Discussion on The Chemistry of Castes

In these days of intellectual maturity where no person is
considered higher than the others, irrespective of age and
position, it is unfortunate that such an outdated, hierarchical
system is being used to keep the people divided. Most of you
seem to agree with this view of mine.

One of the advantages of expressing my ignorance through these
e-mails is the opportunity to learn from the wisdom and
experiences of others in the list, as can be seen from the
following and previous replies.

> India's caste system has been a topic of intense debate
> for the last 2 centuries and this debate is not over yet.
> As you have rightly pointed out, judging an ancient system
> with a new value scale is not only unfair, it is ignorance
> at best and arrogance at worst. G V Chalam writes in
> "yogyataa patram" of Mahaprasthanam that 'patriotism is a
> great sin'. A few hundred years from now, all patriotism
> may be looked down upon. Any way coming to the topic...
>
> There are two social (???) institutions in India which are
> intimately linked. The Varna System and the Jati system.
> People often get confused and mistake one for the other. That
> is partly because of the way the present day Indian society is.
> The 'Jati' system is the 'infamous' 'caste system'.
>
> There are four Varnas according the ancient texts. You may find
> any number of Jatis(castes) within a Varna. For example, among
> the Brahmin varna, you have vaidikis, niyogis etc.,. The same
> is true about all the varnas. Sudra varna is the most diversified
> apperently because of the diveristy of the tasks they undertake.
> There are, of course, the people without a Varna. They are called
> 'avarnas' or the 'panchamas'. However, they too developed Jatis
> among them. Mala and Madiga are just two examples. I have taken
> examples from Andhra. The picture should be the same everywhere
> in India.
>
I did know about the Varna system, but preferred to
use the common parlance of castes. While the upper 3 varnas
typically use varna for caste (in appln. forms and general talk,
at least), the 4th varna is seldom mentioned, only the caste
within the varna is mentioned.

> There are two more concepts here. One is 'Kula' and the other
> is 'Gotra'. The word 'kula' in Telugu is nowadays used to connote
> a caste. But, originally it meant a 'family' and it is intimately
> related to the concept of Gotra. Hence in your 'pravara' you mention
> all the Gotra rishis who are the originators of the kula. I do not
> think Gotra refers to the 'gurukul' lineage. It refers to the
> family ancestry. Of all these concepts, 'Jati' is perhaps the
> latest and Kula is perhaps the oldest.
>
> Nobody knows the origin of 'Jati' system and how it got mixed
> with the already existing varna system. 'Jati' might be a
> system based on the type of labour performed. Varna on the other
> hand might be different system based on something else. (I am
> speculating this in contradiction to what the Gita says about
> the varna system). I have done some research into this system.
> That is not yet complete. It was helpful for me to know
> yet another view point about this intriguing ancient system.
>
> I firmly believe in what Kalidas said
>
> "Puraanamityeva na saadhu sarvam
> Nachaapi kavyam navamityavadyam"
>
> all is not good in the ancient
> all is not bad in the present (excuse me for bad translation)

Wow, this is a very useful piece of information. Never knew that
this common feeling has the backing of such a great soul.
Several years ago, when I suddenly realized the importance
society gives to castes, I developed this hobby of caste-profiling,
thanks to the encouragement and interest of the people I interacted with.

I must admit that my studies initially did show that quite a few
families and people preserved the characteristics associated with their
caste professions, such as courage, entrepreneurship, conservatism,
religiousness, shrewdness, hardwork, parsimony, and even callousness
(consider butchers; can they have a melting heart?) and meanness
(when the profession didn't give us much economically
or socially, what can we give to others?).

Even if my observations are correct to some extent, I strongly
feel that such observations MUST prove to be wrong in future.
That can happen only through free mixing. When people mix freely,
good propogates and bad gets eradicated. That's one of the reasons
I think some countries are better places to live. We don't find
so much bad in these places. Can somebody try to be bad in
front of strangers or less known people? Many bad things
originate and strengthen in closed, isolated groups and minds,
when no 'outsider' is watching and everyone is 'one of them'. Isn't it?

Slogans like, "We don't care if someone is good. We want
someone who is one of us", should hopefully disappear.
Like how fungus tries to form where things are static,
bad tries to spread in closed minds and groups.
There must always be scope for fresh thought and action.
I know organizations which benefited from this.

The society is dynamic. Static opinions or
behavior wouldn't stand for long. Interactions with society will
automatically change whatever is static. Take the
example of a purohit coming from a small village somewhere south.
He settles down in a major city, speaks english, drives posh cars,
uses ultra-modern gadgets which even people living in advanced
countries working in state-of-art technologies don't use. His
children turn entrepreneurs in family and professional lives,
marrying americans, starting successful companies in USA.

Don't we see such cases? It's not hard to imagine such
cases, if we have been reading magazines like Silicon India
or Mantram. A couple years ago, I performed my father's
anniversary in a posh house in the bay area belonging to
the priest's son. The priest had come for a visit to USA then.

I must confess that profiling is still one of my hobbies
(habits die hard, right?). Whenever I come across
an eccentric driver on the road, I do a bit of profiling, looking
at the person and amuse myself amidst the boring drive in
the traffic. But my exercise now has mostly been to confirm
that there is no relation between a person's caste / race
affiliation and his behavior at the wheel or elsewhere.
It does seem to be true.

Even if there may be a few persistent characteristics
that a few people preserved, in a broad view of the entire
society such differences need not be attributed to their
backgrounds alone. There are many others who do not have
the same racial / caste profile and still have similar
characteristics. In the broader interests of the society
all such differences must be ignored and strong opinions
in these matters must be underplayed.

> In my childhood, my grandparents (who were the temple
> priests in their village) used to have some muslim "peeris"
> (this is telugu word i think) on their family name and they
> would provide all necessary items for that "peeri" to go
> into streets during muslim celebrations. Many muslims in
> that village and even in my village used to play band for
> hindu festivals and temple celebrations. They could play
> "Thyaga raja swami keerthana's fluently". Till I was 10 yrs
> old I used to participate in those muslim celebrations and
> my parents never objected and I never realized that they
> belong to a "different" group.
>
> I now see all that has eroded and there is some kind of
> tension created between these innocent people which I
> attibute 80% of it to the politicians exploiting religion.
>
Probably one of us should write a letter to the government to see
what they can do about uprooting at least some of the divisions in
mankind like castes.

Composed: February 2003.