The Dalit Files: How Dalits and outcastes have been much more than just ‘depressed classes’
If Hinduism is surviving today, a lot of credit should go to the sacrifices silently made by our Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
According to Swami Vivekananda, education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man, while religion is the manifestation of the divinity already in man. He, however, questioned the education system of his time when he said, quite scathingly, that “the first thing” a child learnt in a school was that “his father is a fool”, the second thing that “his grandfather is a lunatic”, the third thing that “all his teachers are hypocrites”, and finally he was taught that “all the sacred books are lies”! Vivekananda then went on to say that 50 years of such education “has not produced one original man in the three Presidencies”.
Things seem to have hardly improved even now. Physical colonialism got over 70 years ago, but colonialism of the mind still remains deeply entrenched. The result is: Indians have become Bharat’s most steadfast adversary.
In this backdrop, it’s quite extraordinary to see Hinduism survive 1,000 years of assault, first on its body (through Muslim invaders) and then mind (through Christian missionaries and Marxists). When many other civilisations perished without any trace in the mounds of history, Hinduism kept standing, though not without some serious physical and mental injuries.
Hinduism survived precisely because of the reasons it is ridiculed for today: it’s untidy decentralisation and infinite sub-identities. It turned Hinduism into a hydra-headed institution where each head was as important as the other, thus escaping complete annihilation. This may explain why Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo — the masters of Bharatiya Darshan — desisted from outright criticism of caste institutions while working towards building a more equitable, harmonious society. They could see how these institutions, howsoever regressive they might appear today, actually provided beleaguered Hindus the much-needed straw to hang on to at a time when their world was falling apart like a pack of cards.
And, Hinduism could survive because of its most loyal and least acknowledged foot soldiers: Dalits and outcastes. Alberuni, who visited India during Mahmud of Ghazni’s time, spoke of the four traditional castes and eight sections of Antyajas (outcastes). Historian KS Lal writes in his book, Growth of Scheduled Tribes and Castes in Medieval India, “In his (Alberuni’s) time, their number in Hindustan was obviously not large. But their numbers and nomenclatures increased with the passage of time.”
Lal adds, “It was during the medieval period under Muslim rule — 712 to 1707 CE — that many castes and sub-castes of SCs, STs and OBCs came into being, to become more than 2,330 enumerated today. For sure, tribal population increased rapidly under Muslim rule to become the 70-million strong tribal community of India today. It is the largest population of this kind in the world.”
Amid Muslim invasions, plunders and killings, the proliferation of castes can be seen as chemotherapy aimed at fighting the cancerous alien attack. Historically, wherever the caste system was strong, conversion into Islam or any other religion had been significantly less. This flies in the face of those intellectuals and historians who say that lower castes welcomed the invaders with open arms and converted to Islam in large numbers. Nothing can be further from the truth. But then this was an extremely handy weapon to beat Hinduism by equating it with Brahminism, calling it an inherently unjust and unequal social order that thrives on persecuting the poor and the downtrodden.
This phenomenon can be examined on two fronts: How unequal was Hindu society before the arrival of Muslim marauders? And if it was so unequal, how did the lower castes react to the arrival of Arabs, Afghans and Turks?
Given how divisive ancient Indian historiography can be, I base my argument on the works of BR Ambedkar, who had every reason to be upset with caste Hindus. Yet, when we look at his writings, it’s obvious that he never turned his back on reason and truth, even if they were inconvenient. So much so that had he been alive today, he would have been the foremost critic of the Dravidian movement. After all, Ambedkar ridiculed the Aryan invasion theory at a time when even a hard-core nationalist like Bal Gangadhar Tilak couldn’t completely disown it. Ambedkar would have gained most from the Aryan-Dravidian divide.
“Whether a tribe or family was racially Aryan or Dravidian was a question which never troubled the people of India until foreign scholars came in and began to draw the line,” Ambedkar writes in ‘Caste in India: Their Genesis, Mechanism and Development’, a paper first published in 1918.
In his book, Who Were the Shudras?, published in October 1946, Ambedkar states quite categorically that the “Shudras were Aryans”. He cites several instances where the rishis of Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda wished glory to them, and on several occasions a Shudra became the king himself.
Ambedkar reaches a similar conclusion vis-à-vis outcastes in another book, The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables? (1948). He quotes two studies, “one in Maharashtra by (British administrator HH) Risley and another in Punjab by Mr Rose, and the results flatly contradict the theory that the untouchables are racially different from the Aryans and the Dravidians”. Ambedkar later quotes the Narada Smriti to show that “the Aryans did not at all mind engaging themselves in filthy occupations. If scavenging was not loathsome to an Aryan, how can it be said that engaging in filthy occupations was the cause of Untouchability.”
Ancient Hindu literature, both secular and non-secular, is full of stories that showcase the flexibility of the caste system. So, Mahidasa, a Chandala, could become a rishi associated with the Aitareya Brahman. Rishi Matanga was also a Chandala. There is mention of persons like Sharyati, Nahusha, Mandhata and Prithu who were rishis as well as kings. Nabhag, the son of King Dishta, became a Vaishya. His son, Bhalandan, again became a Kshatriya and established an empire. Vishwamitra was born a Kshatriya but later became a prominent Brahmin. In fact, India’s most celebrated authors — Valmiki and Vyasa —hailed from lower castes. My personal favourite is the story of Satyakama Jabala, son of an unwed mother, whose truthfulness on his origins made his guru say he was a Brahmin. For, the guru explains, a Brahmin alone could have said nonchalantly such inconvenient truths.
One finds some sort of caste rigidity setting in during the Gupta and post-Gupta periods (5th century CE onwards), but social and economic rules were still largely liberal. It was only after the arrival of Muslim invaders that India saw the proliferation of castes and the hardening of caste rules. Hindu society had never seen this kind of violence, especially in the name of religion.
This brings us to the second question: How did lower castes react to the arrival of Arabs, Afghans and Turks? Mohammed Habib, father of historian Irfan Habib and one of the founding fathers of the secular, selective and sanitised history of India, propounded a theory that lower castes welcomed Muslim invaders, often siding with them against high-caste rulers, and converting to Islam in large numbers. A look at history suggests otherwise.
In 712 CE, when Muhammad bin Qasim invaded Sindh, Jats and Meds did join him. The Sammas, another tribal people, welcomed Qasim “with frolics and merriment”. What our eminent historians, however, didn’t say was that the moment these people realised that Qasim was unlike the invaders of the past, they changed their stance. They became inimical to the Arabs after the latter destroyed the temple of Debal and other venerated shrines in Sindh, forcibly converted people to Islam, and imposed jizyah on the people.
Later events showed that the lower caste people either sided with their upper-caste co-religionists against the Muslim invaders, as in the case of Bhils who fought alongside Rana Pratap against Akbar’s army. Or, like the Satnamis, Jats and Marathas, they challenged the Mughals head on. Shivaji himself had a lower caste origin, yet he set up ‘Hindu Pad-Padshahi’.
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Interestingly, Professor KS Lal debunks the theory that low caste people converted to Islam in large numbers. He cites the example of Uttar Pradesh where the population of Chamars (15.1 per cent) is quite high. This, the historian says, signifies a low conversion rate among them.
“The upper castes might have sometimes submitted to force or temptation, but not the Chamars. For example, in Muzaffarnagar district there were 29,000 Hindu Rajputs and 24,000 Muslim Rajputs according to the 1901 Census. Similarly, there were Hindu Rajputs and Muslim Rajputs in almost equal numbers in many western districts of UP. In eastern UP, there were Muslim Pathans and converted Rajputs, as for instance 34,000 each in Basti district. The reason for this phenomenon was that some Rajputs who loved their religion more than their land fought against Muslim invaders to the last. Many perished in the encounters. Those who survived, survived as Hindu Rajputs. Those who loved their land more than their religion converted to Islam to retain their lands and kingdoms… They debunk the theory that low caste people converted to Islam more easily than the high castes,” Prof Lal writes.
But, then, what explains the rise in SC/ST populations in the medieval era? Lal explains the two ways in which high-class people drifted into lower classes. “One way was war, which was of perennial occurrence under Muslim rule. Generally speaking, cultivators who stayed on as Hindus on their land after defeat drifted into Scheduled or other backward castes, whether they were enslaved or just made to work for the conquerors on sundry duties. Those who did not surrender and took to flight and established themselves in inaccessible jungles or mountain recesses became Scheduled Tribes, etc, generally speaking.”
The other way, writes Lal, was the oppressive tax burden that compelled people to abandon their lands and seek shelter in jungles. “Those who fought in the wars and fled were comparatively few. The largest number was of the oppressed peasants, artisans and labourers who drifted from the good and peaceful agrarian life towards low caste or tribal status. With long and permanent stay in forests or in hiding, many of these communities got new nomenclatures and their numbers multiplied,” he states.
This explains why Muslim rulers – from Balban and Alauddin Khilji to Akbar and Aurangzeb — placed so much importance on the clearance of forests. Our historians would tell us that it was aimed at curbing the terror of bandits and robbers beyond the periphery of cities and towns. What these eminent historians didn’t tell us was that these bandits were Hindus who till a few years were cultivating lands or engaged in other economic activities.
Ibn Batuta writes how the kafirs took residence in these jungles and these forests became like ramparts (or forts) for them. But as people vanished in forests for long, Prof Lal argues, they couldn’t pursue mandatory caste rituals, and over time found themselves degraded in the social hierarchy.
Babur writes in his memoirs, Babur Nama, how “sometimes it rains 10, 15 or 20 times a day, torrents pour down all at once and rivers flow where no water had been”. This weather system helped raise jungles in no time. And these forests gave shelter to Hindus who refused to give in to Muslim suzerainty and its rigid religious and taxation policies. One can gauge the severity of the taxation system from the fact that even during Akbar’s ‘benign’ rule, Todar Mal’s revenue, which was later enhanced by successive governments in Bengal, in 1582 CE was as high as four times that of 1901.
Dharampal’s The Beautiful Tree further punctures the Dalit-versus-the-rest discourse, as he extensively quotes three reports commissioned by the British for the provinces of Bengal (1835-38), Madras (1822-26), and Punjab (1882). The Bengal report says that there existed about 100,000 village schools in Bengal and Bihar around the 1830s. Similar statements were made for the Bombay Presidency “where every village had a school”. Observations made by Dr GW Leitner in 1882 show that the spread of education in Punjab around 1850 to a similar extent. But as the British tightened its grip over the country, one witnessed “neglect and decay in the field of education”.
The caste composition of the education system in early 19th century India is equally enlightening. As Dharampal notes, “It is true that the greater proportion of the teachers came from the Kayasthas, Brahmins, Sadgop and Aguri castes. Yet, quite a number came from 30 other caste groups also, and even the Chandals had six teachers.”
As for the elementary school students, they throw an even greater variety, and every caste group seems to have been represented in the student population, with the Brahmins and Kayasthas nowhere forming more than 40 per cent of the total. “In the two Bihar districts, together they (Brahmins and Kayasthas) formed no more than 15-16 per cent. The more surprising figure is of 61 Dom and 61 Chandal school students in the district of Burdwan, nearly equal to the number of Vaidya students, 126, in that district.
While Burdwan had 13 missionary schools, the number of Dom and Chandal scholars in them was only four; and as (British administrator William) Adam mentioned, only 86 of the ‘scholars belonging to 16 of the lowest castes’ were in the missionary schools, while 674 scholars from them were in the ‘native schools’.”
In this backdrop, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that caste divide in Hinduism has been a colonial afterthought, which missionaries and Marxists added to their respective toolkits for obvious gains. Also, if Hinduism is surviving today, a lot of credit should go to the sacrifices made by the SCs and STs. If Brahmins were the mind of Hinduism, Kshatriyas its arms, and Vaishyas its thighs, then Shudras and outcastes were definitely the feet that enabled the whole body to stand. Hinduism wouldn’t have ever walked without those strong feet!
Here, the feet analogy is deliberate, knowing full well the Marxist propaganda on Rig Veda’s Purusha Sukta, which makes a similar statement, and our eminent historians jump into it claiming victimhood for Shudras. It’s a clear case of coloniality; or, is it a case of deliberate subversion? For, in Indic traditions, as Prof Arvind Sharma brings out with so many examples in his book, The Ruler’s Gaze, how “some of the poignant cultural gestures within Hinduism have to do with the feet”. He reminds us how one touches the feet of the elders. “One even drinks the water in which the feet of a worthy person have been washed.”
India’s Dalits and outcastes deserve much more than just a ‘File’. They need their history to be rewritten. Also, with them, Ambedkar’s role in nation-building must be relooked. Ambedkar was much more than just a Dalit leader. And Dalits and outcastes were much more than just ‘depressed classes’.
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