This document discusses the history of the caste system in India over several millennia. It begins by describing the Indus Valley Civilization from 2800-1900 BCE, and notes that while it was clearly a class society, it is uncertain if it had castes. It then outlines the development of the varna model in the Vedic period, the solidification of castes and practices like untouchability around the common era, and the influence of texts like the Manusmriti in codifying the system. It traces the impact of various empires and rulers in enforcing and spreading caste ideology across India over time.

1. Caste – A Presentation
 This presentation is based on a paper titled ‘South
Asian Caste System – Historical Trends’ at a
Conference on caste at Oxford in June 2016.
 This presentation is designed to correct some of the
common misconceptions about the caste system.
 Please drop me an email on dalitorg@btinternet.com
if you wish to have further information.
;

2. Historically the caste
pyramid has not been
static but dynamic with
many interconnections.

3. Caste is Indology’s Pandora’s Box: Subjects to be studied include political
science, history, sociology, religion, law, anthropology, economics, gender,
class, ethnicity, oppression, violence, ecology, identity, and even climate
change. No subject in India is unrelated to caste. As we will see caste is
about hierarchical oppression, endogamy, (threat of) violence and power.

4. Any generalised statement about caste
can be contradicted by an equal and
opposite statement
Exception
proves the rule.

5. BRONZE AGE INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION 2800-1900 BCE
(ORIGINS 6000BCE) – LARGER THAN WESTERN EUROPE

6. Cardinal points axis grid based Bronze Age
Indus City. Definitely a class society. Caste?

7. Typical Indus Valley Objects

8. Other Indus Cities Objects – cultural continuity

9. Indus cities abandoned circa 1700 BCE

10. Indic society reverts to the non-state
village model

11. Expansion of the Indo-European
Aryans

12. Horse, Spoked Wheel and Chariot come to South Asia
but in few small waves

13. Indo-European Aryan Burial in South Russia
Pontic Steppes and a scene from the epic
Mahabharata

15. Purush Shukta - Vedic Hymn of sacrifice of the Primeval
Cosmic Man (Purusha) from Rig Veda 1500-1000BCE

16. When (the gods) divided Purusha,
into how many parts (varnas) did
they cut him up? The Brāhman was
his mouth, the Rajanya was made
his arms, the being (called) Vaisya
was his thighs, and the Sudra sprang
from his feet.
Rig Veda 10.7.90.1 - 16

17. 1. Some Brahmins and Kashtriyas came from the non-
Aryan non-Vedic tribes.
2. “In all the varnas one finds the existence of Dasyus.”
states Mahabharta the great epic.

18. 1. Prior to 1000 BCE
2. Vedic varna (class not
caste) model.
3. It is a theoretical
model. There was
flexibility.
4.There was
intermarriage between
Aryan elite and
Indigenous elites and
within varnas.
5. Untouchability came
around the common
era, around a 1000
years later.

19. Demonisation
of Indigenous
People

20. Hindu Epic Mahabharata being dictated by Vyasa,
the Sudra to elephant headed god Ganesha- the God
of scribes.

21. Ekalayvaya the Nishad Adivasi prince
– a better archer than Arjuna the hero
of Mahabharata

22. Medieval Moghul period – Queen Durgavati of
the Raj Gond Adivasis – dark coloured Gond
husband not shown

23. Dr B R Ambedkar an Untouchable Mahar
and father of the Indian constitution with his
2nd (Brahmin) wife

24. The system was flexible as well as rigid. Socially
it is still very rigid.
Exceptions still prove the rule.

26. Iron Age in North India – starting 1000 BCE
A Dasa or a slave could run
away to the jungle.
A Helot like Sudra had a
share in the society.
Later on there was no
jungle to run into.

27. Cutting and Burning of forests in
Ganges Valley

28. Aryan Fire God Agni burning the Khandava Forest –
Krishna and Arjuna on a killing spree

29. Legend of burning the Khandava
Forest- Relief panel from Angkor Wat

30. The Grand Sacrifice (holocaust) of the Nagas

31. Present day yet another non-Aryan Naga
Adivasi Tribe
Insurgency
in the NE of
India in
Nagaland

32. What did the Adivasi gave to Indic
society?
 Caste free and untouchability free society
 More equal society for women
 Democratic non state institutions: Freedom, Equality,
Fraternity.
 Sharing, fraternity and egalitarian ethos, lack of greed
 Knowledge of medicinal plants
 Sustainable agriculture
 Ecologically sustainable ways of living
 Primitive humanistic/materialistic (scientific) philosophy
 Music and dance
 Non-Vedic Hindu gods e.g. Shiva, Kali, Ganesha etc.

33. Declaration of state power and state
protection of the varna or caste system

35. Grand sacrifices by the kings were normal in
Vedic times. These scenes are from 20th
century Nepal.

36. Coronation followed the Ashavmedha
Yajana or the Horse Sacrifice Ritual

37. King was god and the defender of the faith
and caste was an article of faith

38.  Source: Khandogya Upanishad
 V, Tenth Kanda,7
 'Those whose conduct has been good, will quickly
attain some good birth, the birth of a Brahmana, or
a Kshatriya, or a Vaisya. But those whose conduct
has been evil, will quickly attain an evil birth, the
birth of a dog, or a hog, or a Chandal (outcaste).

40. India’s Machiavelli – Kautiliya (the
Crooked One) and his Science of
Material Wealth

42. 16 Major Aryan and un Aryan Tribal
Groupings in North India

43. Chapter from Arthashastra – ‘Managing’ the
Aryan and Adivasi Tribes
 1. Divide and rule - Split one tribal clan against another.
 2. Bribe weaker clans against the stronger ones.
 3. Send the following into the tribal areas:
Agent provocateurs – poison wells/assassinations
Liquor
Prostitutes/feme fatales – thus weakening clans
 4. Break up the tribes by military means
 5. Settle them as Sudras in villages under the caste system.
Absorb the tribal elite warriors as Kshatriyas.

44. War against the Great Kalinga Republican Confederacy –
United India but with a heavy price tag
“In the eighth year of his
consecration the Beloved of
the Gods, the King
Priyadarsi, conquered
Kalinga. A hundred and fifty
thousand men were thence
carried away captive, a
hundred thousand were
there slain, and many times
that number died”

45. Emperor Ashoka (273 to 232BCE) of Maurya
Dynasty and Kalinga War – Protector of
Buddhists as well as Hindus!

47. Caste and Genetics – Gupta Empire
 One study looked at how gene exchange and mixing
were common among ancestral groups until 1,575
years or 70 generations ago when strict endogamy
came into place. The timing corresponds with the
reign of the Guptas, whose ruling Hindu elite
enforced and advocated Vedic Brahminism, the study
said.
 By the way: You can not tell a person’s caste using
DNA analysis.

48. 1. Quotes Rig Veda to justify the varna system.
2. ‘Slavery is inherent in Sudra – who can change it?’
Sudra and women are almost equated.
3. Intermarriage between varnas is now forbidden.
4. Problem: There are hundreds of castes in reality
due to diversity of ethnic tribal clans. How do you
reconcile varna and caste model?
5. Solution: A fictive illogical theory of ‘mixing of
varnas’. Not accepted by scholars.
6. Differential rewards and punishments for different
varnas.
7. Untouchability is already established but it is now
codified.
8. Women’s position is formally degraded. Non-
Aryan women had more equality.
9. Every succeeding Law-Giver quoted Manu
approvingly – ‘Iti Manu’ or ’Thus said Manu’.
Manu Smirti – Beginning of
Common Era

49. 270. A once-born man (a Sudra), who insults a
twice-born man with gross invective, shall
have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin.
271. If he mentions the names and castes
(gati) of the (twice-born) with contumely, an
iron nail, ten fingers long, shall be thrust red-
hot into his mouth.
272. If he arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their
duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be poured
into his mouth and into his ears.

50. Manu on Women

51. Manu on Women
Women should be subject to her father in childhood, in youth to her
husband, and when her husband is dead, to her children.
A Sudra woman can never be the wife of a twice born, she can only be a
vessel of pleasure.
Marriage to be within one’s own varna. Higher caste men may marry
downwards.
Most reprehensive marriage is lower castes men marrying upwards. The
greater the distance in status more catastrophic it was considered by Manu.

52. Manu on once honourable but eventually defeated
warrior Chandal outcaste Untouchables
 1. Habitat – Not in the village.
Wander from place to place.
 2. Clothing – leftover from
dead bodies. Broken dishes
only.
 3. Ornaments – Black iron.
 4. Wealth – Dogs and donkeys.
 A maiden washed her eyes
upon seeing a Chandal!
51. But the dwellings of Kandalas
and Svapakas shall be outside the
village, they must be made
Apapatras, and their wealth (shall
be) dogs and donkeys.
52. Their dress (shall be) the
garments of the dead, (they shall
eat) their food from broken dishes,
black iron (shall be) their
ornaments, and they must always
wander from place to place.

53. By 500 CE
Manu’s ideal
had been
applied to all
over India and
this coincides
with the mass
migration of
Roma from
India.

56. Dalit (ex Adivasis) India’s Broken
People– the Fifth Varna

57. Relevance to Modern India’s Right

58. Vedanta (meaning end of the Vedas) ..
Contd.

59. The Dongria Kond Adivasi Tribe of
Udisha

60. Adivasi and now increasingly Dalits
demonstrating together

61. Adivasi resistance - present

62. India Government’s Operation Green
Hunt

63. Why India only?
1. Other cultures at various times have created somewhat similar forms
e.g. Japan, Nigeria
2. But the Indian caste system is unique in its form.
3. Reasons are uneven development & long time frame.
4. Co-existence of multiple production modes e.g. slavery, caste,
feudalism, capitalism.
5. The process in not completed even now, as we have seen previously
with the case of Adivasi tribal areas.

64. Spread of Buddhism – Land and Sea Silk
Roads
Buddhism was an
internationally suitable
religion for traders or
countries which have
gone through unity
trauma such as China.
Peace was a necessity for
the smooth functioning
of countries and trade.

65. Post Gupta defragmentation - Buddhism is
destroyed in India by many means: Physical
opposition, vegetarianism, cow protection,
incorporation of non-elite religious practices
+Shiva

66. Cause of all causes, God Shiva the wild destructive force, sensual,
ascetic, and a family man all rolled into one.
Siva - a new
non-Vedic
Tantric god.

67. ‘Transgressive’ Tantric Religion -post Vedic
Hinduism created to oppose
Buddhism/Lokayactic Humanists, steal their
clothes, and later to turn Adivasi areas into
plough based caste society- peacefully – by
tax free and grant to temple based Tantric
Brahmins

68. Ancient universal cult of mother goddess and fertility
practiced by the majority of the Indian population

70. Creation of a new multi faceted Goddess
Shakti. All the gods put their power into her in
order to destroy a demon!

73. Tantra phase lasted best part of a
1000 years Tantric political
ideology of locating
temples or
monasteries in
troubled areas and
using religion as a
controlling force was
followed by almost all
the countries where
Hinduism or
Buddhism went.
Fierce Tantric deities from
medieval Japan

74. Some Common Fallacies about Tantra
 1. It was an underground movement against the caste system.
 2. It was democratic in the sense that anyone could take part
in it.
 3. It encouraged anti-caste transgressive behaviour.
 4. It gave women a better position in rituals/society.
 5. It was limited to Hinduism only.
 6. It was limited to India.
 7. Kalchakra Tantra (Dalai Lama variety) provides
empowerment for peace.

76. Recipients Area Time Period Remarks
1000 Brahmins Maharashtra 5th Century In one district and at
one time
100+ Brahmins Bengal 650 A.D.
Buddhists Andhras 7th Century Civilise Megalithic
Culture people
40 Brahmins Gujrat 7th Century Two endowments
250 Brahmins Assam 7th Century
23 and 12 Brahmins Cuttack Orissa 7th Century
200 Brahmins Balasore 8th Century
Brahamans Tamil Nadu 8th Century

78. Hindu temples with attached tax free land granted to Brahmin
priests (landowners and local magistrates) became centre of
political power, economy, elite culture and rituals including sacred
temple prostitution
Violence is no longer
centralised and overt
but local and diffused.
Control is more cost
effective.
Temples become
extremely rich. Capital
is tied up in the temple
and no industrial
revolution is possible.

81. Philosophical means -The Great Shankracharya –
reinterpreted Vedantic Philosophy using Buddhist
dialectics – we are all one Brahman (universal reality)
but BTW everything is Maya or illusion

82. Reaction to Tantra and Shankracharya’s philosophy - Non Tantric
ex-Buddhist anti caste Natha Sidhas – Guru Gorakhnath (circ.
1000CE) but like Buddhism individual, not collective salvation in
this body & mind (but not via ritualised sex). The body is the
universe in miniature.

84. Natha Sidhas(Tamil
Cittars) practiced yoga
and herbal medicine,
were anti-caste,
opposed Brahminism
and believed in
‘formless’ God.

85. Islam in India – Should I be Salafi or
Hanafi?

86. Why Hanafi Islamic Jurisprudence in Indian and in
the adjacent countries that invaded India?

87. The ideal societal split according to Hanafi School
with Hindu model on the right hand side
 1. Men of Pen.
 2. Men of Arms.
 3. Men of Trade/Agriculture.
 4. Manual Workers.
There was never a united effort to expel Islam from
India. Instead Hindu and Muslim elites joined forces.

88. 1st Guru of the Sikhs – Guru
Nanak Dev
Brahmin where does
untouchability comes from?
Tell me as you believe in it!
Nanak is on the side of the lowest of the
low castes, and doth not envy the
company of those highly placed.

89. Ravidas’s Begumpura or a City
Without Sorrow
Literally translating into sorrowless city,
Ravidas' utopia is quite “this worldly”, aspiring
for a life without pain and not emphasising on
“other worldly” peace of moksha. Equally
important is the fact that his message is
constructed by his contemporary followers in
quite a modernist language where question of
caste oppression and his fight against the
prevailing structures of authority and
Brahmanical moral order is fore-grounded.
Guru Ravidas contemporary with Sir
Thomas More – author of Utopia

91. 1672 -The Satnamis
– followers of
Ravidas and Kabir
nearly topple
Moghul Emperor
Aurangzeb but are
defeated.
.. Led by a toothless old ‘witch’,
a Joan of Arc figure, they
repeated scenes from the
Mahabharta by slaughtering
the greatest number of
elephants ever witnessed…

92. From theological resistance to military
resistance
One of a despised caste,
unknown, unrecognized,
through devotion shall be
honoured in all four directions.
Such a one whose very touch is
(now) avoided, shall have his
feet scrubbed and washed by
the whole creation. Devotion to formless God now also
includes devotion to steel weapons.

93. The Gurus Promised & Banda the Brave delivered–
turning the caste system upside down in the Punjab but
is betrayed by the higher caste Sikhs.

94. The British in India
The ancient Law of Manu is seen
as a serious bedrock for the
native law by the British.

95. 1. The British displace the Muslim from the apex.
2. ‘No interference in the local customs’ effectively divide and rule.
3. There are some unintended consequences.

96. 1. Educated his own
wife.
2. Opened school
for untouchable
children.
3. Opened school
for girls.
4. Led a non
Brahmin
movement in
Western India.
5. Wrote polemics,
plays, articles.
6. Petitioned the
British
Government for
better treatment
of Sudra
peasants.
First Indian feminist
Had an inter-caste marriage.
Worked against child marriage.
Supported child widows and
untouchable children in time of
famine.
Pandita means ‘learned’.

97. “The caste-system
that teaches notions
of superiority,
inferiority, high and
low, depending on
birth, should be
scotched at the very
base.”

98. Why do you wish to become the leaders of the untouchables? Why
don’t you repent 3000 years of atrocities? Why don’t you tell the
untouchables we will follow you, not you follow us? Untouchable
Lions rise up! Break your chains!

100. 1. Had a string of degrees – courtesy of an enlightened
Maharajah.
2. Suffered a great deal in his personal life because he was
born an untouchable.
3. Took up the cause of the untouchables and of all women
as well as minorities.
4. Virtually ignored and attacked by the high castes during
his lifetime.
5. Prolific writer, a great debater and organiser. Once
sidelined by high caste Hindus his writings are becoming
more important every passing day.
6. Opposed Gandhi’s patronising and duplicitous attitude
towards low untouchables and women.
7. Drafted the constitution of independent India.
8. Remains the most popular icon of Dalit resistant.

103. But these
figures are
just the tip
of the
iceberg.

106. 1. In theory equality on paper,
even positive discrimination
measures.
2. In practice, widespread
discrimination and atrocities in
all spheres of life from the
bottom to the very top.
3. This is the great contradiction
in Indian political life – noted
Ambedkar in 1951.

109. Problems of caste struggle or class
struggle?

110. Why was caste useful? Future of caste
system.
 1. It opened up Ganges Valley and river valleys in South India to agriculture
by simultaneously eliminating and absorbing Adivasi culture and these
areas became the most productive areas in India.
 2. It opened up the less productive outlying Adivasi areas to advanced
agriculture.
 3. As gender, caste, class and ethnic identities are many times overlapping
and interlinked, caste remains a useful divisive tool in the hands of upper
caste conservatives, liberals and even the upper caste left.
 4. Everyone from top to bottom agrees that it has now become a
hindrance to India’s progress.
 5. Therefore to get rid of this extremely complicated anachronism has
become a simple historical necessity.

111. Caste in the UK and in the Diaspora
Caste discrimination in UK – surveys shows it
definitely exists.
UK Government is dragging its heels.
This is opposed to UK Government’s EU (!) and
international obligations to enact anti-caste
legislation.
Investment and trade with India at stake.
David and Goliath scenario.