Caste and Race in India c12.116

c12.116

From our discussion of the non-Brahmin and the depressed class movements it will be evident that the old hierarchy of caste is no longer acquiesced in. Many are the castes that employ priests of their own caste. Some of the castes, the goldsmiths of the Maratha country for example, have already started asserting their dignity by refusing to take food at the hands of castes, other than the Brahmin, which, according to their old practice, do not reciprocate that courtesy. In this process it is the lower caste that starts the movement in order to raise its own status. To add to this the old profession of a teacher, and the more or less new profession of a Government clerk, are coveted by many more castes than was the practice in the old regime. There is a veritable scramble for these petty jobs. Conflict of claims and opposition has thus replaced the old harmony of demand and acceptance. The contrast in the old and new situation is vividly brought out in the description of village conditions in a part of the Madras Presidency existing more than a century ago and those subsisting ten years ago. A report on the state of the village in 1808 contains the following: "Every village with its twelve 'ayagandeas', as they are denominated, is a petty commonwealth, with the 'mocuddim', ‘potail’, ‘kapoo’, ‘reddy’, or chief inhabitant, at the head of it; and India is a great assemblage of such commonwealths . . . While the village remains entire, they care not to what power it is transferred.”¹ The District Gazetteer of Tinnevelly, on the other hand, had to record in 1917 the following: “With all the inducements to co-operation it can scarcely be said that the average Tinnevelly village possesses the strength born of unity. General Panchayats are practically unknown, disputes are too readily taken to the law-courts instead of being settled in the village, and the best efforts of the revenue and irrigation officers and of the police are often hampered by deep-seated faction. It is among the individual castes that the spirit of cohesion is most clearly seen. This often takes the practical form of a ‘Mahimai’, or general fund, levied by each community for its own use . . . The objects of expenditure are usually the support of temples, mosques, or churches owned by the contributors; occasionally the money is diverted to petitions or litigation in which the caste as a whole is interested.”² Caste-solidarity has taken the place of village-community.