“What’s your caste?” is a question that serves as a preamble to every other conversation in Pakistan. The question in most cases is simply a matter of identity. Prima facie, the concept of caste being a tool of social stratification might sound an archaic phenomenon, but when looked beneath the surface, the complex structures formed centuries ago are observed to play beyond the common perception. They continue to shape the social structures and are a defining factor of social mobility today.
As Plato classified men into three classes with the aim to establish a functional society, about a thousand years before Christ which is The Vedic period (c. 1500-1000 BCE), we see the first development of caste system by the “Super-Tribe” of India. In this system the Varna was the primary tool of classification. ‘Varna’ were the hereditary roots of a newborn child which determined their respective roles in society. Initially four categories or ‘castes’ were defined. These were: ‘Brahmins’ (priests, philosophers, thinkers, gurus, etc.), Kshatriyas (Kings, warriors, administrators, etc.), ‘Vaishyas’ (Agriculturalist, traders, etc.) and Shudras also known as untouchables (Laborers). Each newborn was to follow the functional occupation of its caste.
With time, especially after the Vedic period, the ‘Super-tribes’ took in other tribes in this new class society and started taking on form of a state. There were said to be three conditions put in place if any tribe wanted to join the ‘state’ or ‘Super-tribe’, these were: the veneration of the cow, the acceptance of the caste system, and the domination of the brahmanas. If you accepted these three conditions, whatever other practices you may or may not have, it was fine. There was no contestation there. That’s why when you go to India, you move from one Village to another, and the religion will completely transform. They will be worshiping some other deity or worshiping some other form of Divinity while the sanctity of cow remains the only constant. Whole tribes were ingested, taken in but undigested in the sense that the internal structure of the tribe remained unchanged. Its religion remained unchanged as long as they accept those three main things.
After its ingestion, a tribe was assigned a specific role in society: it was either the ‘Kumhars’ of society, the ‘Lohars’ of society, the ‘sonars’ of society, the ‘Zamindar’, and so on. Whoever ruled, the occupational role then continued with that tribe throughout. So specific tribes ended up doing specific kinds of work and that became their hereditary occupation from which they wouldn’t escape for coming ages. The caste as a system of caste is thus the expression of a class Society. The classes of which in turn were composed of ingested but undigested tribal forms and whose position as members of the class society made them castes.
This caste system has been very Central to all of India since. The Invasion by Muslims had no significant impact on the caste system whatsoever. People who desired to escape the confinements of castes and the associated roles and stigmas that were attached to those castes, changed religion on the pretext that exiting the fold of Hinduism would unchain them from their castes. This obviously did not work. On the contrary, the ‘Untouchables’, who switched to Christianity, brought the stigmas with them and now this class of Christians was untouchables. This can be observed in Punjab of today as well where it is staunchly believed that one cannot eat with Christians or transact with them in any manner physical.
Whereas a white Christian foreigner is warmly welcomed and is given undue protocol, a brown Christian is subject to discrimination. Muslims had their own castes in place as well. The Sayyids who are claimed to be direct descendants of Prophet, supersede any other caste. Nevertheless, this system was inherited by every ruler that came to Indian subcontinent. Whether it was Mauryan empire, Mughal empire, slave dynasty, or the Britishers; this caste system has been a central feature of political economy and culture of South Asia.
Like other rulers, Mughals too were considerate of the castes. The Rajputs, who belonged to a class of Kshatriyas, were employed as military commanders in Mughal Army. They enjoyed high ranks, pays and perquisites. The Mughal’s was an agrarian economy. All the land belonged to the emperor who gave it off to populace for cultivation in return for the excessive produce to be gained in form of taxation.
The caste of subjects was still part-of-the-play as the countrymen who were historically involved in agricultural produce were the ones receiving land for agriculture and held relatively more wealth than others. The fiscal administration, which was mainly responsible for pays of ‘Zamindars’ and ‘Jaghirdars’, was given in the hands of proficient officials and clerks drawn mainly from Hindu service castes—Kayasths and Khatris. The Zamindar and Jaghirdars were the government officials acting as intermediaries between agriculturalists and the government.
They were the ones who allocated the land to the masses at different levels of settlements and were responsible for the collection of taxes. They too often in most cases belonged to the same ‘Agriculturalist’ caste as were their subjects. The Britishers in their quest of colonialism played by the same castes and further polarized the class difference that these castes had already put in place.
The Britishers brought with them the notion of private ownership of land. This was a significant change in the legal structure of the subcontinent and had lasting effects on its politico-economic environment. The ‘Permanent Settlement Act of 1793’ dissolved the power of landlords (Zamindars) over the peasants and resulted in bourgeois owned landed property. Amusingly, the Zamindars took the de facto possession of the land. And the caste system went under a transformation here. After the Permanent Settlement act, ‘who owns the land?’ became the most important question. Subsequently, the new division of castes was based on the ownership of land.
The Zamindars who were bestowed with the landed property mostly belonged to castes of Sayyids, Jutts and Rajputs. These collectively constituted the ‘Zamindar’ castes, while the other cadre was categorized as the ‘Kammi’ castes. Kammi comes from ‘Kaam kerna’ (Do work). The prior ones broadly included Arain, Malik, Gondal, Bhatti, Rawn and so on (subcastes of the aforementioned ones) while the Kammis included Chuhra / musalli (Sweeper and scavenger, chamar (leather worker), nai (barber) and so on. The point of consideration being that names of all these castes had no pejorative connotations so to say, but today are used as derogatory terms. One of the potential reasons behind such behavior is said to be the imperviousness of caste structures to social mobility. The social mobility was purposefully made restrictive by both i.e., the British administration and the higher castes. The British Administration did it through its legal structures such as the ‘Punjab Land Alienation Act 1900’. The act prohibited the sales of land to non-agrarian castes for the reason that if the land was not being used for agriculture it would not generate the levied taxes. The commoners did it through the age-old tool of marriage. Even today, the notion of not marrying beyond one’s caste is widely practiced in rural Punjab. To someone from a lower caste marrying someone from an upper caste means a marriage where blood is to be spilled.
The phenomenon is also depicted in classical Punjabi literature. ‘Heer Ranjha’, ‘Sohni Mahiwal’ and ‘Mirza Sahiba’; in each of these Punjabi epics the reason that the lovers could not unite, was the caste system. And these stories are not so radical as to suggest that a lower caste man could not marry an upper caste woman but just that they were marrying across castes. Even that is not allowed. These accounts on their own give the cultural aspects of the caste system, where the castes’ hierarchical standings challenge the social cohesion of the society. These social defects were inherited by Pakistan and continue to challenge the social fabric.
Pakistan upon its inception was a feudal dominated territory. Feudal classes, which were based on castes (or biraderies), impeded progressive regimes. The caste system made them impervious to the state’s power as the social and legal structures ensured their dominance over the ‘lesser’ masses. When the economy did shift from agriculture to trade and industry, the castes which were traditionally associated with trade such as Memons, Saigols, Kojas, Boras and Chinniotis prospered and superseded others. They too employ the same tools to restrict social mobility and maintain their stronghold.
If Pakistan is to get free of this caste struggle, then there’s an urgent need of social sector reforms ranging from land reforms to industrial inclusivity.
Hamza Zubair
The writer is an undergrad student of Governance and Public Policy at NUST School of Social Sciences. He writes on politics and philosophy.
