It wasn't the Brahmins after all

This newspaper does not pay much attention to either religion or history, let alone a combination of the two. And while I have a lot of time for history, religion strikes me as a bore. Nonetheless, there is a very good reason for writing about this book in these columns. It is the Introduction to it by Irfan Habib.

Let me get to the point straightaway. Prof. Habib says that it is wrong to blame Brahminism for casteism in India. "... It seems particularly doubtful if the evolution and spread of the caste system can be attributed primarily to Brahminical inspiration." Had anyone else written this, we could have dismissed it as self-serving nonsense. But since it is no less a personage than Irfan Habib, due attention must be paid to it, whether it is politically convenient or not.

His starting point is his view that as far as the main Vedas are concerned, the varna system lacks the two elements that give it is a distinctive characteristic as far as jatis were concerned: occupational fixity and endogamy (marrying within your own caste). Indeed, he says, "[T]he term jati itself has not been traced to in the Vedic corpus." He then goes on to quote from the Rig Veda to show that there was no notion of permanently fixed occupations. Nor did the Brahmins, when they saw a pretty wench, not marry her, never mind what her varna was. True, the Brahmins were enjoined upon to maintain a distance. But "all in all, the amount of evidence about the need for keeping such excessive distance from the lowly is rather small".

Habib also says that it is an error to take all that stuff about Brahmins coming from the head of Purusha and so on. "... it is clear that this is a simple declaration of social hierarchy, the class of priests, warriors, the masses and the menials being placed in descending order." He says this description would have fitted any ancient or medieval society and that "by itself hardly implied the existence of the caste system".

So who was or were the culprits, if not the Brahmins? The Buddhists, it would appear, and the kshatriyas. Of the former he has this to say: "The Buddha's own clan, the Sakyas, were so conscious of their unmixed descent that their ancestors, reduced to a set of brothers and sisters, married each other." And as to the latter, it seems the khattiyas (which is what the Buddha called them) "would reject the offspring of the union" of a khattiya youth and a Brahmin as "absolutely illegitimate". The Brahmins, it seems, were less fussy.

Habib concludes from this that it was not an "overbearing and hugely infecting priestly ideology" but internal social processes that led to whatever emerged in the form of fixed occupations and endogamy. "It is perfectly possible that ... the repression of large groups as lowly jatis arose in society first and and entered the Brahminical codes... only later."

Some of the other contributors to the book are D P Chattopadhyaya, K M Shrimali, Suvira Jaiswal, Nupur Chadhuri and Rajat Kanta Ray (who was a columnist for this paper), Barun De, M Athar Ali (Islamic background to Indian history), Shireen Moosvi, Kamlesh Mohan (on women in Sikh discourse) and D N Jha.

For those who are looking for a scholarly treatment of the subject, this is an indispensable reference volume. It is not easy-going but it is worth a dip from time to time, if only to remind ourselves that we should not believe politicians and other assorted fools.

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RELIGION IN INDIAN HISTORY

Edited by Irfan Habib
Tulika Books
Rs 550; 291 pages