An exploration of caste identity and dynamics

MIHIKA SAMANT 

SYBA 

2020-21

Sociologists have been preoccupied with the meaning and dynamics of caste, jati and varna for years and the debate is further complicated by a tendency to equate caste with jati assertions regarding the growing obsoleteness of Varna in language and in actuality. I observed -disregarding the obvious fallacy of an assertion of this sort in that varna continues to be extremely relevant even presently for the Dalits that it excludes from its domain – an element in my family that partially supports his claim – that of resorting to varna solidarity when jati solidarity fails. For instance, my uncle, while describing his son’s inter-community, inter-caste marriage with a Tamil Brahmin woman expressed that while both sides were initially disappointed because of differing jatis (relating to both usages of the term), they later consoled themselves by the fact that at least their varna (Brahmin) matched indicating that varna, at least in my family, remains significant but secondary to jati.

Considering this, therefore, I find my parents’ marriage – an inter-caste arranged alliance between individuals both of whom have an exclusively endogamous lineage (barring one GSB-Maratha union on my paternal grandmother’s side in the 1920s which led to the couple's ostracization) – to be especially curious. In their case, both jati and varna were disregarded. It is also interesting that both my parents justified this generational endogamy on grounds of geographical proximity and shared values, saying of their particular case that their residence in Mumbai exempted them from such differences, in the process affirming the invisibilization of caste in urban settings and exposing the existence of internalised casteism even in an inter-caste setting.

The maternal side of my family belongs to the Namdev Shimpi (tailor) caste of Satara. The lack of clarity about the Shimpis’ status within the varna system points to one of its most glaring flaws – it is riddled with ambiguities. That is to say that according to familial records, the caste falls into the Vaishya category but records of Saint Namdev’s caste identity – who hailed from a Shimpi family – indicate that the jati is commonly regarded to be Shudra (Iwao, 1988). This is further complicated by the fact that followers of Namdev and members of the jati, in general, perceive it to be Kshatriya (Novetzke, 2008). Geographically speaking, though, the Marathas are widely recognised as the (both numerically and politically) dominant caste in Satara (Dahiwale, 1995), indicating that the Namdev Shimpis are placed lower in the regional hierarchy irrespective of the veracity of Kshatriya identity assertions.

What I find to be especially noteworthy about my mother’s position, however, is that her family has been part of the Warkari Sampraday for generations (barring my maternal grandmother). Warkari is a sect within Hinduism which preaches among other things like Bhakti to Vithoba, vegetarianism and a yearly Wari to Pandharpur (Fig. 1), dissolution of caste differences. Both, familial narrations and official records attribute its success to two features. First, that the sect was founded and propagated by saint poets who belonged to not only varied jatis but also varied varnas (Davalbhakta, 2017). Second, that the ideology (and the bhakti movement, at large) was disseminated in both, Sanskrit and regional languages, inviting Brahmins while being accessible to lower castes (Iwao, 1988). The sect, however, remains hostile to Dalits (Keune & Novetzke, 2018). My mother attributes the high educational status within her family and their consequent increased class mobility to the caste egalitarianism (and societal acceptance of said egalitarianism) among the Warkaris.

My father, while narrating his family history also placed stress on education and class mobility, albeit in a different context. Even though records suggest a low level of literacy among members of my paternal caste (Conlon, 1974) – (Kudaldeshkar) Gowd Saraswat Brahmins – both my father’s parents (Desai and Samant) came from highly educated families. My father, in one of his narrations, mentioned that his paternal side was initially affluent (till my great-grandfather’s generation) but lost their wealth to a business mishap. The result was that my grandfather and his siblings had to struggle to receive an education. 

He mentioned this to contrast their perseverance with their lower caste contemporaries who abandoned their education early to join the fishing trade. I believe his distinction is especially important because it sheds light on the ongoing caste versus economic class debate. My grandfather was able to pursue education despite his impoverishment because of an environment that stressed on the importance of and accessibility to education (an inheritance of the Brahminical tradition of exclusivity of education) which, in turn, enabled the impoverished brothers to encourage and support each other. This privilege was not available to the (historically and economically) disadvantaged lower castes of Bhogwe. 

Further, I find it important to also highlight that my father’s family lost their economic status in the community, but they continued to maintain their ritual status. Bhogwe and its adjoining villages are more or less demographically homogenous (with my paternal grandparents’ native places being only four kilometres apart) save for a few ‘lower’ castes (predominantly Bhandaris) that live at the margins. These lower castes, according to my grandmother’s narrations, are still not welcomed into Kudaldeshkar-GSB homes in the village. That being said, this ritual superiority only holds true in relation to other varnas, with the Kudaldeshkar-GSB’s non-vegetarian diet putting them at a disadvantage with the higher-order vegetarian Brahmins (Conlon, 1974). I have experienced this hierarchy in operation in the form of other Brahmins regarding my (part) Brahmin identity with suspicion or dismissal on learning of my diet.

An element that becomes clear from the above example is the stress I place on my surname – and by default, my paternal caste – as a marker of my identity. This, in turn, goes on to expose how subversive the forces of patriarchy and casteism are considering that this process of identification is at the very least semi-conscious on my part. I say that for two reasons. Firstly, it is inadvertent in that it is usually a presumption made by an external party and secondly that I don’t feel the need to correct their misconception – because of an internalisation of the idea that children inherit their fathers’ castes on an unconscious level and on a much more conscious level, because of the privilege it affords me. Such privileges are often misconstrued by Brahmins as being available to all and are labelled as social realities – an assumption that I have observed my father make but not my mother.

My mother, having changed her last name post-marriage can identify the privileges that her assumed K-GSB identity (compounded by the dialect she speaks and her light skin) offers her. One such encounter that she narrated to me is that of a high-ranked colleague entering her cabin to chat with her because he recognised the name on the nameplate to be GSB – an incident that would not have occurred premaritally. My sister admitted to experiencing a similar incident at her college whereby one of her professors on reading her surname immediately identified that our families belong to the same caste and hail from neighbouring villages and in an expression of jati solidarity, now treats her more familiarly than his other students. 

It is for reasons like these that despite vehement claims to the contrary by the majority of urban India, I consider caste to be an all-pervasive marker of privilege reflected in the fact that I am fortunate enough to deem this information as non-essential, come from a family that feels secure enough to share it and have an identity that protects me from any persecution that publication of personal data like this could entail.

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