Surya Raghunaathan finds a little galli in Mumbai full of food and spice. Oh and also caste-based divisions.“There is no caste in blood” - Sir Edwin Arnold
Caste is the great wall of India. It is the bedrock on which Indian society is founded. Though the caste system is supported and sustained more than anything by the scriptures of Hinduism, it has also penetrated deeply in other religions due to conversion of people from different castes.
Independent India saw her first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru pass laws to abolish Casteism. Nehru outlawed casteism and conducted nationwide campaigns to encourage higher education to children irrespective of whatever castes they belonged to. Several laws have been passed but Caste discrimination still happens to be an integral system of social relations in our country.
Some say caste is good.
Men must form themselves into groups, and you cannot get rid of that. Wherever you go there will be caste. It is in the nature of society to form itself into groups. Caste system anyway has been abolished. Only some parts of India, especially rural areas experience the atrocities. They say Casteism has been more or less wiped out from urban societies.
If you think so too, perhaps its time you thought again.
Take for example, Dinesh (12), who scavenges for food and items to recycle at one of the rubbish dumps near the thousands of shanty towns in Navi Mumbai’s Turbhe area. Most scavengers are Dalit, the lowest in the heap in India’s 3,000-year-old Hindu caste system, a pernicious practice that discriminates against nearly a quarter of the country’s billion-plus population.
At the end of a network of dusty lanes in Sewri, a suburb in Mumbai’s harbour railway line, a scavenger lugs home a plastic bucket of water for her family. It is dusk, and Ghani, who uses only one name, and her two daughters have spent the day collecting used plastic bags from rotting waste in the city dumps. They are filthy and hungry - yet they cannot bathe or cook with the water that comes from the tap in the lane next to their home that falls within the precincts of a neighboring co-operative society. Ghani is a dalit.
Surprising really that the city that shelters all also soaks this sort of humane contrast!
The caste system was described in Hinduism’s ancient sacred text, the Rig Veda, as a social order that was supposed to maintain harmony in society. It divides people into four main castes, but there also are those outside the system, the “untouchables”, who now call themselves Dalits - literally “broken people.”
Talking about the Vedic period, however large the scope maybe, a prominent chapter that grips the mind is the epic of Mahabharata. Lord Krishna in his advocation of the Gita to Arjuna states a phrase - “If different colours indicate different castes, then all castes are mixed castes. Mankind must be free of these colours and castes.”
But, a close look at the epic reveals certain inherent contradictions to these very lines. Dronacharya who was a Brahmin does not accept Ekalavya, as his disciple owing to the latter’s origin from a so-called lower caste. The underdog remains undeterred, enters a forest, begins to study and practice by himself, fashions a clay image of Drona and worships him. Drona, worried that Ekalavya may endanger the Indo-aryan kings and threaten the Vedic religion, demands for his thumb as guru dakshina thereby putting an end to his archery skills. The conclusion is that it highlights the glory of Guru-bhakti, or devotion to Guru. While the moral of this story wears the veil of an ‘unparalleled brilliance of Ekalavya’s devotion to his Guru’, the truth perhaps is that this was one of those beastly narratives of the upper caste oppressing the lower one.
The same tyranny seems to have lingered on in different forms in our society today and the likes of Dinesh & Ghani in a city as ‘forward’ as Mumbai stand testimony to the same.
Let’s examine another reality. The Chivda galli is perhaps one of the forgotten by-lanes of Mumbai. Nestled amidst Parel railway station and the Indian Express office (a leading daily), which is its only claim to fame today, Chivda galli is a place with its own history and culture. As you walk down the much unkempt and crowded lane you will see a myriad of Maharashtrian delicacies like the Chivda, Karanji, Chakli, etc also, a variety of spices, Pickles and Papads to go with the Chivda.
On the surface, Chivda galli seems like any other lane throbbing with people, but the genesis of the spices tell a different story. They are sold on caste basis.
Surprised? Don’t be.
Yes, each caste is dominant to a particular area and have their own peculiar rules of cooking based on the environment of their native place. For instance, there is a Konkani masala, which uses a lot of Red Chilli powder and is ideal for fish, the masala for people from the Ghats (Marathas) has a lot more of Black pepper and Cardamom ideal to cook meat. As you begin walking down the lane, which does not lend itself to four-wheelers, you will see vendors selling chips that they fry in front of you and spice it as per your taste, the options include Salt and Pepper, Red Chilli powder and again masalas as per your caste demands.
In terms of damage to human progress and suffering, this bane of caste system did greater damage for a much longer period to a great many people than the slave system of the western world. There is no doubt that in the later Vedic age, in the name of religion, the caste system was most conveniently justified and exploited by those in positions of power and authority. Their aim was to perpetrate the dominance of the priestly class (the Brahmins) and reduce competition to the ruling class in matters of political dominance and privileges.
Oh, by the way, quota reservation is not a solution!
Also by surya
- Quizzing - Passion, art and career - August 24th, 2007
- Disabled by the system - June 20th, 2007
- Alone in the City - January 16th, 2007
- A Different Love - December 4th, 2006
- Women of a Different Mould - November 27th, 2006