Abstract
An ambitious but unconvincing Marxist tale of caste
Marxist views on caste are not new. From D.D. Kosambi and Joan Mencher to Rupa Viswanath, many Indian Marxists have taken on the seemingly intractable caste–class couplet. For orthodox Marxist theory, there is no place for caste. Gramscian Marxism, a more tolerant variety of conventional Marxism on the other hand, allocates caste a certain degree of autonomy, yet sees it trapped as contradictory consciousness. The present book follows the genealogy of Marxist interpretation for the Indian caste system, but fails to offer fresh perspectives despite new empirical data.
The book can be read as an enraged, indeed inexhaustible critique of Dumont and to a large extent Max Weber, for seeing caste exclusively through a religious lens, thereby rejecting the materiality of caste out of hand. From the vantage point of political economy, this ideational framing of caste is slammed to be utterly one-sided and oblivious to the reality on the ground. As we know, the Dumontian theory of caste system as a religious hierarchy has come under attack by critics from far and wide. Some of them like Dipankar Gupta are referred to at length by the author to attack the unitary caste consciousness claimed by Dumont. Dumont’s fraught relationship with empirical evidence and his predicament with secular forms of power are well known. Consequently, the author’s critical take on it does not add much value to the established body of literature by the opponents of the religious view of caste.
To be fair, the author does have certain pointed observations to make. His charge against mainstream Indian sociology for subscribing to the ideological framework of caste for too long is not unjust. The scholars of Subaltern Studies too, so argues the author, are tainted with such an uncritical acceptance of the religious casting of caste. In its early stages, Subaltern Studies took a reductionist view of peasants in India, neglecting the caste aspect of Indian social reality, points out the author, similar to what the caste scholars have long argued. When they did take on caste in the later stages, they refused to assign it any recognition beyond the pale of the religious. In the author’s view, this framing by caste subalterns on exclusively religious lines throws the project, ironically, back into the same camp of elitist historiographers despite claiming to take a bottom-up approach.
The interrelations of ownership of property, particularly land and caste are well illustrated in the book. With the advent of private property rights in capitalist economy came surplus extraction of produce. The expropriation of the primary producer and his exploitation was intimately related to the sustained lowly economic position of lower castes in India. This was demonstrated by Kosambi and is also reaffirmed by the author. The author further links the development of private property to the contempt of manual labour to explain the reduced social status of labouring castes. The material base of caste is further ascertained on account of the expanding agrarian economy in the Mauryan and post-Mauryan era, which gave rise to many new castes and sub-castes such as peasants and traders. This involution cannot be explained away, claims the author rightfully, in merely religious terms.
The study of indentured labour in South Africa to scrutinise the nature of caste is a welcome addition to the body of empirical work on caste. Yet, it fails to convince us of the overriding influence of material conditions on caste. The experience of indentured labour was surely a leveller, as the author argues, because it blurred the caste–occupation linkages in the long run. However, it did not and could not remove some of the most important systemic markers of caste, for example, endogamy. The author speaks of a certain degree of reduced caste constraints on marriage and commensality, but shies away from mentioning concrete cases of demonstrating such alliances, for example, between the so-called lower castes or untouchables and so-called upper castes. The fact that caste considerations in the private sphere remained intact or less affected while they loosened up in professional matters is not good enough evidence to proclaim the superiority of the material over the ideological. In the same vein, to argue that the democratisation of the political sphere and land reforms in India have vanquished the ideological attributes of caste is too hasty. Identity politics and caste-based political parties are thriving in post-Independence India, and they often cross class boundaries to assert caste solidarity. While the economic structure behind caste is by no means unimportant, ideology continues to play its part in social relations. Herein lies the unyielding caste–class dilemma. It boggled Ambedkar when he struggled to marry the Marxist narrative of economic exploitation to the condition of untouchability. However, the author fails to take notice of Ambedkar’s nuanced approach and dismisses his engagement with caste as not ‘economic’ enough.
All in all, the book falls short of making a dent in the existing body of caste scholarship despite bringing in new fields for empirical study. The promise of recasting caste remains yet to be fulfilled.