Caste

Chairman Sir, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning. Actually I’m the odd man out. We have success stories. We have spiritual leaders; we have an extraordinarily organizational leader in front of us. And now I have to do an exam. You see, normally I take exams in the university. Now I have to do an exam. The exam is this I must move you from these wonderful stories, success stories, good stories, to …

9.32 Bhagavadgita māṃ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye ‘pi syuḥ pāpayonayaḥ striyo vaiśyāstathā śūdrās te’ pi yānti parāṃ gatim The situation is a bit more complex. The word ‘yoni’ here does much more work than one assumes. All the four are born from ‘Yoni’ but yet are distinguished in terms of punya and paapa. The last two are earnt by the organism in question: ‘svayaarjita’, suggesting that being a …

This article on Sulekha says: ut there can be no doubt that for the past thousand years at least the caste system has been a great nightmare for the majority of our people and continues to be a great bane of hindu society as well as hinduism today. When you write this article on the caste system, I do want you very much to make clear where your certainty regarding the nature of the caste system …

I When I took the caste-system as an example , what am I doing? I am showing that turning the standard story on its head is a child’s play: caste has been said to be an antiquated, rigid, dogmatic, etc social structure, which is “very difficult” to eradicate. If this is true, most of the rantings seem to subscribe to this text book story, then this can be put on its head very easily. A word of …

Today, India has become a global player of significant political and economical impact. Europe and India are facing each other as equal partners in pursuit of greater economic and political co-operation. This confronts both India and Europe with a challenge. The intelligentsia, the business world, politicians, educators and others, will have to answer the following question: What can India offer …

As I have said before, my hypothesis is meant to guide the research and, as such, suggests that we find that the Brahmins will exhibit more of a heterarchical organization than a hierarchical one. Let us assume that what you say is true. In that case, this anomaly (or these anomalies) will become the problem(s) that my hypothesis has to solve. That is, the hypothesis will force one to look for an …

Two small points before I respond to your questions. One: all I have is a hypothesis that can guide research. In itself, it is not a theory and I cannot hope to convince anyone (at this stage) that this hypothesis is true. It requires years of research (of different kinds) before it can be made compelling. Therefore, please know that I understand your skepticism and find it only natural. Two: …

You ask whether “there is a perception of caste hierarchies among Brahmins”. My guess is that there is no such general perception, even if, regionally, multiple Brahmin jati’s fight for superiority. There is no way to establish, say, that the ‘Babburkamme’ is superior to ‘Havyaka’ in Karnataka. In fact, many from either of the two would not even know of the existence of the other. In Bangalore …

Let me reconsider the hypothesis I propose: what we call ’the caste system’ in India today is a hybrid beast. It is not a social structure but a linguistic entity (i.e., a set of sentences) which is an incoherent admixture to two unconnected descriptions (of the world): a generalization of the description of a structured set of interactions (let us leave aside the question of what kind of …

M. N. Srinivas (MNS) claims that “a caste was able, in a generation or two, to rise to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism and by changing its rituals and deities.” The first basic problem here is how one can establish the position of a jati in the supposed hierarchy and measure it in such detail that one can see over two generations that the jati has …

Are there Jati’s in India? Yes, there are. What kind of units or entities are they? I do not know; neither does anybody for that matter. It is a matter of fact that (a) they are not occupational groups; (b) they are not social classes (that is, there is no correlation between Jati’s and the ‘means of production’); (c) appear hereditary (though one could obtain certificates that ‘change’ one’s …

You say: “If ‘caste’ or ‘jati’ has the same status as alumni associations and similar social groups, with their varying practices, it seems we are prepared to say that ‘jati’ has no special place in the Indian society in the same way that my alumni association has no special status in Indian society.” This sentence is the problematic one. First of all, it does not follow (either empirically or …

I would like to pick up the thread on ‘the caste system’ and begin at the beginning. Let us find out what we are discussing about and disagreeing with. Assuming for this entire post, ‘caste’ is an English word for ‘Jati’, the first question is: 1. Are there Jati’s in India? Yes, of course, there are. No one is denying this obvious fact. 2. Is there a system of Jati in India? This question is …

In one sense, the title of the piece captures the nature of the tasks facing the contemporary generation, whether in India or in the Diaspora. This generation, unlike many from mine, is confident and self-assured; perhaps, it is proud too about the strength of its culture and traditions. Rightly so. However, personal convictions about the value of our traditions and culture do not automatically …

I was invited by some Sadhus from Swami Narayan Temple (BAPS) to visit the temple and have a discussion with them. Because they practice very strict Brahmacharya (eight types of avoiding women, each correlated to an organ: it is called Ashtanga Brahmacharya), the Sadhus said that women could not be present during our discussions, while they were welcome to visit the temple. As I remember the …

X says: Yoga practice of self attainment without the help of external deity worship so common in those days of Patanjali as today was restricted to very few as it required proper initiation from the guru and renunciation of normal humdrum lifestyle of a common man. I say man because fewer women go for that kind of ascetic lifestyle. What has self-attainment to do with worshipping the deity …

You ask whether or not it was ‘factual’ that a ‘paraiah’ was not allowed on the same street as a Nair or a Brahmin. The evidence we have says that a Paraiah was not allowed to be on the same street as a Nair, but it is not clear whether it also applies to the presence of a Brahmin. First, here is some of the evidence. The Portuguese traveler Duarte Barbosa was among the first to talk about it in …

[ Original , published Philosophica 40 (2): 77–107] Introduction Should action sciences exist, it is obvious what they would have to study; the nature of human action, the kind of knowledge that actions generate, the process of learning to perform different types of action and so forth. Comparative anthropology, as a discipline, studies and contrasts, where such contrasts are possible, the …

Introduction During the last decade or so, a new restlessness has begun to disturb the calm facade of the social scientific academia. As yet, it has no name. Better said, it has many names: from ‘reflexive’ to the ‘post-modern’. The ferment is not widespread, but the voices of discontent are coherent and articulate. The critical voices indicate the many kinds of dissatisfaction they have with the …

The first thing that is really striking involves what I will call the burden of proof. That is, I am being asked to prove that my assertions about corruption are true. In one sense, it appears an entirely reasonable demand to make: after all, one should not entertain gratuitous claims. But what seems to have escaped the attention of many is this: what precisely do I have to prove? Who has the …