The political anatomy of caste

Mr Mitta addresses complex question. If we are all avowed Hindus, why do we fight, rape and kill each other in the name of caste?

Caste Pride: Battles for equality in Hindu India

Author: Manoj Mitta

Publisher: New India Foundation/Westland Books

Pages: 596

Price: Rs 999

This book could not have come at a better time. A battle is raging over the fuss made over the Sengol at the inauguration of the new Parliament building. The founder of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, C N Annadurai, described the Sengol, given to Nehru by Mountbatten thus: “The Aadheenam’s gift has been wrought by people’s labour. The gold that has gone into its making is paid for by those who do not care for the poor who go hungry day and night … who have misused the wealth of others, hit the peasants in their belly, paid workers the least that they could, not honoured their debts, multiplied their profits … and who in order to hide their wrongdoing, their sins, and to cheat God, have poured their offerings to him by way of this gold …” Others, like Swami Prasad Maurya of the Samajwadi Party have asked if it was appropriate for the Prime Minister of India to prostrate before “fundamentalist Brahmins”. To this, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Anil Baluni has replied that “Saivite Adheenam are not run by Brahmins but by OBCs and backward classes”. Caste pride in Hindu India (and in the Indian diaspora) is alive and kicking, thank you.

Manoj Mitta’s book goes much deeper than just pride in birth. It methodically studies the legal and parliamentary debates in pre- and post-independent India that preceded the making of laws with caste as the frame of reference. It also goes into caste violence and the state’s response. It is a many-layered, detailed investigation into the politics of caste and the compulsions behind ensuring hegemony.

For instance, we learn about the ripple effects of legalising inter-caste marriage in the Hindu framework which was a part of the decolonisation process. Mr Mitta says the debate reveals that those who blocked reform were not the colonial rulers but a section of Hindus. The first inter-caste marriage Bill was introduced by Vithalbhai Patel in 1918. It triggered a heated debate in the Imperial Legislative Council on the alleged role of Brahmins keeping castes apart. Mr Mitta’s enquiries reveal that it was conservatives such as Madan Mohan Malaviya and Surendra Nath Banerjea who resisted, in different ways Patel’s efforts to instil equality among Hindus. He explains that though the Bill was finally passed in 1949, the claim that colonial powers had prevented India from undertaking caste reform is a myth. “Freedom fighters were not necessarily equality champions,” he writes. This includes the role of Gandhi and Nehru in caste reform. His research shows that those who tiptoed around caste or blatantly opposed its reform were not always from overtly Hindu formations either.

Mr Mitta addresses another complex question. If we are all avowed Hindus, why do we fight, rape and kill each other in the name of caste? His book is not a comprehensive compendium of caste conflict in India and whether legal justice was served; social justice was most assuredly not. For instance, two relatively recent instances of horrifying caste violence — Karamchedu in then Andhra Pradesh where upper caste Kammas clashed with lower caste Mala and Madiga (1985); and Mirchpur in Haryana where clashes between Jats and Dalits took place twice in 2010 and 2017 and tension still simmers — need investigation as also Rohith Vemula’s martyrdom against institutional caste inequity. He promises another volume. It is eagerly awaited.

But Mr Mitta carefully traces caste contestation to its bitter contemporaneous end. For instance, we know that the Bhima Koregaon battle between the British and the Peshwas (Chitpavan Brahmins who led a confederacy via a Maratha-dominated army) in 1818 was also a caste clash between the untouchable Mahars and the Peshwa army.

But Mr Mitta digs deeper to the politics and legal argumentation that led to Shivaji establishing himself as a Kshatriya and Chhatrapati against the opinion of the Peshwas who refused to anoint him “emperor” because he had not undergone upanayanam and was therefore a Shudra who, for that reason, could not undergo an abhishekam . This was derived from the lore of Parashurama, who is said to have annihilated all Kshatriyas— so none existed so everyone who was not born a Brahmin was a Shudra. As only Brahmins had the right to recite the Vedas, essential at an abhishekam, they withheld endorsing Shivaji as a Kshatriya until a priest from Banaras, Gagabhat, intervened.  Today the Bhima Koregaon battle represents for the Dalits their first victories against caste injustice, against the Peshwas and the Marathas. The Indian state, in its wisdom, jailed civil rights activist Sudha Bharadwaj and others in 2018, when violence broke out at an event held to commemorate this battle, testifying to the institutional caste memory of the state.

There are many stories in this book that illuminate India’s current caste reality and why even the diaspora is fighting against caste discrimination. Although the volume covers issues of caste and gender justice, it needs to shine the light on the struggles of Dalit women — twice cursed as women and Dalits —  and the state’s response. A word about Mr Mitta. Several decades ago, when we were all junior reporters, colleagues from the editorial desk in the newspapers where he worked used to grumble about how late his copy would land. That’s because he had to cross-check and review every word he had written in his report when all the desk hands wanted to do was finish their shift and go home. This book, with its mastery over history, public policy and the law illustrates the same quality. It took him seven years to write. But the result is simply stunning.