Origins of Caste

Manu (c. 900 B.C.), the great law giver, originated the caste system by dividing the people Into four kinds: the Brahmin, the brains of the state; the Kshatriya, the King's army and police, who protected the people; the Vaishya, the people who organised and carried on industry; the Sundras the vast mass of the people. The reason for such a division was not religious, as many claim, but economic. At this period the population of India was becoming so large and disorganised that it was necessary to organise to guarantee economic stability. We find that the people used to migrate from one province to the other and thus upset the whole economic organism. Owing to such disorganisation the learned men with foresight planned to evade this disruption of the village system.

The great economic plan was to protect the system that existed. The men at that time saw that each village or province had a particular trade; thus the Punjab supplied wheat, the cities, industries. It was then authorised that if a village was a producer of silk it was to go on producing silk and thus had a monopoly. Thus a village that worked in hides began to be the supplier of goods made from hides. So the State was [unclear: organed] as a huge workshop, but as generations passed, people combined every aspect of their life with religion—in this case a religious interpretation was required and the succeeding ages gave it one that in the last two hundred years has greatly damaged India.

Unfortunately for us we gave the Imperial Government every encouragement—the caste system was a fact. We have been doing our utmost to eradicate our wrongs and start afresh but this has been impossible, for by the existing caste system we have facilitated stronger separation rather than the desired unity of India, and the Imperial Government has exploited every inch of our mistakes and has been playing a ball game; running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Though the caste system is condemned by all nationalists the Government has made it difficult, nay, impossible for understanding and conciliation. It has played one caste against another and has acclaimed the disunity of India. The recognised leader of the Untouchables. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, says: "I am afraid that the British choose to advertise our unfortunate condition not with the object of removing it, but only because such a course serves well as an excuse for retarding the political progress of India."

The other aspect of Indian disunity is the alleged communal strife. To say that Hindus and Moslems have always been at each others throats is just as great a falsehood as to say that Germany has always been a peace loving country. When the Moslems established their first organised rule at Delhi in 1206, it introduced a new culture, religion, languages (Urdu. Persian. Arabic) and laws but the old form of government survived.

At intervals there were religious persecutions which the Hindus suffered at the hands of the Moslems, but these were not communal disturbances. Throughout Indian history there is not a single incident that qualifies as communal friction. Moslems and Hindus dwelt side by side, conscious of one fact which educated Moslems like Jinnah forget.