Most of Deepak Lal’s essay titled “Caste, gene and history wars” (November 24) was interesting, but the last para was provocative. In it, he wrote: “Perhaps we are seeing the beginning of genetic history wars. But, hopefully, unlike the unresolvable political disputes fuelled by the different strands of the first Enlightenment, the New Enlightenment will provide the antidote in its scientific advances.”
Lal observed that recent genetic research shows that caste is an ancient institution in India, and was, therefore, not precipitated by British colonial procedures of census and enumeration. In short, genetics shows that caste groups have stayed separate from other caste groups for dozens of generations; they didn’t just get crystallised in the 19th century because the Brits, educated about Indian society mainly by knowledge-worker/HR pundits, required all of the King’s subjects to be listed by surname.
All well and good, and it’s nice to have scientific evidence on one side — though surely it would be stupid to dismiss the effects of colonial categorisation on identity — but Lal overlooks one or two things when he makes his last, significant remarks.
In the first place, there’s a very easy solution to any threat of a “genetic history war”, as in his own example of “superior” Pakistani Muslims potentially appalled to find themselves sharing ancestors with effete Hindu Indians. The solution is: Culture/religion, not biology, makes power. We’re in a near-post-racial world, after all. If anything, that solution will reinforce negative stereotypes: Even a wimp can become lordly, if he corrects his behaviour. War goes on, while the rationale changes.
As for the second point, not even a new Enlightenment will solve the problem of the human moronic tendency.
Vilas Chemburkar, on email
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