Our Roots Are Here -

Nature of Divisions of People

 We in my school too were taught that caste divisions are wrong, and it is wrong to divide people on that basis; we too were taught that untouchability was injustice and so is being forced to be in an occupation due to accident of birth, and one should be free to choose one's life and career. The difference was being in a government institution we were not taught colonial prejudices against India. For us 1857 was independence war and the first time I heard of the phrase describing it as mutiny it was very obvious where it had come from. We were in schools that did not look to foreign lands for kowtowing, and that made the difference. It helped too that the ambient society and our family did not behave to the contrary. So our sense of identity was not as disturbed as that of those I see that are taught the official colonial versions. 

Colonial occupation of one land by another people who wish to remain separate and not become one of those they wish to rule as outsiders has to be built on magnified faults of those occupied, whether true or imaginary or fabricated and outright false, or for more success a clever mix of all of that so that anyone from occupied land and people finds it hard to correct it. In the first type is something as simple but insidious as criticism of local clothing - and the more serious is falsifying or deforming the history and social structure of the occupied; motive is the same is either case, that is, to divide, shame, browbeat, make a manufactured guilt weaken them, and rule. 

So various people from Changez Khan (it is Changez or Chingiz, not Genghis, just as it is Gangaa, not Ganges) in India to missionaries in various tropical lands despised and shamed the local people for not wearing tailored clothes and only draping, or wearing various little in way of clothing, respectively - forgetting that clothing has to suit climate and locals had evolved theirs just as the occupiers did, over the millenia, and it was the foreigners who were in another land, another climate, with wrong sort of clothing. 

It is as ever relevant, though it seems like a trivial issue. Of course young fight elders to wear today's fashion and old strive to keep one's culture alive, and young ask why anyone should wear a saree while old usually find it hard to explain but insist on it anyway. Daughters get away with salwar kurta (- unaware that it is foreign to India, and is an adaptation of age old Chinese way of dressing adapted by Turks and declared the dress for khilafat or caliphate movement post WWI by the Turkish leader and adopted promptly by Muslims all over from Turkey to India and almost immediately by all Punjab -) and even with trousers; daughters-in-law have to fight out the battle for the seniors' choice of dress verses their own, saree versus any other mostly, salwar versus any other in Punjabi homes. Those living abroad try to blend wherever they are and those that return fight to keep their options open, and get misunderstood in their own land no matter what they choose. 

The real issue is more than today versus yesterday. For example today children are perhaps not taught about weavers of India dying due to British flooding the market with cheap and glossy cloth from Manchester. Today it is not the British but the force of fashion dictated by capitalistic concerns that is driving our weavers of beautiful sarees and other fabrics to starvation and suicide, and their tremendous knowledge and expertise will be lost if not kept alive. No giants of western fashion are in any such danger as our poor weavers are. Give up on glass bangles - they could actually be dangerous - but keep options of sarees alive. It is the beauty of India that will be seriously eroded once sarees are gone. 

It is not only sarees either - the trend to buy readymade clothes of the sort that can be easily made by any tailor around the corner, and he likely will take care to make it fit and flatter you as you are rather than your feeling inadequate because stores don't carry more than a certain stereotype that is easier to manufacture and most profitable with less fabric to worry about waste-or-smart-use; and for all that often those ready-mades are not even well done or imaginative - you or a poor relative or someone at home looking for an interesting occupation could make a better job of it. If we do not give up our independence of buying fabric and getting it tailored to suit our needs, whims and fancies, we will likely retain our great variety of dresses and fabrics and not be as much of slaves to vagaries of what is available ready in stores, but if we do not - one day soon you will find it hard to buy any fabric at all, much less find a tailor. And that will add to the woes of weavers as well, they will be subject to the whims and fancies of a few who will decide what fabric and what ready-mades will a billion people wear. Avoid that, keep our independence, at every level. If you need to have ready-mades for the few occasions when they are useful use the sort that cannot be done so easily otherwise - the crocs and such like, even copies. 

This is for the male of the species too - don't enslave yourself to trousers, use indigenous clothes and discover how much more comfortable they are. And for everyone, it is one thing to try and discover new foods and so forth, but keep on with your own too for more than one reason - health, nutrition - and discover more than just those beyond the borders, there is such infinite variety within our land too. 

But this is not just about clothes and food, though it is as good a starting point as any. It was about the effect of letting others define us - it might be bad enough as a person but as a nation, an ancient surviving culture it is positively folly. And a huge amount of such folly has been going on for a very long time due to occupation and domination by many who considered themselves apart from the mainstream, British and others of European descent more than anyone. 

Greatest of this was the claim that we were not one people in one land and that some of us had come from Europe - and that the only indigenous people were those that were either forest tribals or those too dark to claim such a migration from Europe. This was one of the ways to pull away the very ground under the feet of any movement or even sentiment for independence, for if we felt and believed we had come from elsewhere obviously we would not feel a moral right to tell outsiders to leave. The great folly was our allowing the perpetuation of such a myth - for the theory of Aryan invasion or migration is myth at best and a big lie at worst - without even a cursory examination of their claim, which was motivated by idea of dividing us and making us all the more vulnerable to foreign domination. 

Consider even the name of this country, this land. The name India is given by outsiders, and it is due to the importance of the river Sindhu (which they call Indus) for them - those who had to cross Sindhu to enter the main part of the country. Further west lay deserts and north were difficult mountain ranges with one pass, and crossing Himaalaya on north and northeast was only possible for the few ascetic hardcore pilgrims that dared, not armies. So anyone from outside the natural borders of our land related entering it to crossing the great river at the only ancient point of entry. What do we call it - Bhaarata; what was the ancient name? Aaryaavarta, the land of Aarya. (And by that we did not mean a tribe or a race, we meant a civilisation. To be Aarya was, irrespective of colour of skin or eyes or hair, an inner being, it was to follow a code of conduct in every sphere of life.) The name of Sindhu is not primary for us to be associated with our land. In fact the word Sindhu also means ocean, as often Sanskrt words do have more than one meaning, and it relates that river to one of the natural boundaries of the land. Perhaps this river was named Sindhu, ocean, deliberately at that.

Sindhu (called Indus by them) is not primary in our consciousness of the land and it is not so even in our consciousness of our rivers. It is certainly an important river, mentioned sixth in order, after Godaavarie and before Kaaverie, in the names of rivers that are considered not only important but even sacred; but which river, what feature of our land is our own identity? That is easy and obvious - it is the northeast, Himaalaya and Gangaa and Yamunaa, that are primary in the consciousness of the land. That is the bond that exists in Indian psyche and it is deep. It is not just about pilgrimage, it is far deeper and stronger. It is as important for us as all the other places of pilgrimage put together, all temples, from Ayodhyaa to Dwaarakaa to Raameshwara; it is the head and heart of our consciousness of our people, our land. And too - for whatever reason - we had the story of Himaalaya rising out of ocean long before the western science confirmed it; either we saw it happen or had another way of knowing it, but it was this land, these oceans, this range and the rivers from it giving life to our land that are primary. Not the borders that others crossed, not us. Order of rivers is Gangaa, Yamunaa, Godaavarie, Saraswatie, Narmadaa, Sindhu, Kaaverie. Our origins are related to Himaalaya. 

With the exception of those few who can and do claim a descent from somewhere outside the natural boundaries of the country, we are one people - that includes all languages, all castes and even forest people - it was unjust and killing levels of taxes that drove people from villages to forests during last millennium during occupation by one foreign power after another - and many other flaws must have occurred when we were not free to carry on our own rules and held fast to existing ways without cleansing social set up or having any way of conducting our schools where children would learn together. In absence of schools it was parents who would teach what they could, with a natural apprenticeship along gender lines. And child marriage came to be a necessity when a grown up unmarried young woman could and would be abducted by the foreign rulers with impunity. 

If there are any doubts about our being one people, take a camera and record the humongous crowd at the south Mumbai railway station terminals at rush hours - 9 a.m. being the best time - and watch the result, frame by frame, at leisure. An Indian might be able to tell where someone comes from - which language, which province, which caste or even religion - but only about one percent or less; no outsider can possibly do so. This is especially so about the male part of the crowd, having adopted generic western dresses, but only Indian women can possibly tell the difference between various women's roots, by subtle signs of patterns of ear or arm jewellery, and that difference too is more regional and blending fast. Mumbai being more cosmopolitan than any other city in India - and probably within the first three in the world - is the place to carry out this test. 

With the exception of Parsees and Jews, who came from elsewhere and settled and lived in peace all these centuries with no problems between them and the main people, even those of other religions are mostly of Indian ancestry, having converted for some reason or other, not so long ago. It is not easy, sometimes even not possible, to tell them apart with a generic apparel and no marks (like caps or hair), especially with eyes closed (so expression is no clue). 

Recently there have been migrations from southeast Asia, apart from the Chinese who have lived in India for a while. Some Europeans stayed on and some even arrived in sixties - some via American migration of their ancestors - but those few, foreigners settled in India quietly, are not in question in this. They are welcome to live in peace; we, of Indian origin, are one. 

The usual practices of marriages within caste is only superficial - ancient times there were no restrictions, as can be seen clearly in Mahaabhaarata well enough. And even today or yesteryears for that matter nothing could ever stop anyone from marrying someone; one only had to want it enough. If one marries someone that displeases the family they too have the right to their peace by keeping away, and since there was no divorce a married woman was a married woman. She however had to blend the best way she could with his family and society - and this is so in most places with the exception of U.S.; for, there a man of European ancestry marrying a woman of African - even partial or slight - ancestry was, if not killed outright with his bride, declared "black" by his family and his society could at best not kill him, that is all. 

We even had rules about marriages between castes, but they were hard to follow when our social structure and fabric was in threat. And so with impunity they declared us not one people - but it takes stupidity on our part to believe such a thing. 

They brought consciousness of divisions to us, and with it shame, with the name of caste. As it is obvious with a little looking not only they had castes - it is their word, not ours - but their castes are worse in many ways, based on money and power and land ownership, with the upper castes in control of all - land, money, power, and even higher positions in all occupations - all. We had classified divisions of occupations and rules of life needed for professions (much as most of the world today still tells girls and women what they have to do being born on the other side of the gender gap); but the system we had did not concentrate money, power, land and all high positions in one caste or class; in fact it divided them pretty neatly. 

You could have a life of intellectual and spiritual occupation but that went with poverty more often than not since you were not allowed to charge for services and depended on what was affordably given by those you served in intellectual and spiritual ways. 

And this is still pretty much not very different - once I visited a temple in Southall on a moment's impulse and came out feeling good, at peace, and was asked by a British young friend if we subscribed to a particular temple, what the system was. He was much puzzled that there was no subscription, no fixed rate, and one could visit any temple and give anything whatever one wished if one gave anything at all. 

Majority of Braahmans are poor or at best middle class even by our standards (our middle class being poor by western standards anyway), and this matches with the fact of teachers and even higher level faculty and academic or research scientists being poor to middle class all over the world. For the satisfaction of an intellectual and spiritual life one exchanges life of comfort-and-lack-of-worry. 

You could instead be a ruler, warrior, and so forth, but you were then duty bound to defend anyone who needed defence, and also to not attack anyone defenceless, and behave with justice and righteousness, not be drunk with physical power and misusing it to procure anything not yours - including money and women; it goes without saying you were not allowed to charge for the said protection, or defend only those that could pay. One might compare it with soldiers and police anywhere in the world today, at any level, and monarchy (without quite so much land holdings). You were - if monarch - not as wealthy as the traders and yet were duty-bound to give to any needy that asked. 

You could be a trader and have wealth, but that had rules as well, of how to behave properly and how benefiting society by giving was a must, and raising shelters for travelers and providing watering places was only a small part of it, done often by many. 

Finally, you could be an expert crafts professional and be happy at exercising your skill, or you might work for someone (but India did not have slavery), - and your craft decided what your lifestyle had to be. India had huge expertise at crafts and in fact that - not spices - brought foreigners seeking the source, with various wares from India having been sold far and wide abroad by various caravans that went trading from China to west Asia to Europe, collecting Indian wares on the way via land routes. 

As for women, men were required to marry and take responsibility if they touched so much as a hand - touching feet of elders with devotion was the only exception - and one did not look at others with desire, others being those one could not or had no intention of marrying; but also the acceptance on part of the bride and her elders was necessary, bride more than elders. 

Castes being fossilized into uncrossable was the result of natural selection more than any prescription, for we never had a central authority and figurehead with a throned person dictating what others should do as far as Dharma went (that translates as nature, rules, duty, more than the word religion as understood by western society); that is often mentioned as an impropriety almost by them - as in one of the information-knowledge channels recently, as we "do not have an original man who started it nor a definitive single text" - but that points at their gap in comprehension. This lack of central authority in matters of social or spiritual nature is in fact our huge strength. Imagine a land of millions of popes, all equal except some might be a bit more learned. 

Not that spiritual life was banned for any, for the way to renounce and be on a pilgrimage was always open to anyone - married men had to have permission from wives, necessarily - and since worship does not need a temple (which one could have within one's home too, as primary or extra or whatever) there was no possibility of deprivation there either. Recognition of one's qualities might or might not come soon - but others have the choice to recognise one's level just as one has a right to be spiritual, and many a saints much revered today are of a variety of castes, including women. They could compose devotional literature while performing their life tasks, and did - and that itself lent beauty and depth and variety to their creations. 

In fact this is where we have it even better - there being no central authority we have had no inquisitions, no repressing of those with knowledge of their own fields, or even of those with visions of spiritual nature, nowhere near on the scale Europe had - not even a millionth of it. An absensce of centralised power and authority in these matters made for localised - to village and family level - persecution sometimes, but that was and is never the part of those that aspire alone, it is a part of social fabric everywhere - bullying in schools in U.S., ragging we inherited from our rulers of yesteryear and fagging they continue in their schools, being a few examples. 

At any rate women retained their knowledge in many fields in India where those of European ancestry lost it, since a centralised power there feared women with knowledge more than anything else, and we had no such fear, we had had renowned learned women even in fields of learning unrelated to housekeeping, and certainly knowledge of medicine and herbs and so forth was not only essential to women it was unofficially carried through generation from elders to young, even now. 

It is time we consciously claimed our knowledge of ourselves and our history - not the distorted version deliberately put forth by others but that which we have known and have not lost yet.

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