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So biraders, it is the weekend. Some free time. And here is a looong thread on everyone's favourite topic here-cast. Yes, yes it's an dhamakedar cast. As always, usual caveats apply. Interesting comments, hypotheses, criticisms are welcome.
I just reread one book that was lying in my cupboard. While it is very difficult to write a précis on twitter, I shall try.
I won't post long arguments on the book, functionalists Vs structuralists etc. but simply say that the author, an anthropologist, takes an eclectic approach. Rather, I will post two main interesting points.
1. The operating unit of caste was/is the subcaste or Jati proper. Think Kankankyakubj or Gaud. Think of caste as groups of marriage circles. To quote verbatim, "A marriage circle can modify, or drop, any rule, for who is to forbid it? Change in the rules, therefore,...
are or can be an agenda item for any marriage circle assembly...Finally, a marriage circle, when circumstances demand, and to the extent it can, strives to protect and support its members. Everybody in society belongs to a marriage circle."
2. As per Class, the South Asian caste system reflects, and derived from a system of prior "common" descent corporate totemic kin group structure. To quote, "Initially, people were primarily organised into 'totemic' or 'equalitarian' groups. With the rapid dispersal of...
the new agricultural techniques to all favourable areas in the sub-continent, contradictions in a situation of absolute surplus came to the fore rapidly, and throughout the sub-continent. Whatever the total range of responses,..
the solution that apparently achieved the greatest support and success was the one entailing the exchange of services of non-food producing corporate groups for shares of crops or access to land controlled by food producing corporate groups."
Now, before Beembois get all sexcited about the move from equalitarian to segmentary society, I ask them: You want to go back to a H&G lifestyle, bumping off infants and ol' ungles? You don't want some absolute surplus? Even in many H&G groups, successful hunters get better poon.
Now, here's another aspect. The economic. This is from Deepak Lal.
According to Deepak Lal, the caste system with all its intricacies, was not so much about the four great varnas but the interrelationships and adjustments between numerous sub-castes or jatis. The sub-castes were based on occupational specialisation.
Vertical mobility was dependent on the whole caste moving up the hierarchy. Anyone interested can read the works of M N Srinivas, Susan Bayly and others on mobility in the caste system. Lal (and I have also felt): It is difficult to believe that the caste...
system could have survived for so long it were economically dysfunctional. Interested folks can look up "Jajmani" system.
Lal: The village communities came to be the primary economic unit. They and the caste system provided stability to a common society, torn by intercine warfare by feuding monarchies. It helped the survival of Hindu society for millennia because...
integrated as it was to both politics and professional activity, it localised many of the functions. According to Lal, the intricate caste system arose as a response to an economic problem faced by Aryas in the Indo-Gangetic plain. It was actually a shortage of labour...
The caste system was a response to the problem of maintaining an adequate supply of labour. He also quotes Ashok Desai and says that it is precisely this system that enabled Indians to have a fairly high standard of living in comparison to contemporary civilisations.
Now, reaching towards the end of this thread, I am going to refer to a book by Geoffrey Samuel. The Origins of Yoga and Tantra. On page 86, the author points towards the work of George Hart, a scholar of Tamil poetry.
"The relevance of Hart's work on early South India ... is that he argues that those aspects of caste which are about polluted and low status can be traced back to a period of Tamil society which, arguably had not yet been substantially restructured with Brahminical norms.
"The ritual kingship of the early Tamil king was dependent on a variety of court ritualists, including drummers and other musicians, who were essential to the maintenance of the king's power, but who were themselves regarded as of low and 'polluted' status..."
To shitpost hypothesise, "those damn Dumeels" corrupted noble Aryas. Does the incorporation of purity and pollution norms owe more to non-Arya influence on Aryas? Even Kosambi says this might be possible.
Anyway, the point of all this is that activists on both sides aren't interested in caste as a dynamic system, or in how it actually interacts with polity and economy, both in history and in contemporary times. Far easier to hang the BOM.
Ends.
Ends.
