One of the main themes of Gandhi’s revolutionary rhetoric, as well as Kanthapura itself, is the caste system and its endemic inequities. We will briefly explore what the caste system is, and illuminate this complicated social hierarchy for readers who aren’t familiar with it.
The caste system, or jati, applies to Hindus, dividing them into a hierarchy based on their karma (work) and dharma (duty). It comes from the Manusmritri, the most important book on Hindu law that dates over 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. There are four main castes, and about 3,000 castes within and 25,000 subcastes based on specific occupations.
The top of the hierarchy is the Brahmins, the teachers and intellectuals believed to come from the head of Brahma, the creator of the universe. The next caste is the Kshatriyas, or the rulers and warriors, which come from Brahma’s arms. The next is the Vaishyas, or the readers, which come from his thighs. The fourth is the Shudras, which come from Brahma’s feet and do menial jobs. The final group is considered outside the caste system—the Dalits, or the Untouchables. They engage in the filthiest jobs, such as those dealing with diseases, animal skin, sewage, etc. People are born into a caste and remain in it until their death.
The system is rigid and the upper castes experience numerous privileges that the lower castes do not, but until the late 18th century, there was a bit of fungibility within the system, meaning that sometimes people could move from one caste to another. However, when the British colonial rulers took over, they, as the BBC explains, “made caste India's defining social feature when they used censuses to simplify the system, primarily to create a single society with a common law that could be easily governed.”
The Asia Society explains the nuances of the caste system: “The jati system is not static in which all groups stay in the same position. There is mobility in the system and jatis have changed their position over the centuries of Indian history. However, the jati moves up the social scale as a group and not as individuals. A jati can improve its position in the class system by advancing economically and emulating social groups with money and power. At the same time, a jati can also move up in the caste hierarchy. Mobility in the caste system has been termed ‘Sanskritization’ by the scholar M.N. Srinivas. To gain position in this process, a lower jati copies the habits and behavior patterns of the dominant jati in the area.”
When India attained its independence, the constitution ended untouchability and banned discrimination on the basis of caste and implemented some quotas to help mitigate the lasting harm done to the lower castes in the areas of employment and education. Gandhi named the untouchables the Harijans, or “people of God.”
Over the last few decades, especially in cities, more inter-caste marriages have taken place and different castes live relatively peacefully side by side. Castes continue to use political pressure as groups to achieve various goals.
