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GOANET invited a sociologist to contribute to the interesting and enlightening debate underway on Goanet's main mailing-list. To access it, visit http://www.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet -------------------------------------------------------------- EVEN AS WE DISCUSS CASTE, NEW CATEGORIES OF DISCRIMINATION ARE EMERGING By Alito Siqueira [EMAIL PROTECTED] Caste as an institution has always been dynamic, fluid, complex, nuanced, multi-faceted and layered and sensitive. We know little about caste in pre-colonial society except that it was probably intensely localised (the relationships were within and between 'jatti' and not the more global 'varna' or castes). It was also deeply implicated in the temple complex, which itself was the institution for the redistribution of symbolic, ritual, economic and social resources -- in a word an institution and forum deeply implicated in the political. Catholicism and Colonialism in the 16th century were the first modernity to arrive in India. Wherever Catholicism as handmaiden to colonialism went, it always integrated into the receiving society. (It never wiped out the existing society except perhaps in the Americas, where it was possible only through the decimation of the native peoples themselves). This sort of 'syncretism' is integral to the spread of any religion (including Christianity to Europe -- witness the number of Roman elements in European Christianity) that matter to any inter-cultural transfer. In the Konkan, whether Catholicism was 'castised' or caste was catholicised depends on the vantage point from which one sees it. In more general terms this amounts to the 'Konkanisation' of Catholicism (or vice versa, Hinduism as a universal religion was yet to get its nomenclature and form then). Catholicism always retained a very ambivalent relationship with what we once termed 'Konknopon'. Sometimes hostile, as in the Inquisition edicts, and at other times accommodative, as in caste and other rituals. Hereditary hierarchy was not new to the Church and it celebrated the same back at home and in the colonies. EQUALITY, ONLY IN THE EYES OF GOD --------------------------------- Equality was only in the eyes of God. The French Revolution and the equality of men on Earth (women have had to wait) was still two centuries away. There was no separation of the secular from the religious domain and hence the hierarchies and the power pyramid in society matched those of the Church and vice versa. Caste as a social (which also meant religious) hierarchy was taken for granted up at least into the late 18th century. Caste was not part of superstitious or negative 'konknopon' and there seems to have been no ambivalence as regards the desirability of the system among Catholics or the Church. Since hierarchy was an important question it seems quite 'natural' that the first two books published by native Goans (which also received the imprimatur) were by a Bamon and Chardo priest, each celebrating the superiority of his caste. (See Antonio Joao de Frias, (1892), [first published in 1702]: Avreola dos Indio: Nobiliarchia Bracmana. Tratado. Historico, Genealogico, Panegyrico, Politico & Moral. Bombaim: Livraria, P. A. Fialho and Leonardo Pais (1892), [first published in 1713]: Promptuario das Difinicoes Indicas Deduzidas de Varios Chronistas da India, Graves Authores, Historias Gentilicas. Bombay: Livraria P. A. Fialho.). However caste among Goan Catholics exhibits significant differences. Caste morphed. Converts were encouraged to change from polluting occupations which positioned them in the lowest rung of the caste hierarchy to baking, wine-making (the products used during sacraments), and thereby experience upward mobility. (Robinson Rowena (2003): Christians of India, Delhi: Sage). This is not the case among all other Indian Christians and Catholics. For instance the 'untouchables' seem non-existence in Goa -- though the lowest caste were geographically separated discriminated form the rest of the village. (Perez, Rosa Maria, (1997). 'Hinduism and Christianity in Goa: The Limits of Caste', in Rosa Maria Perez et. al. (eds) Stories of Goa. Lisbon: National Museum of Ethnology). Yet the Mahars are sometimes the 'professional' cooks at upper caste celebrations (something generally unthinkable among the Hindu). This was part of the indigenous logic of caste and not the ingeniousness of the Portuguese missionary statesman (there is enough evidence to show such movement under the Moghuls and earlier). The illustrations here show the political significance of both caste and religion. The second and later modernity came to India with British colonialism. Much of what we know to be the 'caste system' today was constructed (I hesitate to use the word 'created') during and in collaboration with British colonialism. THE BRITISH, AND CASTE ---------------------- Armed with enlightenment rationality, Europe and the Orientalist discourse held, or simply assumed, that the essence of Indian civilisation was just the opposite of the West. It is the irrational (but rationalizable) institution of 'caste' and the Indological religion that accompanies it, Hinduism. Human agency in India is displaced by Indological discourse not on to a reified State or Market but onto a substantialised Caste. Given this, it was only 'natural' for European scholars, traders, and administrators to appropriate the power of Indians (not only the 'masses' but also of the 'elite') to act for themselves. (Ronald Inden, (1990). Imagining India. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell Ltd.). While demonising one form of hereditary stratification, Britain and the enlightenment simultaneously firmly put in place another form of rigid segregation namely that of race which was far more fluid under earlier colonial rulers. The British sought to equate 'jattis' across the country, arriving at some universal hierarchy and conducting a census which sort to fix, define and close the position of each individual and his 'jatti'. Through the census enumerating of castes British colonialism universalised a generic caste system across the subcontinent and attempted to force the institution to loose much of its local indigenousness, fluidity and dynamics. (see, Arjun Appadurai, (1997), Numbers in the Colonial Imagination, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. Delhi; Oxford University Press.) Indeed the whole idea that the village was a "simple, closed and fixed" community and institution itself needs to be interrogated as such notions emerged to justify the superiority of the complexity of modernity. Such simplistic notions hardly do justice to the complexity of caste as it was or is. The system was simplified and ossified; its dynamic character denied. The explanations of the origins of caste as an earlier form of simple economic division of labour subsequently ritualised and hardened, or conspiracy theories which see caste as cunning creations of the haves are based on the flawed assumption that Indian society was 'simple' (read naive or rather simplistic) and therefore cannot simply account for the complexity and dynamic experience of castes as it was or is. Beginning with the false assumption of its superiority because of its complexity (e.g. Spence) Enlightenment Europe separated religion from politics, removed caste from the domain of politics and placed it in religion; thereby India was simple and superstitious. This helped Europe not only rationalise its own superiority but so also provided the justification for dominating India. Consequent to the French Revolution, the Portuguese took a cue from the British and reassessed their relationship with caste. The much celebrate Cunha Rivara, the nineteenth century secretary to the Governor of Goa, who was perhaps the first Portuguese Orientalist, commented "all the native elite condemn this native Indian system of casta and suggest a million measures for its abolition. However it would have been enough if only half of those who condemn this system practice what they preached by marrying their daughters to persons of other castes." (Cunha Rivara in Brados a favor das Communidades). The abhorrence we seem to share towards caste seems to be echoes from the internalization of British colonial perspectives on caste. British Colonialism from the mid 19th century led to the out migration of Goans. On the one hand, among the Catholic, this led to blurring caste differences but at once also more vocal conflicts between castes. (witness the division of the Aldona communidade into two castes see, Artur da Rocha e Sa, (1929). Legislacao Relativa as Comunidades Agricolas de Goa. Nova Goa: Tipografia Braganza & Cia.). Out migration of the Catholic also had an impact on caste among Hindu. Lower castes Hindu in-migrants from the New Conquests to the Old Conquests were able to move upwards from polluting to non-polluting professions. This has led to Goa having less than 2% scheduled castes as compared to the national average of 27%. CASTE, DISTRIBUTING ITSELF IN RELIGION -------------------------------------- Sometimes one gets the impression that it was the Church perhaps that witnessed best the distribution of castes, as for example where castes it appears neatly distributed themselves between the diocesan and religious orders. The Church then was closely aligned with Portuguese colonial State too. Caste in Goa is of particular academic interest precisely because it predates the British construction. Goa perhaps is a space which provides us with an experiment of counter factual history where we could study what caste may have been were not the British to have ossified it and celebrated (in the negative) it the way they did. There has been too little work on understanding caste in Goa in part I should think because we continue to inhabit the biases left by the British. Post-independence in India, the major concern among scholars of democracy was casteism in election and politics. Rajni Kothari sometime in the 70s pointed out that it was not politics that was becoming casteist but rather that caste was getting politicized (further morphing?). Indeed the alignments and realignments that have been seen of castes and the violence that sometimes accompanies it is testimony not only to the fluidity of caste but much more so to the constant challenge and re-fashioning of 'traditional' caste exploitation and humiliation. Caste today means very different things than what it meant then. If in the early part of the last century castes clamoured for higher positions in the hierarchy, today castes clamour for lower position (some justifiable some not) if only to benefit from the preferential discrimination policies of the State. Clearly caste is performing a very different function from what it once deed yet not entirely independent of its earlier function. Such has always been the complexity of caste. Among the Catholic in India it is perhaps Tamil Nadu that has witnessed the most acute strife both within the Church (and clergy) and outside. The Church, which at the time of India's Independence had felt that no reservations in Government jobs and educational opportunities were necessary among Christian Dalits as the religion did not allow for caste, has since reversed its position and has asked for the inclusion of Dalit Christian (including Catholic) in the list to scheduled castes for whom reservations may be made by the State. This is a recognition by the Church of the debilitating and humiliating existential experience of the lower castes and marks a shift from upper caste indifference to an attention to the voice and suffering of its flock. The credit goes as much to those lower castes that have been able to struggle and voice their condition and bring an indifferent Church to heed. DOMINANT CASTES, POLITICS, CULTURE, ECONOMY ------------------------------------------- Post-liberation in Goa, the blurring of boundaries across castes has intensified and among the lowest castes many have been able to rid themselves of traditional occupations. The dominant caste in political terms has changed, but much more slowly in cultural and economic terms. As regards the Church, it is difficult to suggest that the Church has taken the lead but rather it seems that it has followed the social changes that have occurred perhaps not always at a pace. At a more personal level, in Goa, and perhaps outside, caste (so does religion and importantly class) does play an important role if nowhere else at least many a time at the time of marriage. But there are also domains where its presence is less conspicuous. In Goa, the more vocal and violent conflicts within the Catholic have tended to be across the axis of Ganvkars and non-Ganvkars. Most often, this is within the same caste and demonstrating yet another complexity of our society. The Church as an institution has grown out of and grown up in society. Many of its institutions (including the Confrarias) and ritual celebrations (such as feasts) gain their history and meaning from within social institutions that have nurtured and fostered it such as the communidade and caste. Burrowed institutions and movements like the Basic Christian Communities and Charismatic are valiant efforts to fashion community differently, and do not seem to have captured the mass imagination. Perhaps we need to be more creative and more attentive to the complex public sphere that Goa is. Caste today is a peculiarly and exclusively Indian question. It hardly helps to isolate the Catholic. If at all it should bring about greater humility among the Catholic as to their religion and faith and help realize that the Catholic religion was and is in no way superior to the other (something I was made to believe in childhood, and which continues to come across to me as the dominant even if unexpressed text among the Catholic). Attention with regards to caste must turn towards the most harrowing experiences of caste which continue among the Dalit. If I am permitted some poetic (or melodramatic) license "so long as the last Indian Dalit (no matter what her religion) is humiliated, it makes little difference if the Church exhibits or does not exhibit caste." If Indian society changes, the Church will surely follow suit as it almost always has. The only way of battling caste in the Church is battling caste in Society. Resisting caste in the Church is also battling caste in one social institution. Any effort to isolate caste among the Catholic or rid the Church of Caste is to misunderstand caste, Goa and religion (Catholic or otherwise). Perhaps the arrogance of the Catholic faith (in some) is born in the belief that the Church can be outside caste -- in a word, outside politics, of which caste is just one dimension. Once I too thought that the way of dealing with caste was not to mention caste, and particularly ones own. This is perhaps a genuine personal attempt to express one abhorrence and an intention to subvert the system. I have been painfully taught (sometimes through chance living and communicating with Dalits) that this was simple naivete or worse insidious. It was a way of ridiculing caste but refusing to engage with it, since I did not need to make overt use of caste. That perhaps not mentioning castes may also amount to using it and caste, like beauty, gives the maximum return when one wears it casually most un-self consciously. Caste is a form of cultural capital that has accrued over generations, that has allowed for opportunities that others were, and continue to be, denied because they lacked the caste. Connecting with caste is on the other hand entering into risky, murky, messy and bruising engagement froth with misunderstandings. But has anything worthwhile been gained without bruises? Sometimes talking about it and sometimes not -- a bit like guerilla warfare -- never being very sure what will work and what will back-fire, indeed as complex as caste itself is. DENYING CASTE, ACCEPTING IT --------------------------- To be philosophical; "to deny caste one must first accept it and above all what one has intentionally or otherwise gained or suffered from or through it". U. R Anathamurty (of 'Samskara' fame) said somewhere "I gave up caste long ago but caste refuses to give me up". To live in the realization of both moments is to engage with caste. To remain in denial is to refuse to heal. Of course the complain of caste discrimination sometimes mask other issues, the jockeying for power or petty personal politics as some will call it. But it is just as true that caste discrimination is denied or trivialized by masking them as personal or other differences or questions of competence. First, social conflict is about power and caste is only one of the axis of power along with class, gender, education, religion, language, place of employment or residence, currency in which one earns ones living, ganvkar/non-ganvkar, Goan/non-Goan (to talk of some of the variables of power that enter into the debate in almost any issue in Goa, from the question of environment to the Dabolim airport). Hence it is expected that any conflict will be fought along a number of axis and only in the rare of rarest cases be along a single axis. Secondly, power is not mostly about fact but about discourse. It is discourse that changes the contours of power. How else would have caste morphed in the ways shown above if not discourses that re-fashioned and reconstructed caste? So, the complain of discrimination must be understood as a discourse that seeks to challenge the modes by which is exercised -- the truth is not to be judged not purely in terms of comparing it with the facts but much more so in terms of whether it resonates or echoes in society. GOODBYE TO BEGGARS IN GOA'S CAPITAL ----------------------------------- As we engage with questions of caste, new categories and forms of exploitation and discrimination emerge in Goa. The Government has just announced that within one month, through the use of its police force, it hopes to rid Panjim of all its beggars and those who need to use public spaces to defecate and urinate. I am sure there will be much welcome for this move. But why one month? Because for the next one month Panjim needs labouring classes who are doing up Panaji (so they are therefore permitted to use public places). What happens to these new classes (often called 'ghatis') after that? They will be banished from the city so that it remains clean for the tourist who descend upon the city. But can the city survive without labour? And who will clean the mess left behind? Are those who build the city only meant to provide labour and not to enjoy the benefits of their labour? (It appears the the Government of Goa has stated that since most labour in Goa come from outside the State, i.e. are 'non-Goan', the Government must not be burdened by providing them any social security or privilege them as citizens of the State. Perhaps Goan labour who work outside Goa would see a bell ringing here.) And what about the beggars? They may populate the surrounding villages and towns? I am reminded of Heidelberg which is dressed during the day for Japanese and other well-oiled tourists. By the night, Turkish immigrants are brought in bus-loads to clean the city. By day, the immigrants are hidden in high rise colonies behind the hills which protect the medieval tourist city from its cleaners (and Germany keeps debating what to do with its Turkish immigrants, granting them citizenship in ounces). The point here is that Goan society is now slowly acquiring a new section to exploit and humiliate and while we discuss caste among the Goans let us also engage with the new modes of exploitation and humiliation that are emerging. Saying they are non-Goans is just not good enough. So were two centuries ago the people of the New Conquest, who are now the majority in the Old Conquests, and so are the number of Goans who eke out their living abroad making their contributions to the society they have chosen or found themselves working and living in. FOOTNOTE: I started giving the references because some of those of the net are academics who might like to see the sources themselves, but then abandoned it as it was getting much too long and taking too much time and I would once again miss the opportunity of adding my two bits as Goanet www.goanet.org moved on to other issues. Thanks for inviting me and providing me the opportunities. ALITO SIQUEIRA is a sociologist at the Goa University. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GOANET-READER WELCOMES contributions from its readers, by way of essays, reviews, features and think-pieces. We share quality Goa-related writing among the 7000-strong readership of the Goanet/Goanet-news network of mailing lists. If you appreciated the thoughts expressed above, please send in your feedback to the writer. Our writers write -- or share what they have written -- pro bono, and deserve hearing back from those who appreciate their work. 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