There was a recent press item that in a Tamil Nadu village Dalit Christians were forbidden entry into an upper caste church and that Dalit Christians have to use a separate burial ground. From Abbe Dubois to M.N. Srinivas, we have had many analysts and scholars studying caste. Its persistence in our so-called modernising society remains a puzzle to many. Clearly, caste goes much beyond the Hindoo religious fold. My friend Richard Pon Arul considers his Nadar identity more important than his Roman Catholic one; the same goes with Steven Pinto who refers all the time to his being a Saraswat; and Mathew Jose, the upper crust Syrian Christian that he is, has maintained that he comes from one of six Namboodri families that befriended the apostle St Thomas. Even egalitarian Moslems are not exempt. The Ashrafs, who claim descent from Middle Eastern immigrants, contend that they are superior to indigenous converts and frown on inter-marriage. Some 40 years ago in Chennai, my friend Shahul Hamid explained to me that Labbai Moslems will not inter-marry with those of Deccani descent. The noted historian, Fr. John Afonse-Correia, once said to me, “In India we drink in our caste with our mother’s milk”.
A considerable body of research has emerged that shows that the British attempts at census classifications and ethnological categorisations strengthened and concretised a rather fluid, hazy and amorphous social system that prevailed in India prior to their arrival. But the British did not invent our obsession with the genetic principle, with hierarchical descriptors and hereditary occupations. As efficient, if slightly obtuse, administrators they merely stated with clarity what we as a people believed and practiced in a confused way.
Since it is politically fashionable to blame the British for all our woes, one can as an aside note that the insistence on persons having “surnames” may have unintentionally helped strengthen caste. Having had no tradition of surnames, many fell into the trap of calling themselves Narayana Nair, Narayana Mudaliar, Narayana Gowda, Narayana Reddy, Narayan Bhosale, Narayan Varma, Narayan Chatterjee, Narayan Gupta, Narayan Sharma and so on, all of which invariably revealed the caste origins of the individuals. The film industry realised that if they had to appeal to broader audiences, a “decastification” process was a good idea. Plain Ashok Kumar was preferred to Ashok Kumar Ganguly. When Yusuf Khan adopted a Hindoo name, clearly he did not want to align...
