Recasting Caste – Utopian and Scientific

Recasting Caste – Utopian and Scientific

(Suresh Srivastava)

I normally do not involve myself in any discussion on the proposition of convergence of class and caste, and am apprehensive whether any fruitful result can be achieved by identifying caste as class, because the discussants are normally petty bourgeois pseudo left intellectuals, who are not trained to think dialectically, hence there are arguments only and no discussions. But after reading the article written by Mr Asit Das, titled THE REAL WORLD OF CASTE IN INDIA, as a prefatory to Mr Hira Singh’s RECASTING CASTE, and circulated on a group of socially conscious young intellectuals, I could not restrain myself from intervening. Need of the time is to provide socially conscious young intellectuals every opportunity to help them develop a dialectical reasoning and scientific outlook so that some of them could play the historical role of torch bearer for emancipation of the human society. And nothing could be more effective than to juxtapose dialectical and metaphysical interpretations about any phenomena exposing inherent contradiction in the metaphysical analysis.

Ever since Marx and Engels enunciated the theory of dialectical and historical materialism, and on the basis of that theory suggested a revolutionary praxis for the working class, in the form of ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, multipronged attack by bourgeois intellectuals was unleashed against the theory. When bourgeois intellectuals failed in their frontal attack to contain the spread of Marxist ideas among the working masses all over the world, they chose to sabotage the theory from within, by obfuscating the core content of the Marxist theory, importing numerous metaphysical concepts, in the name of developing Marxism in line with ever developing society.

In last 175 years, plethoric documentation has been churned out by middle class left intellectuals, in the name of development of Marxism with reference to the modern and post modern stages of development. About any social phenomenon, first they choose an interpretation at will, and then to justify the veracity of their conclusions, conveniently gather some data and some quotations from Marx, and configure an analysis in a metaphysical manner to claim their interpretation to be dialectical. In the preface to his famous pamphlet ‘Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism’, Lenin categorically warned against this revisionist trend. He writes ‘In view of the extreme complexity of the phenomena of social life it is always possible to select any number of examples or separate data to prove any proposition.’

With their petty bourgeois consciousness, self-proclaimed Marxists fail to distinguish between dialectical approach and metaphysical approach, and feed the young minds with their utopian concepts in the name of scientific concept of socialism. In his preface to ‘Anti-Duhring’, Engels writes ‘And finally, to me there could be no question of building the laws of dialectics into nature, but of discovering them in it and evolving them from it’. Pseudo-Marxists, unable to comprehend the philosophical aspect of Marxian dialectics, fail to understand that the whole world of political, social and religious ideas of any class is a superstructure built on the infrastructure of material production relations between various classes, and which may appear to be completely unrelated with its foundation.     

Those leftists who propagate the idea that Marxist understanding of caste and Ambedkarite understanding of caste are convergent or that the caste shall be annihilated with class, have not been able to get themselves rid of their petty-bourgeois consciousness. Again in the above pamphlet, Lenin writes ‘For they are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism. …….. Unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood and its political and social significance is appreciated, not a step can be taken toward the solution of the practical problem of the communist movement and of the impending social revolution.’

If one has understood philosophical aspect of Marxism - which most of the leftists either do not understand or consider unimportant – one will be clear, that caste system is an ideological manifestation of, division of labour in the process of material production and relations of production, and hence question of caste cannot be solved in a predominantly feudal society but will fizzle out as division of labour fizzles out with the growth of capitalist mode of production.

Marx had identified that division of labour was based on the development of individual skills and on an individual providing specific kind of skilled labour power in the production of one particular kind of product. But production of one particular kind of goods was not confined to an individual or a family, in some areas like India, a whole community was producing one kind of product which is the basis of development of caste system in India. Even today a cast is identified by the kind of work the community has been doing.

Marx had further identified that ‘Upon the different forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, rises an entire superstructure of distinct and peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought, and views of life. The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out of the corresponding social relations.’ (Marx, XVIII Brumaire). Thus caste system developed on the material foundation of division of labour, but took the form of religion and social stratification with un-touchability. Caste system, like religion is an integral part of feudalism and continues even during the development of capitalism.

Marx did not deal with the subject of caste because he had realised that the cause of human woes is the private appropriation of surplus value produced by collective labour and he focused on finding how exploitation of man by man can be annihilated. Different classes and identities will be having their own specific problems at different stages of historical development, which will have to be dealt specifically by people of that particular era, but emancipation of human race as a whole will occur only when surplus produced collectively, is appropriated collectively.

Metaphysical view of Indian left is to assume that, in India, caste is synonymous to class because both have a common foundation in division of labour and hence class struggle and caste struggle are coterminous, and since annihilation of class is possible only with annihilation of capitalism, hence annihilation of cast is also possible with annihilation of capitalism only.

Dialectical view is that division of labour leads to production of commodities and division of society into classes. Within the domain of production workmen were divided between classes on the basis of skill, but, while in class structure individual workman is identified by the skill he acquires and becomes member of a class, in caste structure an individual is part of a caste, which is identified by the particular trade it follows, and the individual acquires the same skill. Because in caste structure division of labour was linked to birth, over a time, concept of caste became part of ideological consciousness of the particular class and integrated with religion.

In a feudal socio-economic formation castes and classes are synonymous because working masses are divided into various classes on the basis of skill. But with development of capitalist mode of production, machines take over the skill of the craftsmen and all workmen become simple wage labourer, and workmen hitherto divided into various classes converge into one class, proletariat and so will converge all castes into one oppressed class.

At social level there could be various oppressed groups e.g. ethnic groups, religious minorities, women and children, refugees etc., and at social level different groups may have to fight different battles, but at economic level there are only two classes, oppressed or oppressor, and at political level there has to be a united fight by all the oppressed people. Any identity politics will weaken the proletarian class struggle, and hence communists may be part of all social movements but shall not be in the forefront of social movements. Their task is to bring in political awareness among the masses through their participation in these social movements.

With due apologies to Mr Asit Das and Mr Hira Singh, I have to take up this ungrateful task of identifying the content in Mr Asit Das’ article which obfuscates Marxism, and appeal to the young intellectuals not to identify ideas with individuals, and rather dwell upon the idea forgetting the author, to guard against subjective understanding of the subject matter. I shall reproduce some of the phrases from the article which, in my opinion are contrary to Marxist thought, and leave it to the young readers’ reasoning.   

·                     The annihilation of caste is intrinsically related with the abolition of class rule in India.

·                     Identification of India with caste and reduction of caste to its religious essence is a product of the colonial process of essentialization.

·                     Hence, caste is very much an important component of Indian politics, and it is a reality which no sensible Marxist can afford to overlook.

·                     Communists should be in the forefront in the fight against caste, gender, racial, national and ethnic oppressions. One need not miss the wood for the tree. In the light of above arguments, Hira Singh’s book “Recasting Caste” is a serious Marxist intervention in the contemporary caste debates. 

·                     In India, in the era of Mandal and Kamandal politics, caste has assumed an overwhelming importance both in politics and in the Academia.(The result of XVI Lok Sabha elections shows that caste has not assumed an overwhelming importance in politics, rather it is waning. In Academia, yes of course, because it suits the existing system.) 

·                     Delineate a strategy for a classless and casteless society.

·                     The question whether caste is infrastructure or superstructure is redundant.

·                     It is here that the Marxist and Ambedkarite project of ‘annihilation of castes’ converge.

·                     And it is here that the political project of Ambedkarites and the political left converges.

While fighting against revisionism in Russuian communist movement, in 1902, Lenin wrote his famous pamphlet ‘What is to be done’ and in the preface he writes, ‘But the confusion and vacillation which constitute the distinguishing feature of an entire period in the history …….. [may be read as history of 90 years of Indian communist movement]; ………. also acquires significance, for we can make no progress until we have completely put an end to this period.’

I hope Indian Marxist will pay heed to Lenin’s teachings.

Suresh Srivastava

15 July, 2014