Caste and Race in India c12.50

c12.50

The British Government, we have seen, did not recognize caste as a unit empowered to administer justice. Caste was thus shorn of one of its important functions as a community. Individual members might, therefore, be expected to feel less of the old feeling of solidarity for their caste-group. But nothing of the kind is observed to have taken place.¹ First, though a caste could not administer justice, the Government would not set aside the customs of a caste in matters of civil law unless they were opposed to public policy. Caste thus retained its cultural integrity. Secondly, many other aspects of the British Administration, some of which like the Census have been dealt with above, provided more than sufficient incentive for the consolidation of the caste-group. Mr. Middleton, one of the two Superintendents of Census Operations of 1921, makes eloquent remarks about the effects of the British Administration on caste in the Punjab. He observes: "I had intended pointing out that there is a very wide revolt against the classification of occupational castes; that these castes have been largely manufactured and almost entirely preserved as separate castes by the British Government. Our land records and official documents have added iron bonds to the old rigidity of caste. Caste in itself was rigid among the higher castes, but malleable amongst the lower. We pigeon-holed every one by caste, and if we could not find a true caste for them, labelled them with the name of an hereditary occupation. We deplore the caste-system and its effects on social and economic problems, but we are largely responsible for the system which we deplore. Left to themselves such castes as Sunar and Lohar would rapidly disappear and no one would suffer . . . Government's passion for labels and pigeon-holes has led to a crystallization of the caste system, which, except amongst the aristocratic castes, was really very fluid under indigenous rule . . . If the Government would ignore caste it would gradually be replaced by something very different amongst the lower castes."² The situation in the Punjab, cannot be taken as typical of other provinces. It is well known that the Punjab was not much influenced by rigid caste-system. Yet the process of pigeon-holing and thus stereotyping has undoubtedly counteracted whatever good results might have ensued from the dethronement of caste as a unit of the administration of justice.¹ The total effect has been, at the least, to keep caste-solidarity quite intact.²