Critique of the concept of caste in the understanding of society

A question of agency in a society can never be divested from that of perception. Yet, that which is perceived begins in a time and a place. Such an understanding allows for the coordination of mutually discrete activities and imaginations. Organisationally it is the only way purposes can be marshalled.

Yet, as is evident, organisations, entities and indeed individuals do not share the same purpose. They are however, in their interactions, confronted by the similarities and differences in each others practices.

In India, in sociology departments, in politics and in representations of society such as in art and journalism - caste is a word that is still used to describe a tendency towards a hereditary and binding knot in our understanding of the division of labour. Hindu society, or at least elements of its upper caste have chosen to propagate such a vocabulary. And once it has become the common sense of the land, via temple movements, observations of the privileges of upper castes, etc. minorities of other faiths such as Muslims and Christians have also incorporated its nomenclature, to, if nothing else, secure reservations in public institutions.

There is of course, a factual coherence in such an understanding. However no society can conceive of itself without a means of reproducing the conditions of its existence, if not improving them. Housing, electricity, water supply, cooking gas, food and public services are all required to be provided for. The point where caste ends being a useful concept in our comprehension of society is when the facilitation and activity of these various kinds of labours are thought.

We require the services of each other, and for this, we require a medium to make them commiserable. This has been, simply put, the purpose of money. It is evident even to a layman how its role is crucial in the facilitation, acquisition, and production of even the most basic of articles.

A concept of caste which does not consider this, explicitly, cannot but help in indulging in mystifications of reality even if it seeks to confront and critique them.

In critical theory and sociology, perhaps drawing from political economy, the term used to describe this mediatory moment is the monetary. Any conception of society which does not take it into account would have to explain how discrete and distinct forms of labours becomes commensurable, ie tradeable, without violence or coercion. The remainder here, in history at least would be forms of indentured labour and slave camps and their like.

On this point, the anti-communist thinker and novelist - Ayn Rand was indeed right.

This is also the point where the concept of class, which does explicitly recognise the monetary dimension, and its instrumental role in the reproduction of modern society, differs from and is more useful than that of caste.

This forms an elementary groundwork as it were, in the study of how modern societies, involved in the trade of commodities and services reproduce themselves. There is indeed much left to be done, yet the correct orientation can begin only after the establishment of these key theoretical premises.

This is not to say that there cannot be a place for the study and practices immanent to a people, yet to not take into account the material relations which sustain them would be a fatal error.

I offer this essay to those who may be approaching this field - the study of society, and who are often confronted by a plethora of rhetoric regarding the ways people think of themselves. I would like to remind any scholar or thinking mind that a judgement cannot only be predicated on what a person or a people think of themselves. And hence, beyond the descriptions that a family, sect, or indeed caste would offer about themselves and their own narratives, it is necessary to think the relations between them.