British India, Creator of Indian Caste System?

Divisions in Indian Society Were Artificially Constructed by British

© Dawn Ouedraogo

Sep 17, 2009
Origins of the Indian Caste System, academics since the 1970s are of the opinion that it is an artificial British construct to maintain the Indian divide and rule policy.

It is fairly well accepted, by modern historians, that the British controlled India by means of sophisticated ‘divide and rule’ techniques aimed at fragmenting society and, indeed, resulting in the mass communal violence that signified the last 25 years of British India.

British Fears of Islam

Initial fears of Islam led to the British banning all Indians from holding positions of authority in India, such as magistrates, and also creating a barrier between the languages of Hindi and Urdu which originally shared a common vocabulary and would be recorded in either Persian (Muslim, Urdu) or a version of the Sanskrit script (Hindi). However, a British ruling that documentation was to be in either English or the Sanskrit script alienated the Muslim intelligentsia and certainly also created divisions within what had been virtually an integrated linguistic system, and, indeed, society itself under the Mughal Emperors.

Caste System in India - A British Construct?

The issue of the caste system in India is hotly debated amongst academics, as some feel it to be primarily a construct of British colonialism whilst others see it as a reflection of traditional Hindu society. The following quotation is from the Superintendant of the Government of India regarding the 1921 Census of India and is an indication of the violent debate that still surrounds the caste system of India today.

“We pigeon holed everyone by caste and if we could not find a true caste for them, labelled them with the name of hereditary occupation. We deplore the caste system and its effect on social and economic problems, but we are largely responsible for the system we deplore."

From the above it certainly seems obvious that some British were of the opinion that Britain had at the very least contributed immensely to the caste system, if not been responsible for its creation..

According to the historian, Susan Bayly there have been commentators since the 1970s who have questioned the “very existence of an ancient pan-Indian caste system, dismissing the idea of caste society as a fabrication of colonial data-collectors and their office holding Indian informants”. She goes on, however, to argue the existence of the caste system as part of "Indian life for many centuries although not so structured or important across the whole of India until the colonial period. In the early 1800s the “boundaries between ‘pure’ and ‘impure’, clean and unclean, ‘caste’ and ‘tribe’, even Hindu and Muslim were still much less clearly defined in everyday life than was later to be the case”.

Caste set by British Stereotypes

Certainly, Bayly concludes, that the caste system prior to British rule of India was a far more fluid arrangement with the British setting and reinforcing caste stereotypes, for example: the “sturdy ‘Jat’,” the ‘manly’ Kanbi ‘race’” to the “parasitical ‘Rajputs’, and ‘thievish’ Kallars” or even creating castes such as the martial race castes from predominantly agricultural peasants.

The Creation of the Martial Race Castes

According to academic Kaushik Roy, the invention and recruitment of the martial race castes enabled the British to practise another ‘divide and rule’ technique by grouping the castes in separate regiments and encouraging inter-regimental competition, so that, in the event of another mutiny, the regiments would not have a problem firing on each other. Muslims, however, due to British fears of a Mughal inspired uprising similar to 1857, were incorporated into all regiments.

The Invention of the Untouchable caste

It has further been stated that the Untouchable caste is a complete British fabrication, however as Bayly argues “they and only they must perform the tasks of ritual cleansing and pollution-removal. . . enabling those of ‘clean’ caste to maintain a state of ritual purity”, they are therefore in a symbiotic relationship with those of higher caste, which was in existence prior to British colonisation.

Introduction of the 1872 All India Census

The introduction of the 1872 All India Census also created communal rifts as Indians were made aware of their caste, religion and ethnicity, whereas previously this had not been an issue with the majority of rural Indians, who had lived and worked together as a community. Indeed, labelling by caste and religion was an extremely hit and miss affair, with officials guessing at origins if rural Indians could not provide them with any information. Academics have argued that this insistence upon caste divisions may not have been so important to the British, but more an introduction by the higher caste Hindus to maintain their exclusive identity within Indian society. The Census also included women as members of individual castes for the first time, as previously it was the man’s caste identity that was recognised in society.

Sources:

Ian Talbot, India and Pakistan: Inventing the Nation, (London: Hodder Arnold, 2000)

Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Kaushik Roy, The Construction of Regiments in the Indian Army: 1859-1913, War in History


The copyright of the article British India, Creator of Indian Caste System? in Indian History is owned by Dawn Ouedraogo. Permission to republish British India, Creator of Indian Caste System? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.




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Comments
Sep 27, 2009 7:49 PM
Guest :
Blame game against british;
Every thing bad in India is assigned to "foreigners either british
and even worse to muslim invaders;This blame game is the historian's opium specially indian variety;Why indian constitution can not out rightly reject "caste system as Illegal";here is the real delema;It will never do this because caste system is the soul/core of hinduism and modern india is founded on it. I notice two major error in above
article.1) caste system is hinduic creation dependent,Varna/ashrama/karma based;Moghuls had maitained it british
too kept it as advised by Brahmans.2) British had supported persian then urdu plus english as official languages and accepted hindialso after 1900.Sanskrit's use as mentioned is a gross error.
Communal conflict was not borne with 1871 census;It was certainly
borne out of Linguistic race myth rooted in biblical creationism;Here
Noah's european son Japhet creates Aryan-Indo -european brotherhood which fathered all european languages and Sanskrit speaking branch migrates to India;The other son SHEM fathered semitic languages/races.
This grand fraud had led to a british=hindu aryan brother hood in 1800
directed against the common enemy MUSLIMS, the oppressive foreigners; British were hailed as liberators-brothers. Muslim' reaction against
this really created counter reaction ending in partition.This biblical
linguitic race fraud is exposed by anew language history based on evolution and elaborated in " urdu/hindi an artificial divide--african heritage" recently.
Dr abdul jamil khan M D
Jericho new york
1 Comment: