then, were essentially readjustment wi thin the feudal system, and were thus unable to go out of the caste and philosophical framework of Brahman ism.

Non-Brahmin thinkers of the colonial period though they broke through the caste framework, were unable to rise above this negative legacy. Their nega­tive attitude towards the so-called Brahnumic Indian history, philosophy, and culture could not but have adverse effects on their intellectual achieve­ments. That is why the non-Brahmins failed to develop their own scholarship.13

DIALECTICAL RELATION OF CASTE AND

CLASS

Phule identified caste wi th class. He visualised the struggle of the hahujtma samaj as a class struggle of the Sudras and Ati-Sudras against the Shetjis and Bhatjis. It is worth noting that, up to the advent of the British raj in India, the main class division of all class socie­ties in India was constituted in a com­munal manner. The rajaka tribal slave States of the epic period were consti­tuted by the three ruling and exploiting castes: Brahman, Kshatriya and Va.sya, while the ruled and exploited caste was Sudra (in non-Brahmanical States: Dasa-karmakara). The Arab feudal class too, that ruled over non-Islamic subject peoples, comprised the conqueror Arab tribes.14 Pre-Turkish Indian feudal so­ciety was made up of the military castes and the Brahmin caste as the ruling and exploiting castes, on the one hand, and the Sudra and Ati-Sudra castes (merchants, peasants and labourers), on the other. This wil l be best illustrated by what M C Ranade said in 1898 about the social transformation being brought about by the British;.

...The country is in a transition stage, passing from semi-feudal patriarchal conditions of existence into a more

settled and commercial order of things...from the laws of custom to the rule of competition.... In all countries, property, whether in land or in goods, must gravitate towards the class which has more intelligence and greater foresight, and practises abstinence, and must slip from the hands of those who are ignorant, improvident, and hopeless to stand on their own resources. This is a law of Providence and ran never be wisely or safely ignored by practical states­men for any fancied or sentimental considerations. As long as the dif­ferences in the habits and education of the saving few, represented by the Bania and the Brahmin classes, and the spending many who count by millions among the military and the cultivating classes remains good, property will gravitate from the one class to the other, notwithstanding all prohibitory legislation....15

Ranade, as is well known, was a social reformer, a liberal nationalist and one of our earliest bourgeois economists. What he says .-mounts to this: the feu­dal ruling castes of Brahmins and Mara-thas were being replaced by the capita­listic Brahmin and Bania castes. Phule used the more popular terms: Shetjis and Bhatjis, instead of Banias and Brah­mins. Class in pre-colonial India was not made up of economically, pol i t i ­cally and socially homogeneous group of persons, but of one or a cluster of castes which were analogous politically and socially. CIass itself was a com­munal category.

But does this mean that there was no economic differentiation within castes? Many among the highest castes: Brah­min and Kshitriya, lived in penmy even in ancient times. Autdrasa, the Brah­min seer of the Hgvedic livmn X.117, cursing his affluent caste-brothers, says. No, the gods have not created hunger

as the only way to death; Deaths (of various types) also await the

satiated man. The riches of the donor do not get

exhausted, And the miser finds no one to pity

him.16

tlAitareya Brahmana" (VI I . 15) says that the Brahmin Ajigarta Sanyavasi, hard-pressed by hunger and destitution, sold off his middle son Sunahsepa for hundred cows to the Ikshuaku prince Rohita for sacrificing him in his stead to the god Varuna. The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata narrate tales of pau­per Brahmins who lived by the unche way, i e, by gleaning grain from har­vested fields and fuodgathering. The captains of Alexander have recorded that numerous Kshatriyas hired out their services. This was the situation as far as the tribal slave society was concerned.

In feudalism, the ruled and" exploited Sudra peasant castes had economic dif­ferentiations. Irfan Habib gives us a class break-up of a Punjab village sur­veyed in 1897-87 for the assessment of jiziya (poll tax on non-Muslims).17

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In the Gatha Sapta-sati of the Sata-vahana king Hala (AD 50) gamani (village chief) falls in category I, gaha-vais (Sanskrit: grahu-pati, meaning householder) in I I , and halikas in I I I . That is why the great scholast Vacaspati Misra (AD 900) said that a dusty-footed halika is not capable of philosophical cognition.18

But does this mean that economic differentiation had taken place in all castes? Data lifted from the census of 1951 is tabulated in Table 2 to help arrive at an approximate estimate as to the extent to which class differentiation had taken place in the six Adivasi talu­ks of the district Dhule in Maharashtra.

Class differentiation had taken place to the extent that land alienation due to usury and capitalistic agriculture had developed. We can infer from this that, in pro-colonial India, no economic diffe­rentiation could take place in the Ad i ­vasi tribes and the Ati-Sudra castes. In pre-colonial India, there were claims of shares in the agricultural product. This is not to be confused w i th private property in the means of production. Thus, in pre-colonial class societies of India, though economic dif­ferentiation could take place between the ruling and the peasant castes, it could not split any of these castes into classes. Caste hindered further class formation. Hence, class struggle in such a society could take place only through caste organisations. Class struggle took the form of caste (and communal) struggles,

PROPERTY AND CASTE

Thi.s conclusion is bound to lead to the formulation which Omvedt makes:

... Prior to colonial rule, in almost all cases, land was not a commodity but, in the words of Eric Wolf, an 'attribute of the community' to which the peasant belonged claimed by a community, a class, or tribe or l i n ­eage as a whole. In India, though the British asked the question 'who owned the land?', it was in fact the wrong question : no one owned i t , rather, certain groups, from cultivators and artisans in villages up to feudal overlords, had a claim to shares of the produce on the basis of their performance of functions for the society. But colonial rule most typic­ally established land as a market com­modity.... 19

Sale and purchase of land is attested in Buddha's time itself by the pur­chase of the site for the Jeta-vana Vihara at Sravasti by the trader Anatha-pindika from the prince Jera of the non-tribal feudal Kosala kingdom. More regular transactions — sanctioned and regulated by law in Mauryan times — are evidenced by the chapter 111.05 of the "Arthasastra" entitled 'Sale of Vastu' — vastu meaning house, land, etc.

This was possible because — with the advent of non-tribal feudal States such as Kosala, Magadha, Avanti, etc — instead of the clan, the joint family became the primary and most important unit of Society. Communal property was displaced by joint family property. According to "Arthavastra" (111.61) family and property became divisible in every fifth generation. Kautalya lays down that land can be sold or mort­

gaged by a landowner of a tax-paying village to another person of a tax-pay­ing village only, and by a brahma-deya grantee to another grantee only. The seller had to ask his clansmen first, then his neighbours, then his creditor.20

Though it is argued that Kautalya had legislated only for the sale of a house, it is clear that he laid down a proce­dure by giving the rules for selling a vastu like a house.

R S Sharma's observation should be taken in tins context. " I t is only from the Gupta period onwards that the law books lay down provisions regarding partition, sale, mortgage, adverse pos­session and lease of land."21 Irfan Habib proves indisputably that, during the Moghul period, peasant families owned their respective lands and they could alienate their lands subject to above-mentioned provisions.22 Colonial rule removed all these restrictions on the alienation of landed property and opened the way for the formation of classes in every caste. Marx noted tin's new economic development and wrote in New York Times, August 8, 1853: "Modern industry wil l dissolve the hereditary division of labour, upon which rest the Indian castes, those de­cisive impediments to Indian progress and Indian power."23

According to Marx, caste was a pro­duct of pre-industrial class society. Hence he expected it to disappear dur­ing the development of modern indus­try and the class struggles generated by i t . Dange, wri t ing in Socialist, Novem­ber 25, 1922, identified caste with class: "The fight of the Non-Brahmin classes to raise themselves to the status of the Brahmins began when the Hindu society divided itself into various castes or classes."'21 Thus, according to him, the struggle of the non-Brahmins was exclusively for sanskritisation, for rais­ing themselves to the erstwhile ruling caste or castes. He went on to say that the non-Brahmin movement was dominated In petty bourgeois elements who wanted a share in the spoils. However, he admited that there were also sincere but confused elements who wanted to do away with all classes. But, castes, he declared, were of no consequence; for they would vanish in the class struggle to give way to two classes only: 'Troletarians and God Capital)!25'-' In order to prove his old thesis, he writes in his work of more mature age :

'The rise of the three Varnas (Brah­man, Kshatriya and Vaisya) takes place simultaneously with the rise of slavery, the Sudra Varna. Why? Because slavery arises out of the same momentum that brought forth the Varnas — the variety and rising productivity of labour, exchange and private property ...,26

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That is why Prabhakar Vaidya re­marks that class theory or class struggle was taken by these early communists to be the panacea for solving every problem! 27

VARNA AND JATI

Romila Thapur makes a distinction between varna and jati and thinks that varna was the theory and ritual rank­ing of castes, while jati was the actual stains and functioning of castes.

. . . the functional aspect of caste appears to have been jati and not varna. Varna appears to have re-presented the theory of structure, and may best be translated by the word 'group'. Jati relationships represent the actual way in which .society functioned, and this word is better translated as 'caste'. Varna became what sociologists have called the ritual rank', whereas jati was the indication of the actual status. The dharma-sastras, therefore, when speaking of varna, were referring to the theory of caste, each varna re­presenting the ritual ranking of castes, and not necessarily the actual socio-economical status. Every jati was given a ritual rank so that its order in the hierarchy could be easily assigned....28

The rise and development of varna and jati are held by Thapar to be con­temporaneous. The word jati does not occur in Vedic literature except in ''Nirukta (XII.13)p and "Katyayana Srauta Sutra',. 30 It means that jati is post-Vedie institution. Then what is varna? The Rgvedic hymn, 1,179.6 says that the Kshatra Lopamudra and the Brahma Agastya nourished both the var-na.s by uniting in sacred marriage. Ac­cording to A K Coomaraswamy, the sat red marriage (deva-rivaha) was per­formed in order to imitate the sacred marriage of the Sky and the Earth (Pyava-Prithvi) in rainy season through which the world was reproduced.'31

The Kasika commentary on Pani-ni's rule, VI .2. 131, tells us that the terms paksha and varga were applied to the parties or constituents of a tribe. These terms also mean half or the moieties of a tribe, which takes us to the original meaning of varna. The m actios of a t r ibe: Kshatra and Brahma, nutted to reproduce the tribe and the world, Aitareya Brahmana (IV.27) des­cribes the sacred marriage of the Rashtri or Kshatra Vak and the Brahma Brhas-pati. Rashtri is the only word lor king­ship in ' 'Nighantu' ' (II.22.1), the oldest Vedic glossary. thus, Rashtri was the designation of the queen of a matriarchal tribe. Kashtra means the cammunal land of a tribe. Vak also is called Rashlri-devi by Atharva-veda (IV.30). Devi means one who distributes vashtra land

by lots (aksha). The water of the river SarasvatI which was brought to con­secrate a king in the Raja-suya sacrifice is called rashtra-da (rashtra-giving) by ''Vajasaueyi Sainhita" (X.2-1). SarasvatI, a tributary of the Indus, conferred such a kingship on the person elected by the tribe for kingship.

Tims, the matriarchal agricultural tribe of the Indus civilisation was con­stituted by two varnas, denoting its two sexes. The tribe was classless, but wo­men being the rulers and men the ruled, there was social inequality between them. Thus, varna arose in a classless tribal society; but the society being matriarchal, it was a product of sexual or social inequality as well as division of labour. Wi th the advent of the pre-Aryan rajaka tribal slave society, com-prising of Kshatriya, Brahmin, and Dasa-Kamakara varnas, varna became the manifestation of social and economic inequalities and further division of labour in class society.

The word jati is used in the sense of caste for the first time by "Vinaya-pilaka32 It enumerates Candala, Vena, Nesada, Rathakara, and Pukkusa, as low jatis, and Khattiya and Brahmin as high jatis. We come across the jatis men­tioned by "Vinayapitaka" only in the non-tribal feudal monarchies such as Kosala, Magadha, etc. that had arisen in Buddha's time. Hence, jati is a product ef fendal society representing the mult i -pb ing and increasing division of labour and social and economic inequalities in that society.

VARNA AND JAN

But what is the difference between the social inequalities represented by these two institutions, and what is their relati in with each other? Nobody could become a member of tribal society — classless or class — without being i n i t i ­ated with its sumsakara. It was a puberty rite which entitled one to all the rights and privileges of that society. It was the ritual of rebirth.

Hence, Kshatriya and Brahmin varnas of the non-Brahman rajaka slave Stales were twice bonis (deija), while their cammunal slaves and labourers of the Dasa-karmakara varna were once-horns. In the same manner. Brahmin, kshatriya. and Vaisya varnas on the Brahmanic rajaka slave Slates were twice-borns, while their communal slaves and labour­ers of the Sudra varna were once borns. Again, each of the twice-born varnas had a different kind of initiation ritual. The sangha-ganas that succeeded both types of the rajaka States had only two varnas ; Kshatriya and Dasa-Kannakara.

Thus, the main thing that distinguished the varna system was the Init iation ritual.

The sangha-gana, or the highest form of tribal slave system, was displaced by the samanta or the non-tribal feudal system. Hence, initiation, a pre-emi-nently tribal ritual, lost its efficacy. It became an empty ritual. A person was now born in his jati, which is the literal meaning of the term. Kane gives the characteristic features of jati as fo l ­lows :

In most of the works on the castes in India a few features are pointed out as the characteristics common to all castes and sub-castes. They are: (1) heredity, i e, in theory a tuan is assigned to a particular caste by birth in that caste; (2) endogamy and exogamy, i e, restriction as to marry­ing in the same caste and not marry­ing certain relations or other persons, though of the same caste; (3) restric­tions as to food (i e, what food or water may be taken or not taken and from whom): (4) occupation (i e, members of most castes follow certain occupations and no others); (5) gradua­tion of castes, some being at the top in the social scale and others being deemed to be sa low that they are untouchable... (6) The caste council with the chief having in meeting assembled among other matter. The power to regulate the conduct of its members, to impose the penalties of fines or excommunication for lapses...''33

In the Buddhist canons, the word 'jati' is still used in the sense of tribe. The Sakya tribe is repeatedly referred to as jati ,3 4 Jatis evolved out of disintegrated of subjugated tribal States or tribes. The real disintegrator or subjugator of the tribal States or tribes was the new feu­dal means or mode of production. Jatis became parts of a non-tribal feudal class society, but regulated their internal affairs subject to the powers vested in the feudal State lunctionaries on a tribal model, as is evident from the above-mentioned characteristics, They took their place in the new non-tribal feudal society in the framework of the old varna system according to the new divi­sion of labour in a hierarchical manner. This is how the new varna-jati system came into existence.

RELIGION NEW AND OLD

The religion of this new society is defined by the Dharmasastras as con­sisting of Sranta (Vedic) and Smarta (based on Smritis). Srauta was the varna-asrama and sacrificial (karma-kanda) religion of the old rajaka (priest-kingly) tribal slave society, and Smarta is the varna-jati religion of the new non-tribal feudal society. This compo­site religious code was systematised by

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individual Brahmin priestly ministers of the feudal kings. But, though the religion of the rajaka tribal slave so­ciety was varna-asrama and karma-kanda, there never was any individual law-giver of the tribal slave society as a whole. The repositories of tribal re­ligion were the tribal elders.

Yudhishthira, after becoming the priest-king (dharma-raja) of all the Kurus, sought instruction in dhanna (which then covered everything, law, religion, philosophy, etc) from Bhishma, a Kshatriya tribal elder of the Kurus. Buddha says in the "Mahaparinibbana-sutta" that the repositors of the age-old religion of the Vajjis are their t r ibal elders. The religion of the sangha-gana oligarchies was again varna-asrama, though in a modified form, but minus karma-kanda.

The religion of each tribal State was in its own spoken language. The religion of the feudal society was now exclusi­vely in Sanskrit, which had long ceased to be a language spoken by the people. Wi th the beginning of the Christian era, even the the non-Brahmanical [ainas and Buddhas adopted Sanskrit as their literary language. Sanskrit be­came a prerogative of the top feudal class. Not only Sudras and Ati-Sudras, but women as a class not excluding queens could speak only in Prakrit.

Brahmins now became the sole re­positories of Vedas and Vedandas. In pre-feudal times, initiation was never the monopoly of the Brahmin varna. In that society, even when kingship be­came hereditary, every new king had to obtain I he sanction of the tribal eld­ers and he was consecrated to king­ship by the tribal assembly. Only a Kshatriya could become a king. But now any powerful leader of a military tribe-cum-caste could seize power. That is why the Puranas say that, wi th the Sudra Nandas, Kshatriyas had ceased to exist. This military tribe-cum-caste hail to be initiated to the Kshatriya caste. The job was now done by the Brah­min priesthood. The Brahmin caste be­came the sole dispenser of sanskritisa-tion. In return, prominent priestly Brahmins received brahma-deya land grants. Those grantees became a part of the class of zamindars — the Moghul term for feudal lords, equivalent to Deshmukhs or Desais. That is why Ranade said that the military caste and the Brahmin caste were the rulers of the feudal society.

ARMY OF PRAYER

Patil or mugaddam, and desai-desh-mukh or chaudhari, were usually of the

dominant mili tary caste. Kulakarni-deshpande or patwari, and sir-desh-pande or ganugo, were invariably Brah­mins or to a lesser extent Kayasthas. What was their charge on the revenue collected? Irfan Habib informs us:

. . . I t appears that from M i r a t . . . that there was a five per cent charge on the revenue which was equally divided between the mugaddam and the desai (chaudhari) just as there was another charge known as sad-doi, or 'two per cent', which was equally divided between the patwari and the ganugo (Ain I, p 2000).35

What was the share of the village priest in the 'surplus product' of the peasant in a village? We get the following information from South India.

. .Acco rd ing to Benjamin Heyne, who studied the situation in South India in the first decade of the last century, the tax equalled 35 per cent of the crop, the remuneration for the administration and armed men (of the zamindar?) accounted for 12.5 per cent, for members of the clergy over 2.5 per cent, and for servants (not engaged in agriculture) and arti­sans 2.5 per cent. Thus, only about

-half of the total crop (in an average year) was retained by the working part of the rural population (ryots, pariahs, servants and artisans).'16

As for the tax-free land allotted to Brahmins and Cazees, we get the fol­lowing information from Gujarat given by James Forbes in 1856.

... Some particular fields, called pysita and vajeeso lands, are set apart in each village for public purposes . . .; in most, the produce of these lands is appropriated to the mainten­ance of the Brahmins, the cazees, washermen, smith, barber, and the lame, blind and helpless; as also to the support of a few vertunnes, or armed men who are kept for tin: defence of the village.

In the tax report of June 10, 1815, prepared by Forbes, we find a more accurate description of pysita as a land allotment provided 'for the maintenance of various descriptions of artificers in each vil lage. It was also allotted to members of the clergy, communal servants and administra­tive staff of the district. The total areas of these lands in the district are 36,563 bighas, of which only 5,190 bighas were owned by 'village artifieees, such as carpenters, black­smiths, potters, tailors, washermen, barbers, shoemakers and tanners'. An estimated 14,380, bighas were owned by communal servants (bhils, jains, etc), while the rest of this laud (10,993 bighas) belonged to the ad­ministration personnel and priests staffing the temples and mosques. In other words, this part of the land was in effect feudal tax-exempt pro­perty. ...:37

Religious land grants to Brahmins in the pre-Turkish feudal regimes in Maha­rashtra are described by K S Sharma as follows:

In the Rastrakuta kingdom, far more villages wore held by temples and Brahmanas than in the Pala and Pratihara dominions taken together. Apart from grants of villages made singly, the Rastrakuta records speak of the regrant of 400 villages by one ruler, and the grant by another ruler of 1,400 villages, 600 agraharas and 800 villages to temples (devakulas). Thus under the Rastrakutas, priestly institutions rather than priests them­selves, seem to have emerged as im­portant intermediaries in land . . . This development seems to have taken place in Maharashtra under the in ­fluence of the South where temples possessed more landed property than individual priests.'38

Even under the bureaucratic feuda­lism of the imperial Mauryas rtvik (priest), acarya (teacher), mantri (minis­ter) and purohita (royal chaplain) — all Brahmins — were paid a salary of 38.000 panas per year, equivalent to what was paid to senapati (army chief), yuvaraj (crown prince), rajmata (king's mother), and mahishi (chief queen) (V.91). The military caste and the Brahmin caste were equal partners in the feudal rule in every respect, the need being mutual. That is why the Moghul emperor Jahangir called the priesthood 'lashkar-i-idua.

. . . T h e State had its own interest in maintaining this class. Jahangir called it the Army of Prayer', and, he is reported to have said that this army was as important for the em­pire as the real army . . . .:38

R S Sharma notes that, in India, there was no 'struggle between the Papacy and the State' (which later deve­loped into the ideological struggle that prepared the ground for the industrial revolution) which characterised the history of medieval Europe, but that the ruling dynasties of pre-Turkish times 'vied with one another in making reli­gious grants'.40

Sankaracharya (AD 788-820), consider­ed to be the greatest idealist philosopher of India, established the organised Hindu chinch in India, which was the ideo­logical and religious bulwark of Indian feudalism. The leaders of the Indian bourgeoisie did not unfurl the banner of materialism as their counterparts in Europe did a few centuries earlier, but took over the saffron flag of Vedanta from the Hindu church through Tilak. The only Marxist scholars of Indian philosophy of note: Rahul Sankritya-yana, Deviprasad Chattopadhyaya, and K Damodaran — excepting the first — owe allegiance to the Vedantin Dange's political party. Damodaran could not withstand the spell of Vedanta.41 Mar­xist philosophy is yet to wage a serious struggle against this philosophy of the Hindu church.

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STRUGGLE AGAINST CLASS -CASTE

Omvedt says that, w i th colonial society, new class relations came into being.

Wi th the basically mercantile eco­nomy that dominated rural as well A, urban colonial areas, the commercial bourgeoisie, big and l i t t le , was not .simply an urban class but merged into The rural class of rentier landlords as the creditor became a de facto land­lord and the debtor a permanent serf.12

The high caste Hindu rentier landlords were naturally vehement protagonists of the varna-jati dharma.15 And though the political and economic base changed, the caste system survived.44 W i t h Independence,

.. The Maharashtrian Brahmin in­telligentsia, though still dominant in educational and cultural institutions. has been swept from political power by a rich peasant non-Brahmin clite with strong roots in the villages and wi th an institutional basis in rural co­operatives and educational societies. The existence of a class elite in almost every caste group, including untouch­ables, has meant a significant degree of opening up of the society and a dispersal of castes along the economic ladder. Yet caste traditions, includ­ing the relegation of untouchables to separate living arias, remain strong in the villages and religious practices which the Satvashodhak Samaj op­posed, including reliance on Brahmin priests, remain in existence . . . .43

It should be added that the ruling classes of capitalists and landlords and their ruling party, as they turn away from 'Western' democracy, are increas­ingly relying on religious and caste support. (There was only Congress then. Now there is also Janata, the mass powerful and cohesive constituent of which is Jan Sangh.) Muslim and Christian communities in India are themselves taste ridden. Development of an elite class in every caste, commu­nity and tribe (increasing organised militancy in the tribal communities has forced the government to pour far greater funds for their 'uplift ') has broadened and strengthened the social base of this class-cum-easte rule. The struggle for revolutionary social trans­formation in India has thus become more difficult, complex, and protracted. The warning that Ambedkar gave to Indian socialists and communists in 1916 has hardly lost its force today.

. . . T h a t the social order prevalent in India is a matter which a Socialist must ileal with, that unless he does so he cannot achieve his revolution, and that it he does achieve it as a result of good fortune he wi l l have to grapple with it if he wishes to realise his ideal, is a proposition which in my opinion is incontrovert­ible. He wi l l be compelled to take

account of caste after revolution if he does not take account of it before revolution . .. .44

Socialism cannot be achieved in India without 'peasant (agrarian) revolution'. And it is in the rural areas that the caste system is the strongest and the Left movement the weakest — practically non-existent in large areas. As far as Maharashtra is concerned, Leftist par­ties have tended to become urbanised and elitised. Marxism is becoming in­creasingly attractive, but it is unable to br ing Marxist persons, groups and par­ties closer in order to form a Marxist-Leninist party capable of organising and leading the revolution.

But there is increasing realisation, on the other hand, that an organised struggle against the caste system and oppression of women should accompany the class and mass movements. It is this realisation that has given rise to a controversy that in order to conduct such a struggle separate organisations of scheduled castes and tribes should be formed. Separate organisations of women of various Left parties are al­ready in the field, though mainly led by elite urban women. There is no pro­priety in establishing new organisations of scheduled castes and tribes. Mass organisations of the agricultural labour­ers and industrial workers must devote; as much energy to the struggle against the caste system as they devote to the struggle against the class system.

W i l l castes disappear along wi th classes? Marx said that, though econo­mic classes wil l disappear in socialism, the old ideology, sexual inequality, in­equality between intellectual and manual labour, disparity between urban and rural areas, and other vestiges of thousands of years of class rule wil l persist. The first castes arose out of the sexual or social inequality in the classless matriarchal society. Hence, caste being basically a manifestation of even pre-class social inequality, vesti­ges of caste will remain even after the disappearance of classes. Out of the fire of the final fight against these vestiges of caste-class system wi l l emerge; a new man, the builder of communism in India. All our energies, therefore, must be bent in conducting the present re­volutionary movement against the class-caste rule with this final goal in view.

Notes

1 Gail Omvedt. "Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahmin Movement in Western India, 1873 to 1930'', pp 114-116. E M S Namboodiripad, "Kerala; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" pp 115-116, pp 29-31.

3 Mahabharata, V I I I . 44-45. 4 Vasudevshastri Abhyankar, Vyaka-

rana-Mahabhashya, Part I I , p 107. 5 J Kashyap (ed), Vinayapitaka, Culla-

vaggapuli, V. 16.43. 6 Lakshmanshastri Joshi, Navabharata

(Maruthi), Nov-Dec 1975. 7 Bani Deshpande, "The Universe of

Vedanta", p 154. 8 lbid, p 155. 9 Ibid, p 152.

10 Ibid, p 14. 11 B R Ambedkar, "Who Were the

Shudras?" pp XIV-XV. 12 Gail Omvedt, op cit, pp 114-116. 13 Ibid, pp 62-63. 14 Mohammad Habib, ''Politics and

Society during Early Medieval Period", Vol I, p 97; A Engineer, "Islam—Muslims—India", p 27.

15 M G Ranade, "Essays on Indian Economics", pp 314-315

16 D R Chanana, Rg-Bhasva-Sangraha, p 261.

17 Irfan Habib, "The Agrarian System of Mughal India", pp 119-121.

IS Canganath Jha (Trans), The Taira-kaiimudi, p 35.

19 Gail Omvedt, op cit, pp 21-25. 20 R S Sharma, "Indian Feudalism:

c 300-1200'', p 139. 21 Ibid, pp 144-145. 22 Irfan Habib, op cit, pp 111-115. 23 R P Dutt, "India Today", p 244. 24 S A Dange, Selected Writings,

Vol 1, p 212. 25 Ibid, pp 215-216. 26 Ibid, " India : From Primitive Com­

munism to Slavery", p 186. 27 P B Vaidya, op cit, p 165. 28 Romila Thapar, "Past and Preju­

dice", pp 29-30. 29 P V Kane, "History of Dharma-

sastra". Vol II. 30 Vedic Index, 1.381. 31 A K Coomaraswamy, "Spiritual

Authority and Temporal Power in Indian Theory of Government", pp 65-66.

32 J Kashyap (ed), op cit, Pacittiya-pali, V 2.15.

33 P V Kane, op cit, p 23. 34 J Kashyap (ed), op cit, Mahavag-

eapalli, 1.30.37; Diuhanikavapali, Silakkhandhavaggo, III,3,111 III,-4,14.

35 Irian Habib, on cit, p 132. 36 V Pavlov V Rastynnikov, G Shiro-

kov, " India : Social and Economic Development (18th-20th Century)", p 26.

37 Ibid, pp 29-30. 38 R S Sharma, on cit. up 112-113. 39 Irian Habib, op cit, p 310. 40 P S Sharma, op cit, P 208. 41 K Damodaran, ' 'Indian Thought",

p 487. 42 Gail Omvedt, op cit, p 22.

44 Ibid, p 3. 45 Ibid, p 2. 46 Ibid. n 303: B R Ambedkar. "An­

nihilation of Caste", pp 48-49.

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