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THERE IS SO LITTLE GENERAL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION AMONG THE Hindus that Brahmanic India may be called a society without an organized state. Hindu society consists of a large aggregation of practically autonomous small communities held together by mutual dependence. There have been kings among the Hindus from time immemorial, but, so far as we know, these have always governed in the interest of ruling caste or estate. In days of native rule, strong rajas here and there have exercised considerable authority in the affairs of castes; (Census of India, 1911, Vol.1, Pt. 1, p. 393. For a general discussion of the activities of early kings, see Edward W. Hopkins, “The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India,” Journal of American Oriental Society, Vol. XIII, 1888.). Their administration, however, has been despotic and capricious. Law has never attained the objectivity of the secular. According to the Abbe Dubois:
There has been no legal code; neither has there been any record of legal usage. There are, it is true, a few works containing general legal principles, and a few wise legal maxims which have helped to guide the judges in their decisions; yet nowhere have there been properly organized courts of justice. (Op. cit., p. 654 For instances of direction and advice to the king in his administration of justice, see Manu, VIII, 1, 41, 45, 310.)
An organismic theory of society has persisted with great strength among the Hindus. It has filled the need for a rationale of the social order. The individuating influence of caste has probably kept every appearance of collective sympathy from developing into an organized state, and of course Brahmanic India never dreamed of nationalism. The system limits the opportunity both for concerted action and of achieving a common purpose. Hindu society, says Senart, “has given rise to no state which is comparable even with the narrow government of the cities of antiquity, still less with our modern state.” And Risley observes further: “there is consequently no national type and no nation and or nationality in the ordinary sense of words.”
The Hindus, then, never attained a conception of nationality. Possible national patriotism has been absorbed in caste patriotism. Nationalism calls for some degree of popular identification of aspirations, memories, and sympathies, but the caste system is antipathetic to such a tendency. Rene Maunier has put considerable emphasis on the point that “the idea of nationality takes birth everywhere by the putting of the peoples in contact with strangers.” A people does not gain a national conception of itself in isolation; the feeling for group unity and the idea of a common fortune result from its reaction to competitive incursions of strangers who conceive of themselves as having a common destiny. India has had its share of invasions, but up to recent times it was still possible to say that “the vast majority of the people of India are as yet untouched by the idea of nationality.” However, as the country begins to get its bearings in the arena of capitalistic competition, nationalistic sentiment crops up sporadically.
Many Hindus have mistaken the general absence of concern of one caste about the affairs of another for “the democratic spirit.” In a system where sympathy for man as man is at its nadir, groups, at a prescribed distance, may live very much as they please; but this situation is hardly democratic. To think of others as being unworthy of notice is not necessarily tolerance. Intercaste indifference and apathy do not mean democracy. “True citizenship [is] impossible under a caste system which all but deified the priestly class, condemned great multitudes [ the Sudras ] to a life of contempt, and banished the untouchables beyond the social pale.” The concept of a civic ideal, then, becomes practically impossible; for the individual, the welfare of the nation must always be subordinated to the welfare of the caste.
No possible qualification of an “other-caste” individual could be sufficient to attract a voter against the wishes of his caste. In fact, under the caste system, voting by caste may be the only possibility, and what this would mean politically is difficult to say. The caste system is probably the “completest denial of democracy.”
The primary organizing social force in Hindu society is a prestige-social-distance complex. What the public thinks of a man or the group to which he belongs appears to a be more powerful source of social control in India than in most other parts of the world. We recognize it in the plight of the outcaste and in the ceaseless struggle for maintenance or advancement of caste position. The norm of public opinion is the attitude of the Brahman.
The dharma, or way of life, of a caste is traditional; it is grounded in the static doctrine of karma and transmigration, and attempts by lower castes to appropriate it by imitation provoke considerable envy and ill will. The effectiveness of these controls developed among the castes has led some writers to conclude that the Brahman plays but an insignificant part in the determination of intercaste relationships.
The role of Brahman, however, is subtle; we must not expect to see him as policeman of the system. Brahmans are the traditional keepers of knowledge and wisdom; the gurus have earned the unquestioned respect of all other castes, and their very attitude toward caste tends to determine caste rank. The Brahman is not capricious in judgment, for he is himself the personification of tradition. Intercaste behavior tends to be in terms of what each caste believes Brahmans will sanction, while Brahmans are controlled reflectively by the exalted opinion which the community holds of them.
The services of the Brahman are indispensable to the system; there is no substitute for him.
By the people generally, he is regarded as a pure, stainless, twice-born being, divine as well as human, worthy of unbounded admiration and worship. He is the priest of the Hindu religion, directing the ceremonies performed at the temples, sacred wells, sacred tanks, sacred rivers, and at all other hallowed places throughout the land. He is present to sanction and give effect to the great social festivals of his countrymen, held at marriages, at births of sons, and at deaths. He casts the horoscope, tells the lucky days, gives spiritual counsel, whispers mantras or mysterious words, executes magical incantations and charms; and is at once household god, family priest, and general preceptor and guide, in behalf of the many millions of Hindus residing in the vast country lying between the Himalayas and Cape Comorin.
No other caste covers the territory so completely as the Brahman. These priests are indeed the hubs of the hundreds of thousands of small communities which compose the system. “India, as a whole, is the home of the Brahmans; but only a portion of it is the home of Rajpoots [the military caste]. A district in India without Brahmans would be like Hamlet with its leading character withdrawn; yet there are many districts in which no Rajpoots has ever dwelt.” The caste system, then, is essentially a religious rather than a political social order. Quite early in the history of the Hindus the Brahmans defeated the Kshatriyas in a struggle for social precedence, and, though they have never taken to the sword, their spiritual influence over the people is probably stronger than any military control ever exercised by a secular rule.
“The supremacy of the Brahmans has now become one of the cardinal doctrines of Hinduism; so much so, that orthodox Sudras of the old school will not break their fast until they have sipped water” which has been sanctified by a Brahman’s dipping his toe into it. According to Bougle, the sole organizing force which has kept the caste system from crumbling is an unquestioned acceptance of a religious conception of life and a belief in the omnipotence of the sacerdotal body. Nripendra K. Dutt asserts that “the prestige of the Brahman is the corner-stone of the whole organization.”
Ordinarily Brahmans are competent to administer any phase of Hindu law; indeed, all law in Brahmanic India is “canon law.” Hence any breach of custom or written rule is considered a violation of a divine mandate, and, consequently, any punishment meted out by Brahmans is accepted as a sacred judgment. Even when Brahmans leave the actual administration of the law to the king they never concede the right to advice him in reaching decisions.
Formerly, Hindu kings, under instruction from their pandit ministers, would enforce caste observances. But under the present non-Hindu state, no such action could be expected. In many instances, pandits have to be consulted both as to whether a member has really violated Shastraic injuctions and as to the penalty which should be inflicted in that special case.
Probably no single institution of the caste system so clearly illustrates the fact that a caste is a corporate unity as the panchayat. Not all castes have a panchayat (literally, a tribunal of five), but they all have some means of constituting a body capable of exercising its functions. It is upon the panchayat that the business of maintaining order within the caste and the settling of intercaste questions devolve. Indeed, it has been said that “the caste is its own ruler.” Of course we should expect methods of procedure to vary from caste to caste, but an examination of some of the features of this council may give us a fair understanding of its character.
Sometimes a powerful headman or guru may act as sole arbiter on questions arising in the caste, or a general assembly of all the adult male members of the caste may sit in judgment upon the affairs of the caste. Of more recent development is the sabha, or general meeting of regional representatives from the subcastes of a caste. It settles matters of interest to the whole caste. In this discussion we shall be concerned mainly with the panchayat.
The juridical functions of most castes are in the hands of the headman, the panchayat, and the caste assembly. The headman calls the panchayat, presides at its deliberations, and pronounces the decision of the group. In most castes supreme authority is in the hands of the panchayat, a body numbering five or more men, and sometimes including the older women of the caste. In others, however, final authority is reserved to the caste assembly. “Panchayats, as a rule, do not allow persons of other castes to take part in their deliberations, but in case of difficulty they sometimes refer the matter to some outsider of local dignity or experience, whether he be a Brahman or belong to some other caste of good status.”
The caste panchayat has jurisdiction over all matters concerning its welfare; it is not at all concerned with questions of a civic nature. It organizes boycotts, regulates the occupational activities of its caste members, upholds rules concerning commensality, settles questions of marriage, and assumes responsibility for general intercaste relationships. Of particular interest to the panchayat are those relationships of the individual with the community, which tend to affect the status of the caste.
The caste has power to punish its members. This apparently simple fact tells a big story about the sociology of caste. Caste punishment is not merely ridicule or exclusion; it involves rather the infliction of specific sentences upon an individual or group of individuals. The power of a caste to punish is indispensable. It is the basis upon which the corporate responsibility of the group rests. It indicates, moreover, the extent of dependence of individual upon his caste for existence. The caste had power (before British rule) to mete out penalties even of death to its members; it may impose fines, castigate, banish, subject to ignominy, and excommunicate. There is no appeal from the decision of the caste. Today, in areas where the British courts are established, the panchayat has been forced to contract its criminal jurisdiction; but offences specifically against the interests of the caste are still within the purview of caste judgment.
The security which the caste gives its adult members is of the same kind of fearful indispensability as that which the family provides for its young children. The competence of the caste does not end with the exercise of organizational and juridical functions; it is also intimately concerned with the domestic life of the individual. After long personal contact with the system John P. Jones comes to the conclusion that the caste “so completely hems in the life of a man, imperatively prescribes for him the routine of life, even down to the most insignificant details, and thus shuts him up in his own clan and with equal completeness cuts him off from the members of other castes, that it can reduce any recalcitrant member to certain and speedy obedience, simply because there is no one to whom he can flee for sympathy and refuge.”
A satisfactory way of life for the individual is practically impossible outside of his caste. He “depends probably more than any other peasant in the world on the sympathy and co-operation of his brethren … All the affairs of his life are regulated by the opinion of the [caste] in which he is born, and severed from that group he finds himself a hopeless outcaste.” There are, then, no actions of the individual, which he may reserve to his own discretion, even on the ground that they are private.
The shame which would reflect on the whole caste if faults of its individual members went unpunished guarantees that the caste will execute justice, defend its own honour, and keep all its members within bounds of duty.
The individual looks to the opinion of his caste as a comforting arbiter of right and wrong; he is subordinated to the group, a fact which works neither spiritual nor physical hardships. His right and immunities against the world are secured for him by his caste, while outside of his caste he is destitute of social influence and disconsolate.
Caste dharma is the customary norm of behavior accepted and developed by a caste as its sacred way of life; it is caste usage made sacrosanct. The dharma of a caste is a complex cultural whole, an atomized variant of the total culture. Ordinarily the dharma of a caste does not differ in every aspect from that of other castes, yet the slightest variation in some peculiar aspect may be sufficient to distinguish the whole.
It is the sacred duty of every member of a caste not only to follow religiously the dharma of his caste, but also to protect it against infringement or appropriation by other castes. Thus, respect for ones caste dharma, be that what it may, constitutes a greater source of divine favor than a desire to covet any other. “This strict and universal observance of caste and caste usage forms practically the whole sacred law.” Further more, the necessity of protecting caste dharma may be thought of as a factor contributing to caste stability and intercaste invidiousness.
Another means of social control of which the Hindus are past masters is the boycott. Short of open conflict, it is the most powerful weapon, which they possess. The use of the boycott is ingrained deeply in the immemorial practices of the people. Outcasting is itself a form of boycotting, and the effectiveness with which the latter may be employed against individuals or groups is universally attested to by observers in India.
A whole village may close up tight against anyone attempting to break with the social order. Again we refer to the Abbe Dubois for a classic statement: “something one may see, as a result of a caste order, the tradesman and merchants of a whole district closing their shops, the laborers abandoning their fields, or the artisans leaving their workshops, all because of some insult or of some petty extortion suffered by some member of their caste; and the aggrieved people will remain obstinately in this state of opposition until the injury has been atoned for and those responsible for it punished.” When applied to a casteman, it is punishment feared even as a death sentence.
